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Back in November 2008 - Her Majesty the Queen embarrassed and shamed economists with a simple question:  "Why did nobody notice it?"

She was referring to the financial crisis.  But the question applies to so many other related problems as well:  global warming, peak oil, etc.

During a briefing by academics at the London School of Economics on the turmoil on the international markets the Queen asked: "Why did nobody notice it?"...

...Professor Luis Garicano, director of research at the London School of Economics...said: "She was asking me if these things were so large how come everyone missed it." He told the Queen: "At every stage, someone was relying on somebody else and everyone thought they were doing the right thing."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/theroyalfamily/3386353/The-Queen-asks-why-no-one-saw-the-credit-crunch-coming.html

This is a clear question.  Simple.  We must ask ourselves why we could not have posed the same question.  

He is asleep and she looks royally annoyed.  Have we learned anything from this?

Now another British publication is asking about peak oil.   The oil industry knew about this in 1956.  No one doubted the science - and experts only quibbled about the date of the beginning of the decline.   They placed it somewhere between 1973 and oh, say, roughly - now.   And they continue to argue about the steepness and severity of the decline.   It is deeply linked to our economy.

The fear is that panicky markets can cause enormous damage - panic-buying that prompts fights over resources, which in turn could lead to power cuts in some places and other such mayhem. But so far in facing this huge challenge, our political/economic system seems unable to cope with reality. We are forced to carry on living in an illusion that we have so much time to adapt to post-oil that we don't even need to be talking or thinking much about what a world without plentiful oil would look like. Reality has become too dangerous.   http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/nov/10/peak-oil-fear-economic-establishment

One job of royalty is to lead and demonstrate.  Yet the peasants have chosen to remain ignorant.  And our leaders refuse to act decisively. Perhaps this is the kind of problem best dealt with by a ruthless royalty.

This ignorance of our own ignorance labels us as either an unworthy class or a doomed species. Our very civilization is broken because "everyone was relying on someone else" and when a few organizations and political movements actively cultivated stupidity enough people "thought they were doing the right thing"

Time to face the questions that connect peak oil, the economy and anthropogenic global warming. 
 

Dealing with global warming is kind of like going to the dentist with a toothache.

A really bad dentist will deny it and tell you to keep eating sugar - because he may have heavy investments in Coca-Cola.

Or slightly better is to tell you to watch your diet and brush and floss - and take a painkiller.   But until your dentist really fixes the tooth. - it will just get worse.   And so worse as to need root canal, implants, false teeth, etc.

That seems to be the leadership style today on global warming today.   They present lots of information, but nothing is getting actually

fixed. .  So all this dental denial means the patient will eventually lose all their teeth - because the dentist is not delivering the facts or any bad news, and is not doing any work.  Nor offer dental insurance.

We know what a great dentist will advise - tell us what is needed, what it will cost, remove the problem, change the structure and train the patient.

Not many people really want to go to the dentist.   The best we can ask for is some good painkillers.

OK the denial is melting away.   You may not want to read a superb exchange of letters between George Monbiot and Paul Kingsnorth posted in the Guardian August 18, 2009.

It is a bit unpleasant to ponder “Should We Seek to Save Industrial Civilisation?”   Should we go to the dentist with a toothache?

(SEATTLE July 28, 2009) The day after an all-time record heatwave - driving on Interstate 90 with writer Eric Scigliano.   I handed him my camera and without thinking, he snaps this quintessential road picture. 

No goal in sight, no turns.   Straight ahead in fast moving traffic.

Human civilization knows exactly what must be done to mitigate global warming.   We must stop putting greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.   It means stopping the combustion of carbon fuels that give off carbon dioxide.   Fuels like coal, oil and natural gas.

It is very much like we are on a freeway of fast moving traffic with few exits in sight.   The view up ahead is disturbing because it is not clear.

We should be on a highway with more exits, with more appealing destinations.   Time to move in a totally new direction.

