Bluefin tuna, from www.worldwildlife.org
George Monbiot reveals the pitiful state of the global Nature
environment, as governments fiddle,
fudge, and turn a blind eye to the runaway trashing of the planet.
2012 was the worst year
for the environment in living memory.
By George Monbiot,
published in the Guardian 1st January 2013
It was the year of living dangerously. In 2012 governments turned
their backs on the living planet, demonstrating that no chronic problem,
however grave, will take priority over an immediate concern, however trivial. I
believe there has been no worse year for the natural world in the past half
century.
Three weeks before the minimum occurred, the melting of the Arctic’s sea ice broke the previous record (1). Iconic
remnants of the global megafauna – such as rhinos and bluefin tuna – were
shoved violently towards extinction (2). Novel tree diseases raged across
continents (3). Bird and insect numbers continued to plummet, coral reefs
retreated, marine life dwindled. And those charged with protecting us and the
world in which we live pretended that none of it was happening.
Their indifference was distilled into a great collective shrug at
the Earth Summit in June. The first summit, 20 years before, was supposed to
have heralded a new age of environmental responsibility. During that time,
thanks largely to the empowerment of corporations and the ultra-rich, the square
root of nothing has been achieved. Far from mobilizing to address this, in 2012
the leaders of some of the world’s most powerful governments – the US, the UK,
Germany and Russia
– didn’t even bother to turn up.
But they did send their representatives to sabotage it. The Obama
administration even sought to reverse commitments made by George Bush senior in
1992 (4). The final declaration was a parody of inaction. While the 190
countries that signed it expressed “deep concern” about the world’s escalating
crises, they agreed no new targets, dates or commitments, with one exception.
Sixteen times they committed themselves to “sustained growth”, a term they used
interchangeably with its polar opposite, “sustainability” (5).
The climate meeting in Doha
at the end of the year produced a similar combination of inanity and
contradiction. Governments have now begun to concede, without evincing any
great concern, that they will miss their target of no more than two degrees of
global warming this century (6). Instead we’re on track for between four and
six (7,8,9). To prevent climate breakdown, coal burning should be in steep
decline. Far from it: the International Energy Agency reports that global use
of the most carbon-dense fossil fuel is climbing by around 200 million tonnes a
year (10). This helps to explain why global emissions are rising so fast.
Our leaders now treat climate change as a guilty secret. Even
after the devastations of Hurricane Sandy and the record droughts and wildfires
that savaged the United States,
the two main presidential contenders refused to mention the subject, except for
one throwaway sentence each (11). Has an issue this big ever received as little
attention in a presidential race?
The same failures surround the other forces of destruction. In
2012 European governments flunked their proposed reform of the Common
Agricultural Policy, which is perfectly designed to maximize environmental
damage. The farm subsidies it provides are conditional upon farmers destroying
the vegetation (which also means the other wildlife) on their land (12). We pay
€55bn a year to trash the natural world.
This contributes to what I have come to see as a great global
polishing: a rubbing away of ecosystems and natural structures by the
intensification of farming, fishing, mining and other industries. Looking back
on this year a few decades hence, this destruction will seem vastly more
significant than any of the stories with which the media is obsessed. Like
governments, media companies have abandoned the living world.
In the UK in
2012, the vandals were given the keys to the art gallery. Environmental policy
is now in the hands of people – such as George Osborne, Owen Paterson, Richard
Benyon and Eric Pickles – who have no more feeling for the natural world than
the Puritans had for fine art. They are busy defacing the old masters and
smashing the ancient sculptures. They have lit a bonfire of environmental
regulations (13), hobbled bodies such as Natural England and the Environment
Agency and ensured that the countryside becomes even more of an exclusive
playground for the ultra-rich, unhampered by effective restraints on the burning
of grouse moors, the use of lead shot, the killing of birds of prey and the
spraying of pesticides that are wiping out our bees and other
invertebrates (14,15).
In the same spirit, the government has reduced the list of
possible marine conservation zones from 127 to 31 (16). Even these 31 will be
protected in name only: the fishing industry will still be allowed to rampage
through them. A fortnight ago, the UK
lobbied successfully for quotas of several overexploited fish species to be
raised, while pouring scorn on the scientific evidence which shows that this is
madness (17).
George Osborne has done the same thing to the UK’s climate change policies. Though even the
big power companies oppose him (18), he is seeking to scrap or delay our targets
for cutting carbon emissions and to ensure that we remain hooked on natural gas
as our primary source of power. The green investment bank which was supposed to
have funded the transition to new technologies is the only state bank in Europe which is forbidden to borrow (19). It
might as well not be there at all.
If there is hope, it lies with the people. Opinion polls show that
voters do not support their governments’ inaction. Even a majority of Conservatives
believe that the UK should
generate most of its electricity from renewables by 2030 (20). In the United
States, 80% of people polled now say that climate change will be a serious
problem for their country if nothing is done about it: a substantial rise since
2009 (21). The problem is that most people are not prepared to act on these
beliefs. Citizens, as well as governments and the media, have turned their
faces away from humanity’s greatest problem.
To avoid another terrible year like 2012, we must translate these
passive concerns into a mass mobilization. Groups like 350.org show how it
might be done(22). If this annus horribilis tells us anything it’s that action,
in the absence of such mobilization, is simply not going to happen. Governments
care only as much as their citizens force them to care. Nothing changes unless
we change.
www.monbiot.com
References:
1.
http://www.monbiot.com/2012/08/27/the-heat-of-the-moment/
2. See
for example http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_dirty_war_against_africas_remaining_rhinos/2595/
3.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/03/scots-pine-tree-diseases
4.
http://www.monbiot.com/2012/06/18/the-mendacity-of-hope/
5.
http://www.monbiot.com/2012/06/22/how-%E2%80%9Csustainability%E2%80%9D-became-%E2%80%9Csustained-growth%E2%80%9D/
6. e.g.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/03/four-reasons-avert-impacts-climate-change
7. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics,
November 2012. Turn Down the Heat: why a 4C warmer World Must be Avoided.
Report for the World Bank.
http://climatechange.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/Turn_Down_the_heat_Why_a_4_degree_centrigrade_warmer_world_must_be_avoided.pdf
8.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/11/09/364895/iea-global-warming-delaying-action-is-a-false-economy/
9. PriceWaterhouseCoopers, November 2012. Too late for two degrees? Low carbon
economy index 2012. http://www.pwc.co.uk/sustainability-climate-change/publications/low-carbon-economy-index-overview.jhtml
10.
http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2012/december/name,34441,en.html
11.
http://www.monbiot.com/2012/11/05/struck-dumb/
12.
http://www.monbiot.com/2012/11/26/the-fat-of-the-land/
13.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/16/environmental-regulations-slashed-red-tape
14.
http://www.monbiot.com/2012/06/04/the-resurgent-aristocracy/
15.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/12/mps-insecticide-regulators-bees
16.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/13/uk-marine-conservation-zones
17.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/20/fish-eu-quota-deal-delighted
18.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/02/energy-firms-clear-emissions-targets
19.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2012/may/24/green-investment-bank-energy-efficiency
20.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/05/public-opposed-osborne-anti-green
21.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2248468/A-growing-number-global-warming-sceptics-Americans-say-global-warming-real-threat.html
22.
http://www.350.org/
