Adaptation and the myth of a technological saviour

Sorry for the rather long absence. My mind has been more than a little preoccupied, but I will now be returning to the blogging like a starved hyena to rotting flesh. Hopefully you'll forgive the delay, as well as that terrible simile.

Technology has been on my mind recently, particularly in relation to the increasingly voluble argument that adaptation is key to our battle against climate change. Now, perhaps contrary to what I said in a post some time back, adaptation is a necessary consequence of changes which we have already unleashed in the earth's climate. Whether we like it or not, we are going to have to adapt to an extent. What I want to emphasise now is that whilst this is true, it in no way provides an alternative to the need to try to mitigate climate change by limiting our carbon emissions.

It was recently revealed that ice in the Arctic had melted to unprecedented levels with time still remaining of summer for it to shrink even further. On the same day, the most prominent story around was Tim Yeo's insistence that what we need to get out of our economic mess is to build another runway at Heathrow. I wasn't the only one amazed by this as George Monbiot went on a highly entertaining rant on twitter culminating in attacks on Libertarians. Quite why he bothers trying to reason with Libertarians is anybodies guess. His point, though, is that we seem to have some sort of collective cognitive dissonance when it comes to climate change. On a day when the worst excesses of fossil-fuel driven capitalism were laid bare for all to see, we were fixated on the possibility of pumping yet more CO2 into the atmosphere.

As chair of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, you might have thought that Yeo might be aware that planes tend to produce rather a lot of harmful emissions but he seemed convinced that regulations put in place by the European emissions trading scheme (ETS) would nullify any potential increase in CO2. As James Murray of Business Green points out, however, Yeo's argument is flawed both because the ETS is currently ineffective due to an unrealistically low carbon price, and because if the carbon price was at the correct level an increase in flights would necessarily lead to huge hikes in ticket prices. Moreover, it rests on the notion that other sectors will significantly lower their own carbon emissions, something that has been rather sorely lacking to date.

This brings me to the point about technology. Louise Mensch, the now redundant Tory MP and self-promoter extraordinaire, chimed in by suggesting that the real way to pursue environmental goals was not by changing 'human behaviour' (which apparently involves flying to Alicante) but by investing our hopes in technology. The problem with this position is that it not only ignores the magnitude of the task we face, but also because it places faith in a highly uncertain solution.

Whilst it is plausible that technological development might happen to the extent that we might reverse some of the damage caused by emissions, or adapt sufficiently to handle large temperature increases, it really is putting a lot of eggs in one basket. What happens exactly if such a technology does not present itself? Don't worry, they say, human ingenuity is such that we will overcome this challenge. As a plan that doesn't exactly fill me with confidence.

The problem is amplified by the fact that many of those that campaign most vociferously for adaptation, rather than mitigation, are those least in favour of government investment in low carbon industry. Mitigation and adaptation are united in the sense that it is investment in mitigation technologies that will give us the tools to adapt to necessary changes. Government funding for research and development of renewable energy, for example, may help to create exactly the technologies to help extract us from our predicament. But those who most loudly exult man's creative capacity are also those most vehemently opposed to subsidies for the renewable sector. These people are in a position in which they claim technology to be our saviour, whilst simultaneously refusing the means by which such a technology might be born. This is why I've come to the conclusion that those promoting adaptation alone are basically promoting another form of denial.

The Green Deal: Does it go far enough?

The Green Deal is being attacked for a number of reasons - some with and some without substance - providing further demonstration of the Tories environmental agenda approach of 'if it's liable to tick of Paul Dacre, then best left well alone.' The most provocative part of the Green Deal is its insistence that households pay interest on government loans acquired to help make their home more environmentally efficient. The idea being that the money subsequently saved on fuel bills will be great enough offset the repayments from the loan. This is the so-called 'golden rule' and it is the key means of convincing consumers to invest in energy efficiency. Of course, savings depend greatly on the type of house, as well as the scale of work undertaken, the energy use of the property, the number of occupants and so forth. For this reason, it can be extremely difficult to know how great a particular household's savings or otherwise might be. The right wing press has jumped all over this uncertainty, adding false and distorted information to an already complicated picture, ostensibly on the basis of saving homeowners from stealth taxation.

