If you trace the lines of longitude on a map of the world, you discover something counter-intuitive about Ireland. Dublin is at 53.3498° N, which means it is further north than Winnipeg.
The daily mean temperature in Winnipeg in January is -16.3°C.
Introducing the AMOC
Every Junior Cert student in the country can explain why this is. Ireland is the beneficiary of a warm current we call the North Atlantic Drift that ultimately originates in the Gulf of Mexico and makes its way across the Atlantic to soften the blow of our relative northerliness. One of the dynamics that keep this flow flowing is called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC for short. That water from the Caribbean releases its heat as it travels north into our waters, that patch of the world to the west of us and south of Greenland. In the cooler environment, that surface water sinks 2 or 3 km below the surface and returns to its origin as a colder, low-saline flow. Bozo that I am, I can’t help but think of a central heating system for the Atlantic, though experts often talk about it as a conveyer belt.
A Potential Catastrophe
For a while, scientists have been concerned that climate collapse would lead to the weakening of the AMOC. Measurements were suggesting that might be happening faster than we feared. But this week, 44 of the world’s leading scientists working on the issue delivered an open letter to the Nordic nations warning that “this risk has so far been greatly underestimated.” They have cautioned that a tipping point could be breached that would have devastating consequences for Scandinavia as well as Ireland and Great Britain. “Unprecedented extreme weather” and “major cooling” is listed among the catastrophic consequences if this does occur.
The reason Ireland isn’t much colder than it is is largely down to these currents. If they are depleted, it is hard to overstate the changes we would suddenly face. Our infrastructure is not built for a Nordic climate and that is milder than what we would face. Our agricultural sector could not survive. It is not impossible that Irish citizens would become climate refugees.
The scientists are admirably concise in what they ask for: “[r]ecognizing that adaptation to such a severe climate catastrophe is not a viable option,” they call on the Nordic States to use their considerable diplomatic powers to win the commitments necessary to fulfil the Paris Agreement. We know the steps involved in that – a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation pact, a coherent set of just transition policies, a fair loss and damage system, and the decarbonisation of transport, energy production, and food systems. There might be space for some experimental carbon capture technology and there surely needs to be a massive increase in research funding for energy storage, but the technology exists and the laws can be written.
What is lacking is the willingness to act.
The Dead End of Inaction
Typically, discussions of the environmental crisis tend to hit a wall at this point. The science indicates we need to act. The action is possible. But the action doesn’t happen.
Usually, environmentalists now go back to stage one and try to remind people about the science, as if any mass political movement has ever been initiated because of line graphs.
The alternative course of action is to revert to moralism and justification. The sign that this stage has been reached is that the environmentalist gives up on system change and instead proffers individual lifestyle alteration. It is formally the same as what happens in conservative religions and, like conservative religion, it works sometimes. That convert really did get clean after finding Jesus and practically every environmentalist you meet will be able to testify to changes they made after they realised the trouble we are in.
But without maligning the guy who finally conquers an addiction, hoping to solve a systemic crisis just by appeals to individual conscience is as realistic as thinking you can win elections by drawing ever more precise bar charts.
The Costs of Hope
The end cul-de-sac of “we know what we have to do and still don’t do it” has to be considered from a different perspective than yet-more-science or individual-lifestyle-change. And where that needs to begin is a realisation that so much of the resistance to change stems from the fact that it requires hope.
And as the cliché goes, it’s the hope that kills you.
At JCFJ, we often make the distinction between optimism and hope. Optimism is that moment when you put your energy into something confident that it will generate a good result. The last Green Wave was an optimistic movement; it dissipated almost as soon as environmentalists had to make hard decisions about priorities and compromises.
Hope is a different beast entirely. Hope is that moment when you put your energy into something without any confidence that it will generate results, but because it is a good thing to do. Optimism thinks it will secure the victory. Hope is aiming at something much more elusive: the good.
It is simply not certain that we can avoid a climate catastrophe. If we date the current era from the first COP conference in 1995, we have had more than a generation of inaction when the science has been settled and state of the emergency clear. We could limit our flights and save meat for special occasions, shift to active and public transport and retrofit all our houses, and still the temperatures could rise, the tipping points could fold, and whatever happens after the models reach the limit is unleashed on us.
In that context, where success is not guaranteed, it takes a leap of faith to commit to change. And for the last 200 years, our societies have been busy training us to resist all leaps of faith. Hope costs. We might not prevail. We might destroy Ryanair and still end up unable to grow apples in our back gardens anymore.
Conclusion: An Environmentalism with Soul
Peter Ustinov’s line about hope being lethal is funny only because the one thing that will kill you faster than hope is hopelessness. The dozens of oceanographers and climate scientists who have issued their anguished appeal to the Nordic governments haven’t given up hope. We can still make the changes. But we need to go beyond data modelling and moralistic life hacks to bring our neighbours with us.
We need an environmentalism that resonates with our soul. Appeals grounded in beauty and truth and goodness, and directed towards the transcendental depth within all of us. We can still make the changes. And if made from hope, it can be good even if it all goes bad.
