Climate change and economic hedonism
Beyond 2 to 3 additional degrees compared to 1990, global warming will have negative impacts on all regions, the IPCC warned on Friday.
By 2080, experts estimate in their 1,400-page report, up to 3.2 billion humans will be exposed to severe water shortages and 600 million to hunger due to droughts, degradation and soil salinization. Each year, two to seven million additional people could suffer from flooding, particularly on the coasts where demographic pressure is increasing and in the large deltas of West Africa, Asia or the Mississippi. “Poor populations, even in prosperous societies, are the most vulnerable to climate change, experts stressed at the press conference on Friday. “This requires our attention, because the poorest are also the least able to adapt “, commented Rajendra Pachauri. Scientists have warned that all forms of life on earth will be affected: “20 to 30% of plant and animal species will experience an increasing risk of extinction if global temperature increases exceed 1, 5 to 2.5°C” compared to 1990, indicates the report.
China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United States contested certain paragraphs of the “summary for decision-makers”, a text of around twenty of pages which summarizes for the governments of the planet the 1,400 pages of the report Furthermore, the United States requested and obtained the elimination of a paragraph indicating that North America “should be locally confronted with. serious economic damage and substantial disruption of its socio-economic and cultural system,” according to an observer of the negotiations. “This is the first time that science has been called into question by politicians,” remarked a delegate whose comments were reported by another participant.
According to the first part of this 4th IPCC report, published in February in Paris, the average temperature of the earth could increase by 1.1 to 6.4°C by 2100 compared to 1990, with a “best possible average” from 2 to 4°C under the socio-economic scenarios envisaged. (La Libre 04/05/2007 & 04/06/2007).
1, What is surprising is not so much climate change as the suddenness with which awareness has arisen. The phenomenon was not, however, completely unpredictable. Furthermore, the sensory perceptions that everyone can have are much higher than the “best possible average” of 2 to 4° in a century. From there to thinking that the scale of the phenomenon is even greater than what we are told, there is only one step and we would gladly take it. This concealment of reality could explain why the phenomenon was officially noted so suddenly, and so late. The participants in these meetings also express that there was political pressure on the deliberations and their public expression.
2, The links between climate change and economic hedonism are obvious. Global warming is driven by a lifestyle based on self-realization through the consumption of products (notably automobiles), suggested as essential to individual development. Instead of being aware of it, we consider climate change as one technical problem among others – like the president of the European Commission, who urges Member States to take measures but who, as personal, drives in a 4×4 Touareg…
There is no, or little, reflection in terms of values of collective life, nor on the place of consumer goods in it. These predicted catastrophes are, however, the direct result of the materialist myth of the highest possible standard of living within the framework of the consumer society, and the generalization of economies with high energy consumption. They are also the fruit of the incompetence, lack of foresight and lack of sense of the common good of those who lead.
