The ‘elephant’ at YMG
Jamie Wrench reflects on Yearly Meeting Gathering
When I started writing this piece, the BBC was under fire again for giving Nigel Lawson, the former chancellor of the exchequer, peak airtime on the Today programme, no less, to peddle a whole bunch of falsehoods about climate change. It matters not that the following day (at 6.50am, not 8.15 am) they gave an expert the chance to debunk them, nor indeed that within a week the body he chairs, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), admitted at least one claim he made was false; nor even that the GWPF has fewer members than my little climate care charity in Shropshire. As we all know, it’s the big lie, told big, that embeds itself in the public consciousness.
What does matter is that the BBC, that bastion of impartiality and journalistic integrity, sought to justify its decision on grounds of balance and impartiality ‘where controversial subjects are involved’ (my italics, their quote). Everyone knows there’s no controversy, just as we all know smoking kills people and there really was a Holocaust. But hang on a minute… unfortunately, it seems everyone doesn’t know! ‘Everyone’ just means most people I talk to…
It is now twenty-five years since Frank Luntz, an American political consultant, specifically advised the Republican Party to undermine facts about climate change so the ordinary public should believe there is still some controversy about them. ‘Voters believe there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community,’ he wrote. ‘Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate…’
Frank Luntz saw a window of opportunity that he advised was rapidly closing, to ‘insert doubt and confusion into the public discourse’. Once the public believed the science was agreed, he argued, they would demand action. The resultant actions of US Republican representatives, from the Bush family to Donald Trump, show the degree to which this strategy was adopted successfully in the United States.
So, here we were again, still trying to convince power that we were talking truth to them. During the week several Friends ministered on the increasing urgency of the situation, yet their exhortations seemed to evaporate into the air. Almost by way of explanation, we heard that power doesn’t listen. Unlike in the Bible story where the truth, told fearlessly by the prophet Nathan, cut through the flannel and brought king David’s repentance, today’s powers don’t care to admit the truth, or know it but don’t care.
How did we come to this? James ‘Gus’ Speth is a veteran of the environmental movement. He was, amongst other things, the founder of the World Resources Institute, administrator of the UN Development Programme and US president Jimmy Carter’s chair of the Council on Environmental Quality. He suggested a couple of years ago that the wrong people were talking the wrong truths to the wrong powers. What he actually said was: ‘I used to think the top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought with thirty years of good science we could address those problems, but I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy – and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.’
Ah. We thought it was a scientific issue; and that if it was peer reviewed, like all good science is, and if it became clear through that process that we were going to be in ‘big trouble’ unless we did something, all we had to do was speak that truth to power and power would do something about it.
But it’s not a scientific issue; it’s a human issue. It touches upon human rights, economic justice and political courage, which is why the top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy. And to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation.
Scientists don’t know how to do that – but we do, don’t we? We’re Quakers – we do ‘spiritual and cultural transformation’ in spades. We do it all the time. We do vigils and marches, we light candles, we knit long pink scarves, we engage with our MPs, and we write to the press. We camp outside missile bases, glue ourselves together in front of fracking machines, and take hammers to submarines. We issue press releases, publish pamphlets, and make statements.
And, in my opinion: None. Of. It. Does. Any. Good.
Thanks very much, you say. This is an angry rant and a counsel of despair. You are saying there’s no point in doing anything because it’s all hopeless; too little too late. Not so. There is a point in doing something, just not in speaking truth to power.
Here’s the challenge. We are powerless, we have almost always been powerless, but we sometimes do quiet, practical things behind the scenes; and they work effectively because we are powerless. So, let’s get back behind the scenes and out of the spotlight.
Sadly, the context is indeed that it is now too late. Our climate is already changing at an unprecedented speed, and whilst a few years ago there was a small chance we could collectively have held changes to merely ‘unpleasant’, we are now locked into ‘grim’ for our grandchildren and on the way to ‘unspeakable’ for their grandchildren. Worse still, we are taking the rest of the planet down with us.
When an asteroid struck the earth about sixty million years ago and wiped out the dinosaurs it took 30,000 years to happen (geologically speaking, it was a remarkably short timescale; remember, they had been around for 100 million years).
This time, it’s the human race that has struck the earth, setting in motion a sixth mass extinction, one of unparalleled speed. We’ve already got rid of half of all species on the planet, so our demise could easily be within a couple of millennia. But before that final moment there will be famine, pestilence, mass population movements, war, general carnage, destruction and anarchy, interspersed perhaps with periods of relative calm that will be temporary, and fragile.
In 1906 Alfred Henry Lewis stated: ‘There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.’ Since then people as disparate as Robert Heinlein, the science fiction writer, and Leon Trotsky have echoed his observation. Three days without food and civilisation breaks down as lawlessness takes over. It’s not, I’m afraid, going to be very nice.
So, let’s do what we do best. We can’t stop the war, but we can organise the kindertransport. The Titanic has struck the iceberg, and whilst others argue about whether it’s sinking or not, we can make sure all the lifeboats are full and launched. We can’t stop the droughts, but whilst others engage in increasingly desperate attempts to exclude the displaced, we can make sure they are welcomed, fed and clothed for as long as we can do it. We can’t prevent the floods, but we can move to the high ground and prepare the shelters for the homeless. We can lay the foundations for our successors to offer quiet help to the helpless in a spirit of pragmatism and love rather than despair. It’s an honourable task, and as an alternative to doing nothing it is infinitely preferable.
But speaking ‘truth to power’? Save your breath to cool your porridge, and share your porridge with those that have none.
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