Has only just occurred to me that Karl Rove’s:
“The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
which I guess he applied in GW Bush’s time to the war, and economics, and law, and politics, and social matters, also applies to climate change denial.
The Heartland group and their Australian equivalents could say exactly what Rove said. They have absolutely no interest in the data on climate change. They simply ignore it or invent their own. Instead they create “new realities” through such activities as stealing and lying about emails, inventing fake petitions, or comparing climate scientists to mass murderers.
On the other hand, excellent sites like Skeptical Science and Real Climate scrupulously stay away from “politics”, deleting comments or parts of comments that make remarks about the politics or ideology of denialists. Or make rude remarks. They believe that they should stick purely to the science and nothing but the science, and the other side can do what they like, scientists will neither get down in the gutter nor fight politically. Eventually, they believe, reality will prevail. In the meantime the deniers are winning the battle by inventing their own reality and pursuing it relentlessly. Rather like “weapons of mass destruction” and the invasion of Iraq.
All of us will be left, in the ruins of a planet, to study what they have done.
Note – in case you couldn’t read it the lower line in the graphic is “A peer reviewed study by Swift (1729) found that only Irish climate scientists might have eaten babies and then only in times of famine or other incidents of a similar nature. Possibly (Climate scientist 2012)”
Oh, David – that was such a depressing comment by Rove and the worst of it is that he is correct.
We now know that when people hear an idea that meshes with their own ‘scheme of things’ it’s almost impossible to overlay that embedded (if you’ll forgive the term) idea with others that conflict with it.
Of course many people don’t believe in man-made climate change. That would mean they’d have to do something about it, which means making changes to their lives and consuming less. So they’ll readily absorb all the denier stuff and reject all the science (if they understand it in the first place).
I’ve agonised over all this for some time and talked about it frequently with my partner. We’ve come to the conclusion that while we’ll continue to do our bit to protect and nurture our tiny corner of the globe (very small, well-insulated house on100% solar electricity, composting, composting toilet, planting native flora, protecting and nurturing wildlife) we have given up on the idea that the human race has the intelligence or gumption to resist the Roves, Reinhardts and Palmers of this world.
Now in our mid-sixties we are (almost) content to let homo sapiens ( :/ ) wind down to its predictable and possibly miserable conclusion, knowing this is the saddest aspect of evolution and probably unavoidable.
In the meantime, we refuse to be bowed down by this thought, believing we owe it to ourselves to be as happy as we can in this little corner of earthly paradise in what remains of our active lives.
Northern Rivers, New South Wales
You in your small corner and I in mine.
Oh and welcome to the blog!
Hello David.
Rove’s comment is, to my mind, but one of the tips of a rather large iceberg. One could explain his view as merely a facet of American triumphalism: “we’re the elephant in the room and you can live in the spaces we don’t occupy. If we let you”. The British held the same sort of attitude in the nineteenth century, though perhaps with a little less verbal chest-beating.
It’s probably inevitable that the biggest kid in the class has the opportunity to be the biggest bully. But this business of “we’re the new reality” leads one to wonder what relationships we have with reality anyway. Descartes’ Cogito Ergo Sum is easily taken as saying that the world is a figment of one’s imagination. Robert Heinlein’s “All You Zombies” took the idea a little further and the film “The Matrix” added a new twist. Plato’s shadows on the walls of the cave have been disconnected from the solidity that casts them.
But I’m rather surprised that so few people, when discussing such matters, consider the role of postmodernism. That seems to present itself as a set of ideas that denies the existence of any objective reality. Kicking a stone, as Sam Johnson did, crying “I refute it thus”, cuts no ice. Alan Sokal had a go but I’m not sure how effectively. The thing is that these ideas were hatched and ripened mostly in academia, initially in the area of literature studies. But as Max Walsh (I think it was) commented many years ago about “rationalist” economics, the ideas put forward in university teaching are able to burst upon the world as received wisdom without having been properly tested in public discussion.
The upshot is that the notion of constructing one’s own reality is now seen as respectable. Like you, I have had a long career as a scientist and try not to get sucked into doing that, but it’s pretty obvious that a lot of folk – many of whom like to comment on climate and other changes – don’t feel so constrained. In order to validate their view of reality they feel free to invent their own facts. We could go on for ever about this, but the ultimate point is that if Gaia doesn’t like our technological society, so to speak, we’ll get spat out like a melon pip.
So I hope that your great grandson does indeed get to inherit your great grandfather’s pocket watch and that it’s still ticking in 114 years time.
It’s ironic that in the 21st century we know more about how the universe and the world work, about people and how they work, but we still seem powerless as a culture to do anything about it. Long story, I think, and I fear that there may not be a short version.
Howsomever, your blog is one of the brighter facets of the day and I dips me lid to you for all your efforts.
Nick H, Lismore.
Nick, most welcome to the blog, and thank you for your kind words. I increasingly think that “reality” is almost totally gone as a concept. Someone said many years ago, that any story you read in the Press that you actually knew something about would prove to be wrong. That is vastly more the case today. The Rove view of the world has prevailed – reality is what he and his successors say it is.