Congratulations, Al Gore and the IPCC!
Gore is a class act. He hardly even smiled at his press conference, and I have to believe it's because he knows that the work has only just begun; he's only just gotten people's attention. Violence and petroleum-use-based climate change are indelibly linked in a way that those of us who are wealthy-enough-to-choose-green fail to grasp, and I believe the Nobel committee was right - if not downright visionary - in giving Gore and the IPCC this year's Peace Prize. Explicitly making this link between climate change and peace, on all levels, is the critical next step in the process of fighting back.
If we are serious about building a peaceful world, we need to do more than raising awareness and changing the habits of the developed world: we need to find and encourage alternative development paths worldwide. Sure, we talk about the role of oil in Iraq and Darfur. But our consumption patterns are not just devastating on the state level, they have framed a pattern of development that is destroying individual lives and creating conflict on all levels, down to the tiny villages of West Africa.
Al Gore knows this.
After all, Gore, Thomas Freidman, and their colleagues are good guys: they never fail to address the relationship between climate change and poverty when they talk about our oil addiction and its environmental consequences. Thanks to them, we are all aware that climate change, wrought largely by developed nations, disproportionately affects the world's poor. Global agriculture and aquaculture have been altered in measurable ways, with devastating implications for those engaged in subsistence activities.
Unfortunately, until now, that's where their message has usually stopped--with this very *passive* notion of the developing world being harmed by the carbon evils of the developed world. Certainly this is true. And I don't fault the big voices on climate change for their message. They are rightfully focused on global stewardship and what we can do in the developed world to start fixing the situation; they also know that it would be both unfair and devastating to saddle developing communities with heavy petroleum taxes or the cost of greener technologies. But the message of “it’s the developing world’s responsibility,” while correct in what it asserts, silently endorses the standard “petroleum path” for developing communities.
This is unhealthy, unwise, uncreative, and – most important – unnecessary. The “petroleum path” is scary, and not just from the climate-change perspective. Sure, the Sahel is drying, and the farmers in the region will soon be facing adapt-or-perish pressures. But the most frightening manifestation of oil-addiction here is not the lengthening of the dry season; it’s what happens when an oil truck goes off the road.
You’ll know you’ve come across this scenario because for miles leading up to the truck, you’ll see people of all ages running towards the scene, carrying jugs, bowls, even thermoses. As you get closer, you’ll see people who look, well, wet…the smell will hit you just before you see the truck itself, and then it will all be clear—women, men, and small children are literally coated in gas as they climb over each other to pound holes in the tank and siphon off the contents.
Tom Friedman, gas here actually *is* $5 per gallon, forget any carbon tax. It’s all smuggled in from Nigeria and sold at roadside stands in old booze bottles, filtered (if you’re lucky) through an old tee-shirt. For people living on less than a dollar or two a day, it's the quickest money-maker around, so can you blame them for sending their 6-year old into the fray? Can we really expect people to restrain themselves and to think about last year, when a truck in the same situation went up in flames near Nattitingou, killing over 300? Of course not. On the way out of Cotonou a few months ago, I saw another gas truck that had gone off the road only minutes before. The driver and crew were staking out their turf around the tank, but it was only a matter of time until they'd be overrun, perhaps killed.
What’s the root of oil-addiction at the bottom of the pyramid? There are over a billion people (that's another China, my friends…) who don't have, but desperately want, access to the development opportunities afforded by electricity. What are the options for electricity in remote villages? Today, it's wait for the grid or buy a generator. The sad reality is that even if governments had the resources to expand grid infrastructure to many of these places, there's simply not enough power to go around. Most of electrified West Africa is well-accustomed to rolling blackouts. And so people are clawing past each other to find gas to feed their generators.
Do you blame them? Think about what it means to have a health clinic with lights and outlets (or imagine the converse). Think about what it means to be able to keep street shops and markets open at night thanks to streetlights. Think about what it means to have a pump on a well so women can engage in small commercial activities and girls can go to school instead of fetching water all day. Think about what it means to be able to do homework without hunching next to a tiny kerosene lamp (if you’re lucky enough to have one). Think about what it means to have phone service. Electricity provides a path out of poverty; and right now in the desperately poor villages of West Africa, this translates into oil greed of a variety never talked about in the climate change discussion. While the developed world is finally getting serious about changing our energy habits, the developing world is going down the same old path...only it has gotten even more dangerous.
