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Climate Change or Social
Change?
The fact of climate change

A wide consensus among climate scientists

The sceptics


Populists or scientists from other fields who do
not write to peer reviewed scientific journals

Exxon etc. have been financing this
There is politics also in climate sciences but
it has not so much influence on the main
tenets

instead on the publication of results and on
practical recommendations
What has already happened?
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Average temperature has risen about 1oC from preindustrial level

Average sea-level has risen more than 17 cm since the
year 1900: more floods

Mountain glaciers are disappearing rapidly
Recent observation
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The ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic
melt and break off much faster than expected
The Arctic sea ice is diminishing up to 30
years ahead of IPCC forecasts
The melting of Arctic permafrost has started.
Canadian forests have changed from a carbon
sink to a CO2 source
The Amazon is drying rapidly
The melting of the ice sheet in Greenland
has accelerated …
1992
2002
If no action ...
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The upper limit of
global warming is
not tens of degrees
but hundreds of
degrees
Total catastrophe for
humanity, animals
and plants
Venus – surface temperature 460oC
Needed emission cuts

The IPCC: -85% by the year 2050

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=> at least -95% in the Global North
Many recent research reports: The climate is
much more sensitive than the IPCC assumed in
May 2006 (the report deadline)

The information on the atmospheric concentrations in
the ancient warm periods

Many recent observations which are not included in
the IPCC models
=> the emissions must be reduced even more
rapidly
The present CO2 concentration
too high

In fact the present CO2 concentration of 385
ppm is too much, should be 350 ppm

=> emission rapidly to zero and a lot of CO2 be
bound in biomass
Only little time left

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James Hansen etc.:
less than 10 years
Otherwise selfperpetuating climate
change starts
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Positive feed-back
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We cannot control it
Mainstream solutions, part 1:
incentives
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Publicity
Creating carbon
markets
State regulation
(taxes etc.)
Mainstream solutions, part 2:
technical fixes

capturing CO2 from
the coal power plants
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Planting trees

Nuclear power
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Renewable energy
sources
raising the efficiency
of energy use
My thesis:
mainstream solutions don't work
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The record in the mitigation efforts up to now is
dismal

Global carbon dioxide
emissions grew more
than 3% per year
2000-2004, more
than ever

Most of the
signatories of the
Kyoto Protocol have
increased their
emissions.
The limits of publicity
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Publicity against
climate change
minimal compared to
the PR for behaviour
causing it
Advertisements and
other incentives to
consume essential
for growth and
capitalism
The limits of carbon market
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New markets, old problems
Market ideal =><= the reality of
capitalism
In order to get markets running,
the idea of reality must be
simplified

