Ghost in the Wire

Yesterday, my partner and I took some time to see An Inconvenient Truth, the movie based on Al Gore's discussion about the reality and dangers of global warming. As many reviewers have already noted, the film is surprisingly good, with the best moments actually coming from Gore's presentation itself (done on Keynote, from what I can tell), which is incredibly impressive. I would encourage anyone with the opportunity to see the film (its release is somewhat limited) to do so.

The consequences of warming/climate change, much like the consequences that would have attended further degredation of the ozone layer had not international action been taken, are vast, predictable, and utterly horrendous. And so it comes as some surprise that the political imaginary (at least in the USA) has been so resistant to incorporating these consequences. Much of this is due, no doubt, to a coordinated effort on the part of big oil and other corporate interests who would be most adversely affected by the legal and social changes that would need to happen if we took climate change seriously. But this can't explain everything. People are not sheep. They have the capacity to make decisions - not necessarily informed decisions, which are notoriously difficult to come by given the glut of information available and the woefully inadequate norms that govern the news media's parsing of that information - and so we need to do a better job of understanding why it is that certain decisions become easier, why it is that short-term comforts trump long-term consequences when it comes to this particular issue.

I stress this issue because, as most are well aware, the same reluctances and willful ignorance did not take hold when it came to ozone depletion, nor were those who opposed the expansion of peaceful nuclear power stymied by the public's lack of imagination. People were concerned about the long-term consequences as well as the immediate dangers, and policy was adjusted accordingly. And indeed, thanks to the Montreal Protocol and its sundry supplemental accords and amendments, we are finally seeing evidence that the international effort paid off, and the ozone "hole" is slowly diminishing in magnitude.

So what explains the collective inability to mobilize the public imaginary around the dangers of climate change? For now, I'll simply ask the question; later I'll offer some very provisional attempts to answer it. Until then, you bright minds out there should feel free to tackle it.