The cost of helplessness

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction defines disaster to mean:

A serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society at any scale due to hazardous events interacting with conditions of exposure, vulnerability and capacity, leading to one or more of the following: human, material, economic and environmental losses and impacts...  [Disasters] may test or exceed the capacity of a community or society to cope using its own resources, and therefore may require assistance from external sources, which could include neighbouring jurisdictions, or those at the national or international levels.

This comes up because the UNDRR just released its Global Assessment Report, which was (to put it mildly) not optimistic.  The rate of disasters (as defined) has been rising steadily; over the last two decades the world has averaged between 350 and 500 medium- to large-scale disasters a year, but at the current rate of increase we'll be up to an average of 560 by the year 2030.

That's 1.5 disasters a day.

The reason seems to be a combination of factors.  One, of course, is anthropogenic climate change, which is destabilizing the climate worldwide (as just one of many examples, the southeastern and midwestern United States is forecast to have record-breaking heat over the next three days, and summer hasn't even officially started yet).  Sea level rise is not only threatening coastlines, if it gets much worse (and there is no reason to think it will not) there are a number of island nations that will simply cease to exist, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Vanuatu, the Marshall Islands, and the Maldives topping the list.  The combined cost of all these disasters, especially in Asia and the Pacific, is predicted to cost affected nations 1.6% of their GDP every year.

You can't incur these kinds of costs and continue to function as a society.

South Tarawa Island, part of the nation of Kiribati [Image licensed under the Creative Commons Photo taken by Government of Kiribati employee in the course of their work, South Tarawa from the air, CC BY 3.0]

The UNDRR's report found that the primary culprits in our vulnerability were:

• Optimism -- sure, we built our town on the side of a volcano, but I'm sure it won't erupt.
• Underestimation -- if there's a flood, we'll get a bit of water in our basement, but we can manage that.
• Invincibility -- we'll just ride this hurricane out, I'm not afraid of some wind and rain.

I think that's spot on, but I'd like to add three of my own:

• Helplessness -- what can I do?  I'm just one person.  It doesn't matter if I continue to drive a gas-guzzler, because no one else is gonna give them up.
• Corporate callousness and greed -- strip-mining the Amazon Basin produces valuable resources that are absolutely necessary for industry.
• Media disinformation -- there's no such thing as human-caused climate change; Tucker Carlson said it was a myth made up by the radical Left.

Despite the odds, this is no time to give up and accept catastrophes as inevitable.  "The world needs to do more to incorporate disaster risk in how we live, build and invest, which is setting humanity on a spiral of self-destruction," said Amina J. Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations.  "We must turn our collective complacency to action. Together we can slow the rate of preventable disasters as we work to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals for everyone, everywhere."

Which I certainly agree with in principle, but how do you put it into practice?  We've known about humanity's role in climate change, and the potential devastation it will wreak, for more than three decades.  I remember teaching students about it my first year as a public school teacher, which was 1986.  The people who have been the most vocal in advocating a global climate change policy -- my dear friend, the articulate and endlessly courageous Dr. Sandra Steingraber, comes to mind -- have been fighting a Sisyphean battle.

"Disasters can be prevented, but only if countries invest the time and resources to understand and reduce their risks," said Mami Mizutori, who heads the UNDRR.  "By deliberately ignoring risk and failing to integrate it in decision making, the world is effectively bankrolling its own destruction.  Critical sectors, from government to development and financial services, must urgently rethink how they perceive and address disaster risk."

Yes, but how?  Humanity is notorious for valuing short-term expediency and profit over long-term safety -- and even viability.  There are certainly days when I feel like I'm shouting into a vacuum; I've been ranting about environmental issues since I started Skeptophilia in 2011.  But giving up is exactly the wrong response, as tempting as it is some days.  Perhaps we don't know what positive effect we can have if we act, but we do know what positive effect we'll have if we throw our hands up and say, "To hell with it."

Zero.

I'll end with two quotes that I think are particularly apposite.

The first one comes from one of my personal heroes, Wangari Maathai, the amazing Kenyan activist, environmentalist, and women's rights advocate: "In order to accomplish anything, we must keep our feelings of empowerment ahead of our feelings of despair.  We cannot do everything, but still there are many things we can do."

And I'll give the last word to my friend Sandra: "We are all musicians in a great human orchestra, and it is now time to play the Save the World Symphony.  You are not required to play a solo, but you are required to know what instrument you hold and play it as well as you can.  You are required to find your place in the score.  What we love we must protect.  That's what love means.  From the right to know and the duty to inquire flows the obligation to act."

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Right message, wrong place

It's an uncomfortable situation when you agree wholeheartedly with a group's ultimate goals, and deplore the means by which it's trying to achieve them.

Such is the situation I find myself in with respect to the latest publicity stunt by the environmental group Greenpeace.  Spurred by a United Nations climate change conference being held in Lima, Peru, Greenpeace activists illegally entered the site of the Nazca Lines World Heritage Site to put down pieces of yellow cloth to spell out a message to delegates.

The stunt has outraged Peruvians, not to mention archaeologists, historians, and anyone with a shred of cultural sensitivity.  The 1,500-year-old site is extremely sensitive to damage; even tourists are required to view the lines from the air.  Only on rare occasions is anyone allowed to go to the site on foot, and they are required to wear special footwear designed to minimize damage.

"They are absolutely fragile," said Luis Jaime Castillo, Peru's Deputy Minister of Culture.  "They are black rocks on a white background.  You walk there and the footprint is going to last hundreds or thousands of years.  And the line that they have destroyed is the most visible and most recognized of all."

Peru's government is planning on suing Greenpeace for damages, as well they should.  As for Greenpeace, it issued an apology, to wit:

Without reservation Greenpeace apologises to the people of Peru for the offence caused by our recent activity laying a message of hope at the site of the historic Nazca Lines. We are deeply sorry for this.

We fully understand that this looks bad. Rather than relay an urgent message of hope and possibility to the leaders gathering at the Lima UN climate talks, we came across as careless and crass.

We have now met with the Peruvian Culture Ministry responsible for the site to offer an apology. We welcome any independent review of the consequences of our activity. We will cooperate fully with any investigation.

We take personal responsibility for actions, and are committed to nonviolence. Greenpeace is accountable for its activities and willing to face fair and reasonable consequences.

Dr Kumi Niadoo, the International Executive Director of Greenpeace, will travel to Lima this week, to personally apologise for the offence caused by the activity and represent the organisation in any on going discussions with the Peruvian authorities.

Greenpeace will immediately stop any further use of the offending images.

Which is all well and good.  But the damage goes beyond the appalling thoughtlessness of tramping all over a protected and irreplaceable archaeological site.  It blows a gaping hole in their message, which is that environmentalists care about the Earth and its people, and have our best interests at heart.  In a time when the issues of climate change, resource acquisition, and responsible environmental management are teetering on the edge, Greenpeace has given policymakers a big old shove in the wrong direction, and given the purveyors of the status quo more leverage in convincing people that environmentalists are irresponsible and thoughtless radicals.

How can anyone have thought this would be a good idea?

As much as I am in agreement with most of Greenpeace's goals, the end does not justify the means.  Not only is the damage to the monument itself an affront, but the damage they've done to their own message might be worse in the long run.  People who were in the "undecided" camp on environmental issues will be that much more reluctant to side with a group that seems not only to lack any cultural sensitivity, but common sense as well.

And the last thing the environmentalists need right now is to make more enemies.