This is a problem for anyone who wants to see the Green Deal succeed because a lot of people, particularly those whose priorities are economic before environmental, will not be swayed unless they are absolutely guaranteed to get a return. Preferably a sizable one because, let's face it, for many this will be perceived as a bit of a faff to sort out. What's more, private firms, no doubt concerned about the negative publicity stoked up by the Mail and Telegraph, are growing more reluctant to be associated with the legislation further limiting household options and dissuading them of the merits of the enterprise.

This is a pretty sad turn of events because, on paper at least, the Green Deal sounds like a very attractive proposition, and one that could claim to be genuinely cross-party in its approach. Conservatives could get on board because government involvement is kept to a minimum and it shouldn't cost the taxpayer substantially, Lib Dems could like it because it's the only decent thing they've managed to extract from the coalition to date, and Labour could support it because it backs up Miliband's recent attacks on unscrupulous energy providers.

The furore has, however, brought about what could be another defining moment for the coalition. If the bill is dropped, or watered down so much as to render it largely ineffective, the already strained relations between Conservatives and Lib Dems could be stretched further still. For all their lack of backbone, environmental issues have long been a core concern of many in the yellow corner and a Tory dismemberment may just push them closer to the edge. It could also be the moment that Cameron reveals his true colours on climate change, and we discover whether his fondness for Huskies extends to genuine action. Considering how vital energy efficiency is to any hope of reducing emissions to an acceptable level over the next 10 years or so, failure to back the Green Deal will strip him of any last pretence of environmental concern, particularly as he has demonstrated strong support for it in the past. This will mean him potentially going up against his chancellor, which could prove rather tasty.

Of course, know one can no for sure how the Green Deal will fare until it is launched, but it already appears that there is room for potential improvement. So how exactly does one go about making the Green Deal more attractive? Well, in this instance, I find myself in partial agreement with Guy Newey, a senior research fellow at Policy Exchange. As he rightly points out in Leo Hickman's blog, energy efficiency is one of the most cost-effective ways of reducing our CO2 emissions, and we certainly cannot afford to turn our back on energy efficiency as a concept. For this reason, he appears to suggest that extra sweeteners may be added to the deal over time to increase its appeal to households. Because of it's cost-effectiveness, there is ample economic and environmental evidence to suggest that further incentives could and perhaps should be forthcoming. Maybe the Green Deal simply doesn't go far enough?

I find this idea particularly appealing because it leaves the right wing press with little room for manoeuvre. Having based its arguments against the Green Deal on the potential, and often fictitious, costs to households, if that criticism is assuaged, then the Mail will be forced to give up its assault or change tack. The only conceivable option available will be to criticise the Deal on the basis that it is an antidote to a fictitious problem. It will have to deny the environmental good of energy efficiency. This argument, being much more limited and necessarily doomed to failure, will be far easier to ignore. Of course, one must never underestimate the press' capacity to distort, but I think people are far more likely to be concerned by a hit to their wallets than by the possibility of contributing towards minimising CO2 emissions, no matter where they stand on global warming as an issue.

As with any market, the Green Deal will produce winners and losers - those who make 'returns,' and those who don't. What I would add to Newey's point is that every effort must be made to ensure that those who are most vulnerable to future increases in the price of energy, receive greater assurances than those for whom fiscal security is less of an issue. Those that would truly benefit from lower energy bills must be made to feel that the investment will be worth it. I would also add, and here I fear I may stand in contrast to Policy Exchange, that any future sweeteners added to the Green Deal should not come at the expense of other projects, like renewable energy, which will also help to lower our GHG emissions. Indeed, what we must realise is that the less electricity we use overall, the more and more effective renewable electricity becomes. Once we don't use as much, we don't have to produce as much.

