(J) Truth and Justice – the American way.

Locke’s primary contention is that the right to govern comes with a duty to govern in the interests of the governed…(p.598) while Hobbes, ‘In order to legitimize the powers of sovereigns…invites his readers to think of sovereigns and states as the creations of free, self interested people.’ (p. 385.)
(Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy.)

Following in this tradition, in 1971, John Rawls published ‘A Theory of Justice.’ His central idea is that in order to achieve a just social system, people should have to choose the social structure they inhabit ignorant of self knowledge and their place in the world – that is, from behind a veil of ignorance.

‘What such free individual’s do know are general social, economic, psychological and physical theories of all kinds.’ (Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. p.884.)

It follows from the occurrence of a highly valid scientific understanding of reality however, that those behind Rawls’ veil of ignorance, as part of a general knowledge about the world would know that we would encounter a nest of threats in the energy crisis, climate change, over-population and environmental degradation, and because preventing human extinction serves what must reasonably be considered integral to every-one’s conception of the good, rationally selfish actors ignorant of their place in the world, would agree a social contract to honour and employ scientifically valid knowledge for mutual benefit. But despite the validity and impartiality of scientific knowledge, clearly this doesn’t occur to Rawls.

He’s not dodging the issue, playing politics or stupid. Rawls is well informed, very intelligent and deeply conscientious in his intellectual pursuit of justice – and yet simply overlooks science. Rather, from behind the veil of ignorance, his rationally self interested actors arrive at a form of social democracy in which inequalities work to the advantage of the least fortunate. This requires the redistribution of wealth through taxation and a fair equality of opportunity.

In 1974 Robert Nozick published ‘Anarchy, State and Utopia’ as a libertarian critique of Rawls work, arguing for a minimal state in order to protect individual liberty – insisting that an individual has a duty to cooperate only on terms that violate no-one’s rights. If that’s the case, the individual could cooperate on the basis of a scientific conception of reality – for objectively valid knowledge cannot be in violatation of anyone’s rights, but again, even the theoretical possibility of adopting science as a legitimate authority for political and economic decision making is overlooked.

The reason for this is that the terms of analysis employed by Rawls and Nozick externalize a scientific conception of reality. Religion plays no obvious part in their deliberations – except to the extent that they both defend secularism and the freedom of people to believe whatever they like without interference from the state. But the nation state and capitalist economics – post-Enlightenment rationalizations of fundamentally religious ideas – are treated as if they were natural concepts.

Those behind the veil of ignorance are not free to question the nation state as a mode of political organization, and in view of the energy crisis and climate change conclude that it might be better not to divide the human species. Nor are they free to draw upon ‘physical theories of all kinds’ to reason that the self-interested pursuit of wealth is fundamentally incompatible with environmental sustainability. Nozick’s individual rights holders hold no right to truth. Instead, everyone, including the state has a right to lie in pursuit of their own selfish interest. One might argue that Rawls and Nozick sought relevance to existing political and economic systems, but in doing so they unwittingly externalize a scientifically valid conception of reality.

In 1975 Wilson Clark published ‘Energy for Survival – the alternative to extinction’ so it’s not that these issues weren’t matters of concern at that time. He comments: ‘… one scientific conference has agreed that further increases in the use of fossil fuels will lead to an increase of 1.4 degree Fahrenheit in the surface temperature of the Earth by the year 2000, which is painfully near the 2 degrees Fahrenheit temperature change that atmospheric scientists think may result in far more drastic climate changes than a warming of the surface.’ (p.116.)

He goes on to explain that the data can be interpreted in different ways, stating: ‘One school of thought argues that instead of growing warmer, the Earth may enter an ice-age as a result of man-made fuels combustion. The combustion of fossil fuels releases large quantities of particulate matter into the atmosphere, which may reflect sunlight away from the Earth, thus cooling the planet.’ (p.117.)

Despite the compelling, even alarmist title of Clark’s work, his is a responsible approach to the scientific knowledge available in 1975. But despite thirty years accumulated evidence and the use of supercomputers to model the climate, the modern debate has descended into an eerily familiar pattern. In 1632 the Church suppressed Galileo’s findings, and in 1859 Darwin met with a storm of derision and staunch denials that continue to this day. Similarly, Dr Timothy Ball argues:

‘Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn’t exist. And I am not the only one trying to make people open up their eyes and see the truth.’ Asking and answering his own question, he continues: ‘Maybe for the same reason we believed, 30 years ago, that global cooling was the biggest threat: a matter of faith.’

This is clearly at odds with Clark’s presentation of the question, and does not account for the modern scientific understanding of the effect particulates have in the atmosphere – a cooling effect called Global Dimming thought to mask the true extent of the greenhouse effect. His basis for denying the validity of climate change theory seems to be that because (some) scientists were wrong then, they are wrong now. If we look Dr Timothy Francis Ball up in Wikipedia however, we find: ‘[He] formerly headed the activist organization Friends of Science, which was funded by energy industries.’

Whether Ball believes what he’s saying – and has thus attracted funding from the energy industry, or has tailored his opinions for sale is irrelevant to the fact that scientific impartiality is lost in the social treatment of scientific information.
From the website of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform – part of the so-called checks and balances built into the explicitly secular governmental system of the United States of America, we note:

‘White House officials and political appointees…censored congressional testimony on the causes and impacts of global warming, controlled media access to government climate scientists, and edited federal scientific reports to inject unwarranted uncertainty into discussions of climate change and to minimize the threat to the environment and the economy.’

The report was published in December 2007 but President G.W. Bush attended the July 2008 G8 meeting in Hokkaido, Japan – still invested with the authority to make decisions on the future of climate change policy. Mr Bush said: “I’ve always advocated there needs to be common understanding and that starts with a goal.” However, he added: “I am also realistic enough to tell you that, if China and India don’t share the same aspiration, we’re not going to solve the problem.” (Financial Times July 15th 2008.)

Of course, this is not George Bush’s fault. His obvious insincerity is on script – perfectly rational in terms of fundamentally irrational political and economic dynamics, as this interview for ‘Tonight – with Trevor McDonald’ (Monday July 4th 2005) shows. The issue was the 2001 Kyoto Protocol:

‘McDonald: But Mr President, if I may, the predictions about global warming are very dire. The UK’s Chief Scientists says it poses a bigger threat than global terrorism. Isn’t it therefore irresponsible for you to say, as you’ve done, that you walked away from Kyoto and won’t order cuts in carbon dioxide emissions because it will damage the American economy?

Bush: I walked away from Kyoto because it would damage America’s economy, you bet…’

The problem is not that we lack the knowledge or technology to address these threats, but that that nation state and capitalist economics are treated as if they have some epistemological superiority to scientific fact. Defined first in religious terms, these conceptual developments divide humankind into politically, economically and militarily opposed groups, and in these terms, the cooperation necessary to tackle climate change is impossible.