Earlier this week, Jeff Kalmus responded to Will Rafey’s post “China in the Lead,” in which Rafey argues that China is poised to overtake the U.S. and “seize control of the emerging clean energy economy” (Max Novendstern weighs in here and Rafey responds here). Jeff weighs in to argue that it doesn’t particularly matter if China innovates more rapidly than the US. Rather, Jeff writes, the concept of a “clean energy race” with China is “an attempt by environmentalists to argue for action on climate change in terms they expect to be better received than the fundamental environmental justifications, but terms which are ultimately unconvincing.” Instead, he writes, “environmental activists should stick to what they know best, the widely agreed-upon science and consequences of climate change.”
I’m only quasi-weighing in on this discussion, since I’ll be addressing the above segment of Kalmus’ post rather than the main thrust of the discussion. The question is, should environmentalists stick to facts of climate science in making their case?
I say no—in addition to the “race with China” theme, there is great merit to looking at climate change as a national security issue more broadly. Invoking “national security” is likely to stir listeners in a way that climate science just can’t.
Currently, there are two main themes in shift to considering environmental action a national security priority. One is that as global warming continues, it will lead to growing resource wars, massive displacement of refugees, and an exacerbation of extremism-breeding poverty. This view received a huge amount of media attention following the release a 2005 study from the Center for Naval Analyses, and if you browse around the main national security and general policy think tanks (a common activity for HPR writers), you can find reports from most all of them considering the strategic and security implications of climate change. It’s a sexy topic.
More immediately, talking heads decry our dependence on foreign oil as an immediate threat to our security, a trend that originated in the 1973 oil crisis, and received new urgency in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. It’s now a well-worn talking point from right and left alike:
McCain on the campaign trail: Clean energy is “a national security issue when we’re dependent on more than $400 billion a year in imported oil from countries that don’t like us very much … some of that money is helping terrorist organizations.”
Al Gore on the NYT op-ed page: Even if man-made global warming were not actually occurring,
We would still need to deal with the national security risks of our growing dependence on a global oil market dominated by dwindling reserves in the most unstable region of the world, and the economic risks of sending hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas in return for that oil.
Barack Obama in the BP speech: (he also uses the “China race” theme)
Each day, we send nearly $1 billion of our wealth to foreign countries for their oil….I say we can’t afford not to change how we produce and use energy -– because the long-term costs to our economy, our national security, and our environment are far greater.
And so on. My purpose here is not to re-make the case for clean energy—enough ink has been spilled on that already. But in considering why making the case from a national security perspective can appeal to more voters, consider Dan Gilbert’s fantastic speech at Harvard Thinks Big. Because of the way our brains evolved, argues Gilbert, humans respond much more quickly and ferociously to threats that are intentional, immoral, imminent, and instantaneous, than those are not. In a memorable line, he declares that “If climate change were some kind of nefarious plot by bad, bad men with worse mustaches, right now we would be fighting a war on warming.”
That’s why it may help to rally people around clean energy by showing them pictures of Ahmadinejad instead of charts of atmospheric temperatures.
Bonus quote:
My favorite example of “foreign oil” outrage: Bob Dylan in “Slow Train,” the title song from his 1979 album Slow Train Coming—his first album after his born-again conversion to Christianity. His not-so-politically-correct rhymes reflect a nationalist indignation you’d be hard pressed to find elsewhere in his work:
All that foreign oil controlling American soil
Look around you, it’s just bound to make you embarrassed
Sheiks walking around like kings, wearing fancy jewels and nose rings
Deciding America’s future from Amsterdam and to Paris
And there’s slow, slow train coming up around the bend.
Slow train indeed.