Climate Change: A Question of Expediency or Ideology?

Most scientists are of the opinion that climate change is a matter of empirical evidence, rather than belief. They essentially see themselves operating in a very different realm from politicians, and certainly from political theorists. Their role, as they see it, is to provide the evidence. The evidence then forms the backdrop from which policy may be pursued. In other words, the reality frames the action rather than the other way around.

Of course from the perspective of an empiricist this is perfectly correct, but problems arise when we take science out of the private realm of research and place it in a public context where it will be scrutinised by people with very different perspectives on the world, and very different views about the role of government. At this point, vested interests, cultural beliefs, and social attitudes seemingly become as important as an ability to grasp the science itself. In this situation, is it still expedient for proponents for action on climate change to continue to press their argument on the basis of evidence alone? David Corner, writing in the Guardian a few weeks ago, suggested that whilst it may not be the most logical way to tackle scepticism about climate change, we should nonetheless frame the debate in terms of "belief" rather than empiricism.

Corner presents his own evidence for this opinion by citing a number of studies, including his own, that reveal the existence of "biased assimilation" when it comes to questions of climate change. Simply put, one is more or less likely to attribute persuasiveness to evidence depending on your already pre-formed belief about climate change. If you do not believe in climate change initially, exposure to overwhelming evidence is unlikely to change your mind.

Because of this phenomenon, Corner suggests, we should not and cannot look to science to solve a problem that is in fact social in nature:

"It follows that the answer to overcoming climate change scepticism is to stop reiterating the science, and start engaging with what climate change scepticism is really about - competing visions of how people see the world, and what they want the future to look like."

The work of Corner and his colleagues does highlight some very important aspects of climate scepticism, and illustrates further the power that cultural attitudes hold over our interpretation of the world. However, I would challenge his conclusion that those who have acknowledged the existence of man-made climate change should re-frame the debate to accommodate those who remain unconvinced.

For a start, I do not believe it to be helpful or prudent to frame a question that is essentially one of expediency in terms of belief or non-belief. Drawing ideological dividing lines is a sure fire way to conflict, and united action is our best hope of successfully challenging the growing threat of environmental disaster.

In my opinion, it is far more productive to acknowledge that the severity of the threat faced implies that no ideology or political belief can benefit from inaction on climate change. A true Conservative must recognise that action will help to protect traditional institutions, rather than undermine them, and that wide-scale pollution is in fact a serious violation of property rights and something to be fought. A true Libertarian likewise must acknowledge that freedom and liberty are not best served by potentially impoverishing a good proportion of the world's population. Belief does not have to be undermined by climate science, it can be reinforced. The best way to challenge false belief is not by postulating in terms of rival beliefs, but by denying the viability of holding a belief when strong evidence suggests its contrary to be true.

The question remains, however, of how one goes about persuading people of the reality of global warming without recourse to empirical evidence which will not be of persuasive value. My answer is that climate change provides a perfect example of an instance in which ideology in general is shown to be obstructive. That is, when it exists without basis in actuality. Indeed, the existence of climate change forces us to re-examine some of our basic political presuppositions about the role of society, the shape of the economy, and the power of the state, but unless we do this with reference to the world as it exists around us then we will always be in conflict with reality.

We have been confronted with the stark realisation that our political principles are flawed, and many things often taken for eternal truths are in fact historical anomaly. Faith in an unencumbered free market, belief in a small state, acceptance of economic growth as an absolute good. All of these positions are expressions of political circumstance, not ultimate values, and they are expressions that must now be re-evaluated in the face of new developments. I would not frame a debate about expediency in terms of belief, because belief itself is a product of expediency.

That is a key lesson that we can draw from this scenario. Quite simply, it is neither desirable nor beneficial to attempt to seperate reason from faith (or vice versa).

