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TODAY Wednesday 28 May 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
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TODAY Wednesday 28 May 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
TODAY IN THE WORLD: Over the Top
By 1916, many of the younger members of the Imperial German general staff had absorbed some of the awful lessons of the initial two years of the First World War. While Falkenhayn pursued his goal of "bleeding France white" at Verdun -- still the most concentrated death-ground of all time -- Ludendorff and his juniors devised the strategy of Defense in Depth for the remainder of the Western Front.
Defense in Depth operated on both vertical and horizontal axes. First, you calculate the soil-penetrating abilities of the enemy's munitions. Then you dig your bunkers somewhere below that line (this expedient had been rejected as morale-deflating by the French and British). When the charge comes, you climb upstairs to meet it. Second, you anticipate that the enemy will attack in overwhelming waves and so you construct layered defenses so that his breakthroughs only lead him to yet another line of well-entrenched strongpoints with crossfire of machine guns and field artillery. About four lines back, infantry is massed for the counter-attack.
The system worked well. Against it hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers were thrown to futile slaughter, and the world has never been the same.
You will forgive the melodrama -- and my bloody-mindedness -- but I'm reminded of 1916 and 1917 when I look at the looming battle over climate change. On one side are scientists, enviros, energy-conservation technologists, the insurance industry, and the governments of states particularly threatened by a rise in sea levels. On the other side are oil, coal, and the governments of states that do not want to be told by rich countries to do as they say, not as they do. This Carbon Team is on the defensive, but their deployments are formidable.
Their first line of defense is pseudo-science. As Ross Gelbspan has documented in "The Heat is On," the fossil-fuel industry has funded a small number of marginal academics who have exploited the media thirst for "balance" and created the impression that there is a lively scientific controversy among climatologists on whether humans are changing the climate of the planet.
That line holds for the moment, but it's been breached. When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change came to a consensus on the likelihood of the human origins of a global warming trend, even the never-impulsive Bill Clinton was licensed to talk about the preponderance of scientific evidence on climate change. The CEO of British Petroleum last week agreed ("Petroleum Heresy" ). But few other white flags are visible; the funding of contrarians continues apace, and nervous journalists still seek spurious symmetry. Most of the time and effort of American environmental groups active in climate change must continue to be invested in pounding home the Message of Science. Pockets of resistance will remain for years.
Brave bands of attackers nonetheless approach the second line of the Carbon Team defense: nationalism. OK, say some of the more reasonable types on the other side, maybe we've got a problem here, but certainly any solutions to that problem have got to ask equal sacrifices of everyone. You're not saying that Chinese factories are going to be operating under different rules than the ones we put on American factories?
"Yes" is probably the honest answer, but don't try to run for elective office in this country and say so. The Chinese and the Indians and the Brazilians and the Indonesians will scuttle any treaty proposal that doesn't ask special sacrifices of the rich countries, on the reasonable supposition that the rich emit many more greenhouse gases (260 million Americans produce almost twice as much carbon dioxide as 1.2 billion Chinese). The Clinton Administration is scurrying to come up with legal and operational formulas that will allow American firms to meet US obligations through overseas activities (see Leonie Haimson's "On the Other Hand... " in her In The Trenches coverage of the climate issue), but there's no doubt that opponents of an international climate treaty will have a field day talking about fairness and standing up for America.
And there in the distance, barely glimpsed by the bravest of our sapper squads, stand the twin citadels of the Carbon Team defense: declining prosperity, increasing taxes. Already think tanks like the Charles River Associates are churning out papers for the oil lobby that show how capping greenhouse gas emissions will lead to a sharp decline in the gross domestic product. Jobs are lost, household purchasing power plummets. Worse, environmental extremists are talking about a new carbon tax that would directly affect the ability of average Americans to drive their cars and heat and cool their homes. The full-page ads are probably all set to go.
European governments get some pressure on this issue from green activists, and try to steer a middle course between what enviros want and what their industries and industrial unions want. The American administration feels constrained to say not much of anything because we enviros haven't yet succeeded in constructing a climate change movement that rewards friends and punishes enemies. While we catch our breath on the parapets of the first line of defense, we might give some thought to how we're going to attract fresh troops to press the attack against -- or conduct a flanking maneuver around -- the daunting obstacles ahead.
TODAY ON THE SITE
Our favorite new feature -- Works In Progress -- this week contains a wide-ranging survey of what's going on in Ecological Art. Katherine Kormendi guides you through examples of reclamation art, recycling art, and dozens of other farflung works where concern for the natural world animates great new bursts of creativity. Informative; absorbing; lots of links to interesting sites.
5/27: Solar Hippies
5/23: Spiffy Cars, Clunker Bikes
5/22: Petroleum Heresy
5/21: We Irish
5/20: Shallow Backpackers
5/19: Songbirds
5/16: Fat, Fat, Fat
5/15: Our Forthright Administration
5/14: Coral Reefs of the Sahara
5/13: (Life Before) Death and Taxes
5/12: Kids
5/09: Free Trade and Hormones
5/08: Sherry Boehlert, Republican
5/07: Fort Davis, West Texas
5/06: Europe (yawn)
5/05: Divorce, Mothers, Equality
5/02: Killer Grannies and the Highway Bill
5/01: China
4/30: Pity the Mangrove
4/29: Grizzlies off Battery Park
4/28: Mighty Monsanto
4/25: Growth
4/24: Refrigerator Wars
4/23: The Day the Earth Day Stood Still
4/22: Doorman Ecology
4/21: Toyota Steps Out
4/18: Victims of Extremism
4/17: Our White Guy Problem
4/16: Coca-Cola and the Merrit Parkway