So, as we environmentalists bask in the glow of the Nobel announcement, I submit that this is the moment for the response to climate change to expand, not settle. Yes, we need state-level change and top-level policy in the developed world, and that has now been acknowledged at the highest level. But we also need to intervene at the bottom, to innovate and create and start moving everyone away from the standard petroleum path. If in 20 years we just have another generation of war-ravaged nations to wean off of oil, this year's Nobel may be in vain.
If we are serious about building a peaceful world, we need to do more than raising awareness and changing the habits of the developed world: we need to find and encourage alternative development paths worldwide. Sure, we talk about the role of oil in Iraq and Darfur. But our consumption patterns are not just devastating on the state level, they have framed a pattern of development that is destroying individual lives and creating conflict on all levels, down to the tiny villages of West Africa.
Al Gore knows this.
After all, Gore, Thomas Freidman, and their colleagues are good guys: they never fail to address the relationship between climate change and poverty when they talk about our oil addiction and its environmental consequences. Thanks to them, we are all aware that climate change, wrought largely by developed nations, disproportionately affects the world's poor. Global agriculture and aquaculture have been altered in measurable ways, with devastating implications for those engaged in subsistence activities.
Unfortunately, until now, that's where their message has usually stopped--with this very *passive* notion of the developing world being harmed by the carbon evils of the developed world. Certainly this is true. And I don't fault the big voices on climate change for their message. They are rightfully focused on global stewardship and what we can do in the developed world to start fixing the situation; they also know that it would be both unfair and devastating to saddle developing communities with heavy petroleum taxes or the cost of greener technologies. But the message of “it’s the developing world’s responsibility,” while correct in what it asserts, silently endorses the standard “petroleum path” for developing communities.
This is unhealthy, unwise, uncreative, and – most important – unnecessary. The “petroleum path” is scary, and not just from the climate-change perspective. Sure, the Sahel is drying, and the farmers in the region will soon be facing adapt-or-perish pressures. But the most frightening manifestation of oil-addiction here is not the lengthening of the dry season; it’s what happens when an oil truck goes off the road.
You’ll know you’ve come across this scenario because for miles leading up to the truck, you’ll see people of all ages running towards the scene, carrying jugs, bowls, even thermoses. As you get closer, you’ll see people who look, well, wet…the smell will hit you just before you see the truck itself, and then it will all be clear—women, men, and small children are literally coated in gas as they climb over each other to pound holes in the tank and siphon off the contents.
Tom Friedman, gas here actually *is* $5 per gallon, forget any carbon tax. It’s all smuggled in from Nigeria and sold at roadside stands in old booze bottles, filtered (if you’re lucky) through an old tee-shirt. For people living on less than a dollar or two a day, it's the quickest money-maker around, so can you blame them for sending their 6-year old into the fray? Can we really expect people to restrain themselves and to think about last year, when a truck in the same situation went up in flames near Nattitingou, killing over 300? Of course not. On the way out of Cotonou a few months ago, I saw another gas truck that had gone off the road only minutes before. The driver and crew were staking out their turf around the tank, but it was only a matter of time until they'd be overrun, perhaps killed.
What’s the root of oil-addiction at the bottom of the pyramid? There are over a billion people (that's another China, my friends…) who don't have, but desperately want, access to the development opportunities afforded by electricity. What are the options for electricity in remote villages? Today, it's wait for the grid or buy a generator. The sad reality is that even if governments had the resources to expand grid infrastructure to many of these places, there's simply not enough power to go around. Most of electrified West Africa is well-accustomed to rolling blackouts. And so people are clawing past each other to find gas to feed their generators.
Do you blame them? Think about what it means to have a health clinic with lights and outlets (or imagine the converse). Think about what it means to be able to keep street shops and markets open at night thanks to streetlights. Think about what it means to have a pump on a well so women can engage in small commercial activities and girls can go to school instead of fetching water all day. Think about what it means to be able to do homework without hunching next to a tiny kerosene lamp (if you’re lucky enough to have one). Think about what it means to have phone service. Electricity provides a path out of poverty; and right now in the desperately poor villages of West Africa, this translates into oil greed of a variety never talked about in the climate change discussion. While the developed world is finally getting serious about changing our energy habits, the developing world is going down the same old path...only it has gotten even more dangerous.
So, as we environmentalists bask in the glow of the Nobel announcement, I submit that this is the moment for the response to climate change to expand, not settle. Yes, we need state-level change and top-level policy in the developed world, and that has now been acknowledged at the highest level. But we also need to intervene at the bottom, to innovate and create and start moving everyone away from the standard petroleum path. If in 20 years we just have another generation of war-ravaged nations to wean off of oil, this year's Nobel may be in vain.
posted by Unknown at 2:15 AM
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