Politicians, climate policy and cognitive dissonance

I think I've made it pretty clear where I stand on the subject of climate change denial, but to a certain extent, I've grown to admire the commitment of deniers to their ignorance. Despite having been consistently shown to be fools lacking basic scientific knowledge or human empathy, deniers tend to show an awful lot of resilience. Either they've simply given up on rational thought, or they've realised that if they cave now they'd have to own up to being massive tools. Whatever it is, like a stubborn stain in a toilet bowl, they won't disappear easily.

What is perhaps more pressing, at least in a political sense, is the stance of those who have accepted the facts of global warming but have so far failed to act with anything like the speed required. Obviously, certain aspects of climate policy are notoriously difficult to articulate because of uncertainties, but the urgency with which we must proceed is not in doubt. Action and clear targets need to be enforced now. Investment and commitment is a must.

I recently read an interview with Jon Huntsman in which he perfectly articulated everything I find distasteful about this wishy-washy approach to climate questions, so I thought I would use this opportunity to make a few points. For those of you who do not know him, Huntsman is seemingly one of the few rational human beings still part of the Republican Party in the US. Prior to his decision to run for the GOP nomination, a rather doomed enterprise considering his rather centrist views, Huntsman had accepted the qualified opinion of the scientific community on the question of anthropogenic climate change to the extent that he famously tweeted towards the start of the race: "To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy."

Sadly, the initial optimism surrounding Huntsman's faith in science was dashed last December when he parroted the denialist line that "the scientific community owes us more in terms of a better description or explanation." Because of this, he continued, there is simply "not enough info right now to be able to formulate policies."

Obviously, Huntsman was always going to be playing to a hostile crowd on the subject of environmentalism, but it was nonetheless disheartening to be confronted with a GOP race in which none of the candidates were prepared to act on decades of qualified research.

When asked recently by Grist about his apparent volte-face Huntsman maintained his position, arguing that "there is confusion in the minds of a lot of Americans about where the science is because the debate is still going on in the scientific community." Without "consistent and scientifically backed data," he insists, "you can't get good public policy." 

This could be taken straight out of a denialist handbook. Right from the get-go climate scientists have been adamant about the absolute necessity of curbing CO2 emissions. For more than two decades now, the IPCC has insisted on the vital importance of acting sooner rather than later. Lyndon Johnson even addressed congress on the subject back in 1965. There is still confusion in the science, but only in the particulars. By calling for further research, delay, and 'clarity,' you are simply inviting catastrophe. The solid facts of man-made global warming have been known about for a very long time, and Huntsman's failure to acknowledge this speaks volumes about his priorities.

These priorities become more clear later in the interview when Huntsman notes that "the problem [of climate change] has become eclipsed by the jobs deficit right now...There ain't a whole lot of bandwidth for anything else." Climate change is simply "taking a backseat to some of these other more urgent issues that are economics related. I'm not following the issue like I was several years ago." Most tellingly, he claims, "people aren't going to hear out the scientific community until such time as the economy rebounds."

Personally I find it hard to conceive of anything more urgent that combating the greatest environmental threat that mankind has ever faced, but Huntsman's rhetoric is simply indicative of the position of many politicians on both sides of the barricade. A fallacy has emerged, suggesting that we have to make a choice between economic recovery and jobs or a clean energy future. Not only does this position eschew the reality of job creation in the low carbon sector, it fails to account for the absolutely enormous potential of a switch to green energy. Not just in jobs, but in terms of growth as well. Technological innovation through research and development could well spark the industries of the future, and there are clear indications that renewables are growing ever more competitive on an economic level. The furore over the British government's decision to cut solar FITs is, in this respect, something of a promising development. In addition, failure to act now could result in gigantic costs further down the line. Economic transformation is simply not something that might happen, it's something that has to happen unless we want to embrace economic ruin in the long term.