”We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”   -C.S. Lewis

We certainly have seen it coming.   We have known about global warming for decades.  You can, and should find excellent science papers, government reports and planning scenarios.

In the last few years we have been shocked to see it unfold faster than predicted.   Almost daily there are palpable indications and new science studies on the increasing rate-of-change.   We had better pay attention closely.   The inevitable sea level rise, drought, floods, biological disruption, species extinctions, and heatwaves that will lead to social disruptions and conflicts over diminishing resources.  Expect millions of climate refugees.

To those of us who read and listen and follow this, it gives us worry and general anxiety.   We who like to think we have both knowledge and civility prefer to carefully evaluate a next move.   But the world population may not.   People will soon discover the explanation for their inexorable suffering from drought, heat, flood and famine.   They will hear predictions of more of the same to come - unfolding as the climate destabilizes.   This is real global anxiety.   It is easy to see why complete denial of global warming is so comfortable.  The reality is far too disturbing.

Greenhouse warming and climate destabilization does not halt magically in the year 2100.  That’s just a convenient calendar benchmark.  It will continue for many hundreds of years hence.   Today, humans forced to plan 20 or 30 years ahead will have to adjust and adapt in ways we never expected.   Back then, we were calm about our climate future; whereas now, you and they - will be - should be - very anxious.   To predict that within a few generations our species will completely perish - is not only possible, it is scientifically plausible.  Barring a technological breakthrough, an alien invasion or colossal volcanism, it is certain that young children today will face serious climate survival struggles in their adulthood.  No one wants that, and we might be able to mitigate the damage, but even a prediction of minimal climate calamities ahead cannot be avoided.

This means that our geography, agriculture and infrastructure will be changing radically and we will cling desperately to what remains of our civil society.   Worldwide hardship.  Curiously, the developed world may face the greater challenge, if only because we lack experience in simple, sustainable living.   In any case, future climate victims - with no resources, will seek survival, safety, food and water, from nations and people that have resources.   Many may wither and die, and many may panic to survive.   Those who have sufficient wealth and assets to insulate themselves from other human suffering, will be forced to manage and defend their wealth and resources from attacks by those seeking survival.   This may apply to many conflicts today: Darfur, Somalia, and Peru with it’s loss of fresh water glacier melt.   Increasingly, desperate people will conflict with the affluent in boundary squabbles.   Within any nation state, social destabilization is inevitable as climate destabilization moves forward.  Again, we do not know the rate of change.

GENEVA, June 23 (Reuters) - Global warming must be seen as an economic and security threat, former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Tuesday, calling on poorer countries to speak louder about their climate change needs.
In an interview, Annan said he chose to focus his retirement energies on environmental risks because he believes that left unchecked, they could destabilize both rich and poor countries.
http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSLN472597

Over the millennia, humans have been blessed with a rich, stepped history of advancing civilizations - including Rome, Greece, the Mayans, the Incas, the Egyptians and China.   Measured culturally, legally, medically, socially, architecturally, scientifically, techno engineering, exploration and even by self-actualization or military conquest, we are at the peak of global civilization.   In an increasingly warming world with many feet of sea level rise, heat waves, disease, famine and climate strife, clearly not all these peaks of humanity will continue to rise.   Whether measuring a future in years or decades, the rate of social decline will be consistent with increasing climate destabilization.   It is hard to imagine many great, sustaining breakthroughs in Western civilization soon.   Or for many centuries.

I would be thrilled to be proven wrong, but it seems prudent to face facts and plan appropriately.

We come together under our brand of social contract to serve our common interests, to abjure political violence, and protect peaceful interests of citizens.   Justice and law cement the social order.   Continuously escalating climate destabilization will severely test any social structure as humans strive to adapt.  Climate adaption is by definition is a local action, a social effort that serves the present moment.   Whereas, mitigating climate change requires a globally unified, shared effort.   In the slow chemistry of climate, acts of mitigation require up to a half-century for effects to be seen.   Without external political pressure, it is difficult to image any nation/state/organized society wanting to apply resources toward meeting a 50 year goal.