You have to create firm
knowledge even though you in
reality have only guesses
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Corner House, Larry Lohman
www.thecornerhouse.org.uk
The limits in state regulation
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In principle, but...
Information overload in
centralized social
structures
State-Capital nexus in
formulating the
regulations
In execution of regulations: ”Revolving door”
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Jänicke, Martin: State Failure/Staatsversagen
The technical limit of technical
fixes
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Many proposed technical fixes probably won't
succeed at all
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e.g. carbon capture
No energy source in the official economy is
green house gas free at present
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At least in their construction phase large
emissions
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especially: nuclear power and most biomass
sources
The inertia of technological
system
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Enormous investments in the present system
To replace it means enormous efforts, giant
investments and millions of professionals and
skilled workers
If we had time to wait until the present one wears
out, there would be no problem
But we do not have such time
Not enough skilled workers and raw materials to
be mobilized quickly enough
The net emission reduction comes
too late
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The construction of a new energy system
would absorb so much energy that we would
have to wait net energy for decades
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e.g. one nuclear power plant/month => net
energy not until after 33 years (a conservative
estimate, probably even later)
A rapid technical transition program would
increase the CO2-emissions just at the most
critical period
The social and political limits of
technical fix program
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Insofar as technical fixes would be
successful, the oil and coal corporations
would lose money and influence =>
enormous resistance
Retardation
Turning the program to a direction that is safe
to corporations but endangers the
environment
The general freezing of economy
when energy costs are rising
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The Stern review and the report of the IPCC's 3.
working group maintain otherwise
They are misleading:
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They are not based on the latest climate science
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Their starting points are scenarios which are very
risky already on the bases of the then available
science
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Stern chose 550 ppm greenhouse gas concentration
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=> 50% chance that temperature rise is > 3 oC
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10% chance that temperature rise is > 5 oC
Hopeless situation?
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For many the only hope
is geoengineering
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changing the physical
characteristics of the
planet Earth
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Many of these are very
dangerous
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for example spreading a
large amount of sulphates
into the atmosphere
Solution: cutting down production
and consumption rapidly
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ending non-essential production
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reducing institutional consumption
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Decreasing individual consumption of the global
upper and middle class.
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A historical example: the collapse of the USSR
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stumbling block: Growth imperative
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This obstacle curtails advances in renewable energy
sources and energy conservation
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The same applies also to publicity and state
regulation
Why is economic growth so
important?
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Reflects the growth of the capital of corporations –
the essence of capitalism
The threat of social chaos
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Growth – consumer society
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The current way of ruling
The present depression
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The risk of structural social change
Social instability grows
The depression in the 1930's: the same story
To give up growth aspirations =>
to change the social system
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e.g. to a new openly authoritarian system
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Although the elite would have more direct power,
most members of the elite don't like this
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More uncomfortable to
be in the top position:
hate and insecurity every
where
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More difficult to govern,
to suppress passive and
active resistance when
there are no legitimacy of
formal democracy
Transition to a real democracy
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Post-growth and post-capitalist society could
as well or even more probably more towards
genuine and deep democracy
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Democracy has been the main legitimating
ideology of the present largely non-democratic
system
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Partly therefore people have commonly
embraced democratic values
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Democracy is most natural social system found
also among social animals
Why anti-growth and system
change perspective is commonly
rejected even among left-green?
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The hopelessness of the other options and the desperate
state of affairs are not realized
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The same fear as among the elite but reversed
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The sectarian and narrow-minded atmosphere among
openly revolutionary left
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Certain interpretations of history and the present
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The relationship between the present economy and satisfaction
The present-day social structures and how people are attached
to them
The relationship between capitalism and wealth
The historical democratic revolutions and their failure
Another interpretation
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Consumer society is based on organized creation
of dissatisfaction
Social structures are not like machines but rather
provisionally frozen front lines in an on-going
struggle
Another non-capitalist parallel society already
exists based on common wealth and nonmonetary relationships
Revolutionary movements created democratic
structures which broke up more because of
outside than inside forces
Dissatisfying consumption
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Hundreds of studies: consuming more does not make
people more satisfied or happier
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In advertisement in popular culture commodities are
made into symbols of most varied things
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Commodities are bought because of their social, cultural
and spiritual meanings and connotations
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But usually they do not satisfy social, cultural and spiritual
needs
As far as they do satisfy, they do it only for a short while
Soon meanings are moved by advertisements from old things
to new ones. Yet you cannot buy the new ones at once – or
perhaps ever.
Real existing alternative
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Underneath and parallel to the official
structures and roles, there is another world
of thought, activity and social relations
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E.g. when their children are
small, parents produce an
enormous amount of food,
cleaning, care and other
essential services unpaid at
their home.
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Usually the only thing preventing
them from breaking down under
the workload is the help given by
29
informal circles of friends,
relatives, neighbours and peers.
Common wealth
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Material common wealth: the air that we breathe, the sun that
warms us, the winds that cool us, the very climate we try to save, the
ability of most women to give birth, wild animals and plants, rivers
and most lakes, oceans, deserts and a large part of the forested
areas, cities and villages, public libraries, schools,hospitals and
cheap public transportation systems
 Non-material examples:
are most of the genetic
information and scientific
knowledge, open-source
software like Linux, local
knowledge, folk wisdom
and common sense,
folklore and a large part
30 of
popular and high culture
Social and subjective 'surplus'
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Humans are only partially attached to
capitalism
There exist enormous social and subjective
'surplus'
It explains rapid social changes in history
Its can orientate social movements and give
hope for future