Which neatly points us to another wholly distasteful element of modern politics that is totally at odds with climate reality: ferociously aggressive short-termism. When GDP is all that matters, and political careers rest on its fluctuations, it becomes incredibly difficult to persuade public figures of the necessity of revolutionising entire economies. When the immediate consequences of emissions are hidden by lags, moreover, this task becomes ever more challenging.

Although not a problem of Huntsman's making, short-termism is an issue which we need to deal with and one which politicians needs to discuss openly. There are signs that this conversation is beginning. In the UK, for example, Rupert Read has suggested the creation of a third house of 'Guardians' that would monitor and vet legislation to ensure that it does not adversely affect the generations that will come after us. Cross-party agreement on long-term goals and policy is, in my opinion, a necessity, unless we want to continue to see our interest in the environment vary along with the stock market.

Moreover, the most frustrating element of Huntsman's position is his apparent unwillingness to account for market failure. Pure and simple, environmental decimation brought about through man-made warming is the unseen or ignored consequence of industrialised capitalism. Had environmental factors been costed properly in the first place, it seems highly unlikely that we would find ourselves in such a precarious position. To continue to ignore this market failure, and prioritise fossil fuels in the immediate future, is sheer lunacy. It is the decision to abandon the real world for a fantasy universe in which the laws of physics do not apply. Markets must be logically bound by the parameters of the world in which they exist, so to suggest that the environment can take a backseat to economic development is frankly absurd. Economic development should not and can not be divorced from environmental well-being. Reality has to frame economic development, not the other way around, and until politicians realise this the real world will continue to suffer.

Mitigation vs. Adaptation: Why we can't afford to wait and see

One of the major difficulties facing anyone trying to articulate climate policy is dealing with uncertainty. I should stress to all you sceptics out there that I do not mean uncertainty surrounding the scientific fundamentals - we know that global warming is happening, and that mankind's activities are the cause of it - but rather how quickly or severely climate change will affect us (though early indications present a very bleak picture indeed).

This uncertainty arises in part from the lags associated with CO2 emissions. Estimates suggest that we may face a 40 year delay before the true warming effect of green house gas emissions begins to be felt. At the moment, we are only experiencing warming from 1960s emissions. For this reason, it may be tempting to look at a lack of immediate cause and effect as a demonstration of uncertainty within the science itself, leading one to the assumption that more investigation and more time might be needed to properly evaluate the potential risks. Moreover, there is a vocal minority, perhaps susceptible to this view, that would go so far as to suggest that we are capable of adapting to any change that does present itself. This is a profound mistake.

The difficulty with the wait and see approach extends directly from the fact that it refuses to acknowledge the reality of the cause until it accounts for its effect, but, as I just mentioned, by the time this effect makes itself known it may well be too late to stop some of its worst consequences. Even if we stopped emitting now, we still face the possibility of a temperature increase between 1C and 3C above pre-industrial levels. If we continue to emit whilst waiting for further evidence to present itself, we will likely reach temperatures even higher than this. We know more than enough to suggest that the risk of inaction is far too high.

When you combine the wait and see approach with a focus on adaptation, the problem is amplified. To argue the case for adaptation you would probably need to demonstrate that the risks of waiting are relatively slight, and, given the evidence at our disposal, this is a very difficult claim to maintain under scrutiny. On the other hand, if you acknowledge the risks, you then have to claim that we would be able to adapt to the changes that significantly higher temperatures could bring. This is also extremely difficult.

If we pursued a business-as-usual approach CO2e concentrations would likely reach about 750ppm by the end of this century. This entails about a 50% chance of a mean global temperature increase of 5C. The potential devestation unleashed by such a rapid surge in temperature is biblical in proportion. At that temperature, most, if not all, of the ice and snow in the world would melt causing the seas to rise exponentially. Bangladesh and Florida would be submerged, along with numerous islands and coastal regions, Souther Europe would become a desert, and agricultural land the world over would be redrawn requiring a radical alteration of food systems. The nation of Kiribati in the Pacific ocean is currently in talks with the Fijian government to relocate its entire population due to rising sea levels. Kiribati has a population of 100,000, Bangladesh alone has a population close to 150 million. It seems arrogant to imagine that human ingenuity would be able to deal safely with the kind of migration and famine that dramatic warming could entail.