Governments are crucial to helping with local adaptation, and a world government is crucial to driving serious mitigation efforts.

Global Warming denialists have lost the ethical battle.

It’s fascinating to see people newly awaken to the issue of global warming.  They often stand with wide open eyes, stammering about the enormity of the problem.  Each seems to harbor an unstated foundation: the Precautionary Principle - Every mother tells her young child  “If you are ever unsure about whether something might hurt you - then don’t do it.” 

  This rule applies to gathering wild mushrooms, using chemical insecticides, and talking with strangers.  Now mother’s rule can also apply to global warming: when our activities threaten to harm human health or the environment, then precautionary measures should be taken.  Even if some cause-and-effect relationships are not scientifically fully established.

This strongly ethical statement elegantly applies to global warming as seen in the introductory video to the Manpollo project.  It asks   “Given the risks and uncertainties of global warming, what is the best action to take?” 

Concluding that since the stakes are so high, we need to act appropriately despite any uncertainty.  Why is there anything less than full agreement?

  Intentional commercial pressures stifle unified action on global warming and feed the ideological resistance.  It is easy to blame the persistent but effective PR campaign pushing global warming denial , producing bad science and promoting the false notion that the problem is not really serious and humans cannot do anything about it.  Such blather - funded and promoted by the carbon fuel industry - is readily accepted by the carbon devoted public.  But cheerleading for carbon loyalty is so far outside of ethical principles that it amounts to encouraging species suicide.  Professional denialism is a short term business tactic.   By contrast, the insurance industry deeply understands global warming and expects to profit from it.  They follow the science closely in order to stay in business.  Carbon fuel companies feel compelled to do the opposite.

This is why professional global warming deniers are beginning to be so reviled, because beyond denial, they reject the precautionary principle - hence losing the ethical battle and reveal their ideological and corporate colors.  This was expressed recently by Patrick Michaels of the CATO institute who has been promoting the business-as-usual line “Nothing to worry about here, move along”.  The CATO institute is a paid messenger of the Coal Industry.

One prefers to see the well-behaved skeptic/denier retain some human ethics while expressing doubts about global warming.  It seems wise to add a phrase like “since the stakes are so high, we better proceed with caution and act prudently no matter what the science says”.   When the CATO institute treats us to the blatant advocacy of carbon capitalism then it touches the twin evils of scientific duplicity and amoral actions.   

The newest denialist tactic is to demand a change in terminology. Some global warming treaties have had to abandon the term: ‘precautionary principle’ changing instead to the ‘precautionary approach’.   Possibly because a principle can be a legal foundation for law, whereas approach is diffuse and carries no commitment.  My mother would never have allowed her edict to be called an approach, and I hope all mothers will stick with principle.

Up until now our civilization has thrived on high risk innovation that ignores principles of precaution.  Risk has been the essence of Western capitalist growth.  And it is no longer working, either in matters of finance or atmosphere.  Risk should be managed, controlled or insured.  We have either ignored or strategically ignored the fundamental axiom of respect for the future of human life.

Today, all the basic questions about global warming science are sufficiently settled to make public policy.  This is not rocket science. So much has been written by universities and science foundations that any reasonably dedicated person can come to understand the basic science.   Today, no sane and sober scientist will deny global warming

or that it is is caused by greenhouse gasses.  However public opinion remains vulnerable to mass media marketing schemes, and humans maybe hardwired to ignore the threat. And very big and serious lobbyists have redoubled their efforts.   But now we enter an era where the real impacts of global warming will directly touch all populations and denialist challenges will mean little before real heat, real melting, real privation and sea level rise.

The Precautionary Principle continues to guide us as we grow to understand that the cost of mitigating climate change is far less than the cost of adapting to change .  Denial, or to refuse to act on either is a short-sighted, immoral choice.