Speaking of climate change, Steven Pinker’s recent article in the NYT on “The Moral Instinct” was a fascinating overview of the possible evolutionary roots / routes of morality (and it’s a safe bet that his next book will be along similar lines), but this puzzling conclusion was shoehorned into it:
And nowhere is moralization more of a hazard than in our greatest global challenge. The threat of human-induced climate change has become the occasion for a moralistic revival meeting. In many discussions, the cause of climate change is overindulgence (too many S.U.V.’s) and defilement (sullying the atmosphere), and the solution is temperance (conservation) and expiation (buying carbon offset coupons). Yet the experts agree that these numbers don’t add up: even if every last American became conscientious about his or her carbon emissions, the effects on climate change would be trifling, if for no other reason than that two billion Indians and Chinese are unlikely to copy our born-again abstemiousness.
The language he uses to pin the moral content of environmental arguments is impossible to argue against – although it does exist, the new puritanism of environmental activists is overstated (sorry, Charlie). How we label those concerns, however, has no bearing on whether these activities will make any difference, so Pinker shifts his focus to what “experts” agree. (Although once again, you can stuff your carbon offset coupons.)
Ignore the appeal to authority – experts may agree on a lot of things, but this is not necessarily one of them – but notice the dismissal of individual agency. We’re back to a weirdly utilitarian argument for in/action on environmental grounds, an argument which doesn’t really make any sense when you stare at it too hard. How and why?
Like James Lovelock, Pinker doesn’t quite grasp the reasons why people might assume greater environmental responsibility, and what effects that might have. In fact, if every last American really did become conscientious – not just about carbon emissions, but about the whole range of environmental challenges which face the planet – then it’s very likely that a) other countries would be more prepared to follow suit, and b) America would rapidly develop the sorts of strategies and technologies that will address those challenges.
Pinker also overlooks the fact that liberal democracies based on free markets – such as the USA – are shaped by the collective desires of their citizens. So if “every last American” did suddenly assume much greater environmental responsibility, then that trend would more or less quickly push its way up the ladder of governance until it reached the national level – which of course is the level that would have to agree and implement actions like carbon taxes.
Without individual citizens applying that essentially moral pressure through the mechanisms of liberal democracy, there is absolutely no reason why governments should do anything about climate change or any other issue. A big part of American environmental activity has been incubated at the civic or state level, rather than the national level – but those local-level activities then put pressure on the national government to adopt similar measures.
Though voluntary conservation may be one wedge in an effective carbon-reduction pie, the other wedges will have to be morally boring, like a carbon tax and new energy technologies, or even taboo, like nuclear power and deliberate manipulation of the ocean and atmosphere. Our habit of moralizing problems, merging them with intuitions of purity and contamination, and resting content when we feel the right feelings, can get in the way of doing the right thing.
For an issue that’s supposed to be “morally boring”, the idea of a carbon tax certainly seems to inspire some heated discussions; and, for an issue that’s “taboo”, nuclear power has generated an awful lot of debate in its short life. Since the whole point of Pinker’s article is that a moral instinct is built into humans, how realistic is it to expect us to stop “moralizing problems”?
In fact, Pinker has it exactly the wrong way around; our habit of moralizing problems may in fact be the best tool we have in ensuring responsible environmental management. Think about hand-washing, for example. This simple procedure is the single most effective way of cutting down disease transmission through food, particularly in developing countries. Is it possible to pass laws to ensure that people wash their hands? Of course not, and those communities that have successfully internalised hand-washing have not done it through external sanctions, whether legal or economic. It’s once handwashing is seen as a “moral” concern – a question of purity, in Pinker’s schema – that people adopt it on a wide scale.
If we can successfully moralize the right environmental problems in the right way, we can ensure that individuals and communities internalise the behaviours that will solve their problems, rather than relying on external impositions (such as carbon taxes), which are seldom welcome and frequently less effective in guiding our behaviour than our moral sense.
I agree that the moral case for environmental behaviour has to be made more forcefully, though people can and do always make exceptions for their own behaviour. A lot of people claim to feel guilty about flying, but that doesn’t mean fewer flights are being made.
So making the moral case isn’t going to change much. Humans will only respond when the consequences are in front of their faces. The recent doubling of food prices does not effect most western consumers, and even the quadrupling of oil prices has little effect on demand.
To use the driving-towards-the-cliff-edge analogy, civilisation will be incapable of an appropriate reponse until it finds itself in freefall.
The moral case by itself won’t change much – what I meant was that an explicit moral case is often seen by those who don’t share it as mere preachery. Maybe the trick is to harness the moral sense to things that make practical sense to people (and I’m aware that there might be a false distinction between ‘moral’ and ‘practical’, now that I think about it).
The food prices will affect western consumers, though, as will the rising price of oil itself, and so on. I think there are factors which will limit our choices before we drive off the edge of the cliff, but obviously not everybody will realise it until it’s too late.
Go and listen to some Rick Astley, it’ll cheer you up. Possibly.