It was the radical essayist William Hazlitt who once observed that "if they
cannot find a flaw in your reasoning, they will certainly find one in your
reputation".
It is a sentiment the writer and environmentalist
George Monbiot will be all too familiar
with; it is to his immense credit that much of the criticism he attracts is
entirely personal in nature.
It must be pretty galling to be constantly described by your columnist peers
as a joyless, hectoring nag, particularly when Monbiot's weekly
Guardian columns regularly display a refined sense of humour, albeit of the
gallows variety. Monbiot can comfort himself, however, with the fact that his
critics only target his style of delivery because it is so difficult to take
issue with the content of his work.
Throughout his many articles and books, Monbiot always exemplifies the first
rule of environmental campaigning: know your facts. Painfully aware that climate
change deniers will seize on the slightest inaccuracy and, like the hairline
fracture that leads to the dam's collapse, exploit it to destroy an entire
argument, every point Monbiot makes is backed by years of painstaking research,
every scientific paper mentioned is peer-reviewed, every expert is interviewed
and every source is accurately referenced, sometimes to such an extent that the
footnotes become more lengthy than the original article.
The message this level of research and referencing sends out to Monbiot's
opponents is simple: you can try and disagree with his belief that climate
change represents the greatest threat to humanity's future, but you better come
armed with some pretty compelling evidence.
This sense of scientific authority is much in evidence throughout Monbiot's
latest book,
Heat:
How to stop the Planet Burning, and serves to create the impression
that there is genuinely little alternative to the course of action Monbiot
advocates.
In particular, it makes for a stirring opening as he gleefully eviscerates
the arguments of the climate change deniers, wading through countless scientific
papers and following numerous obscure leads to reveal how the "denial industry”
is largely based on discredited research, PR strategies adopted from the
campaign to deny the health risks posed by cigarretes, and funding from the oil
industry. He exposes the self-styled sceptics for what they really are, not
searchers for truth as they claim but "members of the public relations industry,
which begins with a conclusion and then devises arguments to support it".
The premise of Heat is simple, it takes on the most vexed question
asked of climate change campaigners - "well, what do you propose instead?" - and
tries to find a tenable answer. It almost succeeds.
Monbiot takes as his starting point recent scientific research that argues
that to avoid the unstoppable global warming that will result when carbon sinks
begin to collapse, the developed world will have to cut its carbon emmissions by
90 per cent by 2030 (in contrast, current government targets are 60 per cent by
2050) and sets out to explore how the UK could hit this target.
Things do not get off to an encouraging start. Monbiot recalls a lecture he
gave in May 2005 in which he argued that an 80 per cent cut in greenhouse gas
emissions was required in order to stop runaway climate change (further research
prompted Monbiot to revise his reduction target to 90 per cent and since the
book was published he has revised it upwards again in the wake of still more
catastrophic reports on the accelerating pace of climate change). A member of
the audience asked, "When you get your 80 per cent cut, what will this country
look like?" Admitting he had never considered the implications, Monbiot invited
a member of the audience, the veteran environmental campaigner
Mayer Hillman, to
answer for him.
"A very poor third-world country," Hillman responded.
From this unpromising beginning, Monbiot fastidiously explores the
technologies, legislation and processes that could deliver a low-carbon economy
within 30 years and finds that contrary to Hillman's pessimistic assessment, it
is possible to create a low-carbon economy that is not characterised by
crippling poverty.
Through a system of carbon rationing and trading built around the principles
of contraction and
convergence - a model for cutting greenhouse gas emissions that will see
each country cap its emissions at the same per capita level - Monbiot argues it
is possible to put a price on carbon emissions that will create the financial
stimulus for transitioning to a low-carbon economy.
From here it is simply a matter of finding the right technologies and
policies to deliver reduced carbon emissions while continuing to improve living
standards. From Passivhaus
buildings that don't need any heating to offshore wind farms that exploit
new long-distance DC cables, from localised combined heat and power stations to
a new coach-based transport system, from a return to seasonal food to the
widespread adoption of online shopping, Monbiot tends to find them.
Unfortunately, the question for political and business leaders is not so much
whether or not adoption of Monbiot's manifesto is essential to the future of
humanity, but how politically and economically tenable his recommendations are.
Does Monbiot succeed in his stated aim of making "the necessary changes as
painless as possible"? The answer is pretty mixed.
Undoubtedly, many of Monbiot's recommendations and observations provide
invaluable guidance and tips for business execs and politicians. His analysis of
"our leaky homes", which "keep us warm almost incidentally, as the heat pours
past us into the street", compared with the highly insulated, hugely efficient
Passivhaus alternatives should be required reading for anyone who ever has to
commission a refurbishment or new building. It really makes you wonder why, with
such massive long-term cost savings being delivered by the energy efficient
Passivhaus construction techniques, all new buildings are not already being
built this way.
Meanwhile, his exploration of the
Khazzoom-Brookes
postulate, which explains how improvements in energy efficiency that are
unaccompanied by tough legislation only ensure that financial savings are
re-invested in more energy consumption, provides one of the most compelling
arguments I have ever read for strong regulation that benefits society, the
economy and the environment.
Equally, his lengthy advocacy of a major overhaul of the UK's energy grid
provides countless examples of how a transition to a smarter grid based on
massively increased levels of renewable energy generation would generate both
efficiencies and vastly improved energy security.
However, as the book wears on, Monbiot's recommendations, while still being
all but impossible to contest on scientific grounds, become increasingly
leftfield, and therefore increasingly difficult for business and political
leaders to countenance.
His proposals for a national network of coach lanes and out of town coach
stations, for example, may represent the most carbon-efficient form of mass
transit available, but as long as the car lobby remains so powerful they have no
chance of being adopted. Equally, his vision of "virtual shopping", where
supermarkets are replaced with distribution centres responding to online orders,
may be highly efficient but would also prove extremely unpopular to a nation
that counts browsing round the shop as its premier leisure activity.
Most frightening, on the grounds that it is the recommendation that is both
the most urgent and the most unlikely to be attained, is Monbiot's assertion
that we must pretty much stop flying.
There are no viable low-carbon alternatives to air travel, except perhaps
airships, he argues, and therefore we must slash the number of flights by over
96 percent by 2030 to keep carbon emissions at safe levels. Monbiot admits, "I
have sought the means of proving otherwise, not least because it would make my
task of persuading people to adopt the proposals in this book much easier. But
it has become plain to me that long-distance travel, high speed and the
curtailment of climate change are not compatible. If you fly, you destroy other
people's lives."
Such recommendations are so far from the political and business mainstream it
is hard to imagine them being adopted in 50 years, let alone 20, but, as Monbiot
constantly reminds us, the threats posed by climate change are so serious the
alternatives could prove even more unthinkable.
Like I say, you can try and disagree with Monbiot's manifesto but it sure
isn't easy.
