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.

… the current canon of eco ideas… [is] premised on the calculation that individual lifestyle adjustments can still save the planet. This is, Lovelock says, a deluded fantasy. Most of the things we have been told to do might make us feel better, but they won’t make any difference. Global warming has passed the tipping point, and catastrophe is unstoppable.

“It’s just too late for it,” he says. “Perhaps if we’d gone along routes like that in 1967, it might have helped. But we don’t have time. All these standard green things, like sustainable development, I think these are just words that mean nothing. I get an awful lot of people coming to me saying you can’t say that, because it gives us nothing to do. I say on the contrary, it gives us an immense amount to do. Just not the kinds of things you want to do.”

… What would Lovelock do now, I ask, if he were me? He smiles and says: “Enjoy life while you can. Because if you’re lucky it’s going to be 20 years before it hits the fan.”

Lovelock may or may not be correct that the apocalypse is knocking on our door, but is he correct that these sorts of activities – carbon offsetting, recycling, energy conservation and so forth – won’t make any difference?

No, he’s not, for at least four reasons.

1. At the very least, Lovelock himself has already identified one way in which they make a difference – they make us feel better. If the apocalypse is inevitable, then the only thing that is likely to make a difference is having a positive attitude – and so making people feel better is an essential activity.

2. Some of these activities may in fact generate the very skills that we may need to survive the apocalypse. For example, getting people more involved in their own food production – the classic “Good Life” scenario – would be inherently valuable. Imagine if nobody knew how to use a spade after the apocalypse – I’d be extremely hungry.

3. Lovelock fails to take into account differences at a level below the global – for example, energy conservation is inherently valuable because it saves money, which will mean more capital will be available for vital apocalypse mitigation initiatives. Although frankly you can shove your carbon offsetting.

4. Elsewhere in the interview, he states his belief that these global disasters “keep separating the wheat from the chaff. And eventually we’ll have a human on the planet that really does understand it and can live with it properly.” Humans don’t just magically understand things; they learn through action, trial and error. If we don’t try out the “current canon of eco ideas” now – while we have the resources to do it – it’s likely that we will just make the same mistakes after the apocalypse as we did before.

Of course, there’s a critical point, which I’ve deliberately overlooked. If it’s true that these sorts of activities will make no difference AND they take resources away from more critical activities that will make a difference, then we should obviously pursue the latter. However since Lovelock doesn’t believe that we have sufficient time to advance in key areas such as nuclear power and food synthesis, it seems that he doesn’t believe that there are any critical activities that will make a difference; and thus we are free to pursue whatever makes us happy, including pointless environmental activities.

However what makes me sceptical about Lovelock, in the end, is not his science but his sense of perspective:

Humanity is in a period exactly like 1938-9, he explains, when “we all knew something terrible was going to happen, but didn’t know what to do about it”. But once the second world war was under way, “everyone got excited, they loved the things they could do, it was one long holiday … so when I think of the impending crisis now, I think in those terms. A sense of purpose – that’s what people want.”

Once the second world war was underway “everyone… loved the things they could do”? The most charitable way to describe that view would be madder than Mad Jack McMad, winner of last year’s Mr Mad competition most peculiar and frankly ahistorical – not to mention more than a little insulting to the veterans and victims of the war. 9 million dead in the Holocaust, 26 million dead in the Soviet Union, the citizens of Nanking and Dresden, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of veterans – yes, for them it was “one long holiday”.

If James Lovelock’s predictions of the future are as reliable as his interpretations of the past, then I wouldn’t start stocking up on Quorn and guns just yet.