Perhaps what troubles me most about the adaptation argument is that it seems to appeal to pride; a sort of humans vs. nature scenario in which we pit human technology against natural forces in the belief that we can successfully overcome whatever challenges the earth throws at us. This is never a battle we are likely to win, and succesfully warding off global warming will require more than a degree of humility, as well as an acknowledgement that we cannot hope to outsmart natural forces at this level of intensity.

Mitigation not only makes sense environmentally, it also makes sense economically. The scale of investment required to mitigate climate change is significant, but it is well within our capability. Nicholas Stern suggests that we require investment of around 2% of GDP annually to limit our temperature increase to around 2C, a moderate amount compared to the possible costs entailed by the consequences of inaction. James Hansen suggests a very different approach, calling for a carbon tax on fossil fuels which would be redistributed amongst populations without any interference from government. Though these suggestions come from very different ends of the political spectrum, they are united by an acknowledgement that immediate action must be taken to counteract potentially monstrous costs further down the line.

Whichever way you look at it, barring a remarkable scientific or technological discovery, mitigation, pursued swiftly and emphatically, seems to be the only sensible option. Those who place their faith in adaptation simply fail to appreciate the degree of danger with which we are confronted. Unless we face up to our responsibility to future generations, we may well leave them with a planet devoid of the environmental and economic riches we take for granted.

Poverty, Green Growth, and the New Industrial Revolution

Last week I went to a series of lectures by Professor Nicholas Stern, author of the hugely influential 2006 Stern Review. For those of you familiar with the contents of the original study, these talks did not necessarily provide much novelty, but, as an overview of the economic and political ramifications of climate change, the message dispensed through them is vital and important. I'd heartily recommend that you all take a little time out to review the slides and listen to the podcasts here, here, here, and here.

Stern is certainly an eloquent speaker and his ability to transcend the worlds of academia and public policy is particularly impressive. His appeal for a new industrial revolution to combat climate change risks is sensible, and, more importantly, achievable. The difficulty lies, as he makes clear, in galvanising the political will to take definitive action against the hazards of global temperature increases.

I won't go into too much detail on the contents of the talks because his podcasts will undoubtedly do the topic more justice, and his forthcoming book sounds like a must-read for anyone with an interest in the economics of climate change. I will, however, highlight just a few of the points that most appealed to me, partly because they help to validate much of my own thinking, and partly because his central arguments have such far-reaching consequences for international development.

The most vital sentiment I took away from these lectures was the idea that there simply cannot be any passengers in this battle. To keep to a roughly 50/50 chance of a 2C rise in temperatures, world emissions need to be cut by a factor of 2.5, which is equivalent to lowering emission flows from nearly 50 billion tonnes in 2010 to less than 20 in 2050. If we account for a conservative growth in output of a factor of 3 over this time, then we need to cut our emissions to output ratio by a factor of at least 7. In case anyone was in any doubt about the scope of change needed, these figures should leave you under no illusion. We are talking about making industry between 7 and 8 times more environmentally efficient by 2050. That is a huge task.

It is largely these figures that explain the title of this lecture series, 'Climate Change and the New Industrial Revolution,' because the scale of the changes required necessitate no less than a complete reappraisal of business practice in general. Little good comes of targeting specific industries or sectors (though obviously larger efficiency savings in some areas can help mitigate more sluggish change in others). We must instead revolutionise the way in which the whole of our world economy is run. From the largest fossil fuel emitters right down to the average household, we all need to live much more efficiently.

