(191) Bílá nuzota

When I did my school leaving exams, I read Bjørn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist (2001) and replicated the arguments within—being then a Marxist I was fired with the Promethean spirit found within those beliefs, so I would advocate for nuclear power because nuclear power was just the obvious techno-science answer to global warming (as climate change was called back then).

Lomborg’s arguments support this perspective, the broader progressive perspective, and I can remember—through the mists of nineteen years—the revelation that “the environment” was not a static thing but was connected into the economy and so concerns around “global warming” were all mediated through human activity and the real question was how much and what sort of human activity was acceptable; and, per Lomborg’s ameliorative narrative, everything is better than ever (measured materially, naturally—since only material things matter).

Lomborg doesn’t say climate change isn’t happening, as his boosters sometimes make appear—he just thinks it can be offset by economic growth and technological advance. So, for example, Bangladesh is threatened with “the deluge” but it’s okay because she can do as the Dutch did and build an elaborate dam network to protect herself (at eighteen, I bought that). Promethean man overcomes nature again, snatches fire from the gods etc…Yet that presumes the Bangladeshis are Dutch—yet they aren’t. So unless Westerners step in and do that for them, their goose is cooked (flooded)—Lomborg assumes all people are equal and technology will be equally utilised by all (except people are different—Bangladesh has suffered catastrophic floods for centuries; nothing was done—why would that change now?). I wouldn’t advocate that we spend money to send Dutch engineers to save the Bangladeshis—perhaps some progressives would, but it seems unlikely. Ultimately, only nuclear power can sustain industrial civilisation—yet, given the current Western future is to be like South Africa, it seems unlikely we’ll be able to do that (the climate will change, we will collapse—unless there’s a radical alteration).