It’s a question posed by Stephan Faris in his new book Forecast: The Consequences of Climate Change, From the Amazon to the Arctic. Tee Lim, our volunteer Communications Intern, reviews the book.
Forecast is a relatively quick and accessible account of the many and varied ways in which climate change is affecting regions and communities, in very real and devastating ways, right now. You’ll find it a useful, well-researched collection of evidence from some of the current and future front lines of global climate change impacts. Examples draw from experiences in places like Haiti, India, Italy and the United States. Forecast very clearly contributes to the case for drastic and immediate action on climate change.
Faris examines the grave tragedy of the conflict in Darfur and elements of its deeper, underlying causes. He makes many of the necessary, yet all too rare, connections required to grasp the magnitude and scope of the consequences of climate change. For one, he reminds us of the importance of sociopolitical dimensions in climate change discussions, over and above purely environmental or economic considerations.
Rather than ethnic hatred as the primary trigger of the violence in Darfur, Faris suggests an alternative explanation. Climate change. He argues that changes in ocean temperature and atmospheric patterns were disrupting Darfur’s rainfall, causing its lands to fail, and throwing nomadic herders and settled farmers into conflict.
“If the region’s collapse was in part caused by the emissions from our factories, our power plants, and our cars, we bear some responsibility for the dying,” writes Faris. Quoting Professor Michael Byers of the University of British Columbia, he ends the chapter with a powerful and important indictment: “This changes us from the position of Good Samaritans – disinterested, uninvolved people who may feel a moral obligation – to a position where we, unconsciously and without malice, created the conditions that led to this crisis.”
I did find one inclusion in Forecast odd, though. At some point, Faris entertains the dangerous views of anti-immigration politicians who look to use environmental and climate concerns as a new guise to pursue their old, anti-immigration agendas. For example, Nick Griffin of the xenophobic British National Party. Or some of the views in Overloading Australia, a new book from Mark O’Connor and William J Lines.
By no means does Faris advocate the views of Griffin and his compatriots – certainly, there is value in exposing these views as a reminder to remain steadfast against such socially regressive approaches to dealing with refugees of climate change.
Yet Faris disappointingly falters on a strong analysis and critique of such ‘lifeboat ethics’. These ideologies must not be allowed to gain purchase in our political or media landscapes. Arguments from the O’Connor and Lines book, and even elements of Forecast, can be a disheartening portent of the direction that Western climate change ‘adaptation’ could go down.
Greenpeace seeks environmental solutions that promote global social equity – and anti-immigration ‘environmental’ policies are grossly at odds with this. Brian Tokar perhaps said it best when he described such population arguments as a “grim and brutal view of human nature”.
But I digress. Stephan Faris’ Forecast is worth a read, and will offer you plenty to think about. Evidently, it has for me.
Related link
» Greenpeace Australia Pacific: The human impacts of climate change