Stern is also keen to demonstrate the important link between combating poverty and combating climate change, describing this story as one of "deep injustice." One of the most distressing features of global warming is that those peoples that played historically little part in fossil fuel emissions will be those that are hit earliest and hardest by rising temperatures and sea levels. Because of this injustice, reasons Stern, we cannot insist upon treating the small remaining carbon space that we have as a commons. The fossil fuel reserves that we can still safely use should be focused on helping developing and undeveloped countries to grow and build their own sustainable futures. The rich countries were the ones that reaped the whirlwind, and it is the rich countries that must take the lead in correcting their failure. 

Not only does this make sense economically, it is a moral imperative. If we picture reserves as currency, it would take a hard heart to claim that a poor man and a rich man alike should both be given an equal amount of cash. It is far more just and equitable to prioritise the needs of the poor man, over those of the already rich. By allowing poor countries to develop quickly, whilst rich countries lead the way in technological innovation, we can hope to overcome the two greatest challenges of our age, poverty and climate change. Who knows, in 200 years time people might look back on this period as a turning point for the better in human history.

Beyond these two core arguments, Stern also provides a refreshingly sober analysis of the role of the state in tackling AGW. As I have mentioned in previous blogs, the argument, or supposed argument, between the private and public sector has taken on such a toxic quality that we have reached the point where some on the right perceive any State intervention, no matter how slight, as a gross violation of liberty. Stern gives this view short shrift. The argument, he maintains, that the markets should be free to navigate themselves out of this mess does not take account of the fact that it was market failure that caused it. By utterly failing to properly cost the environmental damage produced by fossil fuel driven growth, markets have locked us into a road to ruin. Even the most fervent free-market economist recognises that in an instance of market failure, the State needs to intervene to provide direction. Indeed, many see this as the State's key, and perhaps sole, responsibility to the economy.

The tone of Stern's first two lectures was largely optimistic, in spite of the scope of the challenge he presents. He makes it clear that we are pretty much aware of what has to be done, we are pretty sure of the amount of investment required (roughly 2% of annual GDP), and we are already seeing rapid technological innovation. What we are clearly lacking, as he discussed in the third, is the political will to enact these necessary changes. The reason for this becomes obvious by a simple comparison. If we look at the British economy during the Second World War, people were united in their recognition of the need to combat the threat of fascism in Europe. There was no objection when the economy was transformed into a centralised war machine. Today, in contrast, it is very difficult for a public, who are not necessarily familiar with the science, who are preoccupied with a fiscal crisis, and who are regularly subject to denialist drivel, to perceive the dangers and risks of climate change, that, no matter how real, seem distant and opaque. When we think of these things, our current lack of political will becomes increasingly understandable.

This, then, is our major task. We simply must get better at communicating these risks and making them more relevant to the person on the street. We have the knowledge, we have the ability, we have the money and the expertise; all that is lacking is the will power. It is one thing to know that we can do something, but quite another to know that we will do it.

The logical pitfalls of 'militant atheism'

Religious debate does not sit well with the British psyche, at least not at a public level. For most people, even the Church of England is less a mounthpiece of god than a cultural peculiarity. It encapsulates perfectly the attitude of most Britons towards religion; largely ignored, but something utterly ensconced in our national make-up. It is with some trepidation, therefore, that I attempt to wade into the current and ongoing debate between 'aggressive secularism,' and those that wish to see religion play a more active role in our political and social lives.

Now I should preface this by saying that I'm an atheist. Not a 'militant' atheist as Richard Dawkins would like me to be, but an aetheist nontheless. That I don't consider myself 'militant' should also not be interpreted as a defence of religion. Whilst I don't share Dawkins' fervour for intolerance, I agree that dogmatic religious belief is damaging and harmful.

