Global Warming and Nothing Else

This week, the New Yorker begins running a series of articles by Elizabeth Kolbert on global warming, which fits in nicely with the fact that I have been recently re-examining my priorities among environmental issues. Given the amount of scientific evidence supporting the likely catastrophic effects of global warming -- including changes to the earth's temperature, climate, and biosphere -- can one say that global warming is the one, only and over-riding issue of importance?

The natural question, I suppose, is whether one must actually choose or prioritize global warming over other environmental issues. This presumption, in my mind, is among the underlying flaws of the so-called Copenhagen Consensus, which seeks to establish the relative economic value of particular environmental projects. First, as much as I agree with the need for the reduction of diseases and malnutrition (#1 and #2) and improvements in governance and corruption (#9), the assumption of the fungibility of environmental problems and economic solutions ignores the potentially catastrophic effects of environmental change. Even if climate mitigation measures are relatively expensive, this says nothing about the absolute or critical changes that will be wrought in society and nature if the earth's climate changes. Second, many of the problems identified by the Consensus are linked, particularly in the developing world, such as disease, malnutrition, and sanitation. Furthermore, in both the developing and developed world, the Consensus fails to address the fundamental question of the limits to consumption and growth. Higher levels of population, consumption, and wealth all lead to higher energy use -- and if we are indeed approaching a critical limit in the earth's ability to support our use of energy -- then we must learn how to control our voracious appetite for just about everything, and in particular, energy.

At first glance, the thorny questions include:

Nuclear power
Use of petroleum products in agriculture
Further development of the developing world

At this point, it is also worthwhile to consider how energy could be simultaneously a front-burner topic -- revel in the pun! -- yet curiously, for there to be so little public debate about our collective energy needs as a nation or society. It is also necessary to question our complacency, or acceptance, of the Bush administration's unwillingness, and implicit failure, to address the problem in any meaningful way. The energy bill passed by the House last week was passed in the name of lower energy prices. As Thomas Friedman has recently pointed out in a series of editorials in the New York Times, there is rising support for doing something about our profligate energy consumption, which could unite those concerned about national security and global warming: that is, virtually everyone.