What I find so endlessly tedious about this debate is that, whilst it dresses itself in modern guise, it is simply a rehashing of a positivistic assault on faith. Essentially the argument boils down to the fact that it is impossible to demonstrate, through logical or empirical proof, that god exists, and moral concepts predicated on the existence of a metaphysical entity are, by association,  meaningless. Betrand Russel in his Sceptical Essays claimed that "it is undesirable to believe in a proposition when there are no grounds whatever for supposing it is true," and A. J. Ayer took inspiration from this utterance when constructing his assault on metaphysics in Language, Truth and Logic.

If we look at Dawkins' assault on religion, obvious similarities come to light. In 2002, Dawkins gave a speech in the US on 'militant atheism.' Quoting the wonderful Douglas Adams, he questioned why it was that religious propositions (e.g. god exists) are not analysed and questioned in the same way that a scientific proposition would be. That is, testing hypotheses that are vulnerable to disproof through logical or empirical means. He reacts with indignation to the suggestion that there is perhaps something different about these propositions, something 'sacred' that distinguishes a religious from a scientific hypothesis. He sees no difference between the two categories of proposition, just as Russel and Ayer before him.

The problem with this positivistic assault on religion is that it utterly fails to understand the subject matter that it is attempting to subvert. When Dawkins attacks religion, he is not attacking faith but a caricature of faith that lacks any kind of social or historical nuance. I think Terry Eagleton got it pretty spot on when he wrote, "imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology."

Dawkins clearly betrays a lack of historical understanding. According to the propositional logic from which his arguments descend, one can simply line up propositions uttered at any point over history and judge them on the same criteria of logical or empirical verifiability. Those that meet this criteria are kept, whilst those that don't are simply discarded as meaningless. When Dawkins demolishes the proposition 'god exists,' he fails to understand or consider the circumstances under which that utterance arose. Not only does this do grave injustice to many centuries of thinking, it is also an incredibly elitist and damaging philosophy to promulgate. By banishing questions of morality and metaphysics, the positivistic assault seperates discussion of morality from the practice of living morally. Its lesson is that you can talk about morals all you want, but it won't actually impact on their practical application.

Dawkins also fails to understand religious impulse, as well as the role that religion has played in our cultural and social evolution. Indeed, one can make the argument that the evolutionary biology which Dawkins claims to defend has very clear roots in religious conceptions of god and nature. Spinoza, for example, conceived of a pantheistic god that was indistinguishable from nature, combining, in so doing, faith in a divine power with a reasoned understanding of the world around him. The idea being that by investigating the world rationally, one took a step towards understanding god's 'plan.' The concept of  a divine creator was a way of codifying and explaining the world, and also provided a framework under which further exploration could be conducted. That god is perhaps no longer necessary to this enterprise, thanks to great leaps in our understanding of the universe, does not render the idea of god a meaningless one.

What I think is most important, however, is that in his reasoning Dawkins is demonstrating what R. G. Collingwood called 'low-grade thinking.' When one compares one proposition against another with no thought as to why each proposition arose in the first place, one is entirely ignoring the baggage that comes with them. In contrast to propositional logic, therefore, Collingwood promulagated a logic of question and answer. Our thoughts, he reasoned, do not simply arise out of an ether, but are products of often hard and laborious problem-solving. It is only when we endeavour to unpick our thoughts that we realise that what we originally believed to be a proposition was in fact the answer to a very specific question, and it is only in so far that a proposition answers the question it was intended to answer that we can judge its verifiability. This, of course, necessitates knowing what the question was, and also understanding the context in which the question arose.

This, however, is a project to which Dawkins and other positivists will not consent. Instead they would rather attack and categorise a subject about which they know nothing, creating straw men and burning them to the ground to no effect whatsoever. Analysing the proposition 'god exists' is necessarily a historical examination of the circumstances in which that proposition arose. Propositional logic has demonstrated itself incapable and unwilling to take on that task, so it will always fail to adequately comprehend the motivations for religious faith. If Dawkins did endeavour to examine this proposition correctly, I think he would find a much more scientific story that he might imagine.