Abolishing fossil fuels: Lessons learned from abolishing slavery

As the effects of climate change increase in frequency and severity over the coming years, there is no telling whether Americans and the rest of the world will embark on this journey of change choosing to adapt to our new conditions using civil discourse and rational methods or if we will devolve into creatures of chaos creating more negative conditions that further our own collapse as a social species. 

As rational, intelligent beings, we are supposed to be able to perceive realistic threats and create mitigation methods so as to avoid calamity, but if the past is prologue to what we are capable of in times of crisis and disagreement, then there is some cause for concern. 

Most alarmingly, some of the arguments made against anthropogenic climate change and its disastrous effects on societal stability recently are akin to those made defending slavery leading up to the American Civil war in the 1860s, this according to Marc D. Davidson at the University of Amsterdam in a paper published in 2007 called "Parallels in reactionary argumentation in the US congressional debates on the abolition of slavery and the Kyoto Protocol".

In it, Davidson makes the assertion that:

Today, the United States is as dependent on fossil fuels for its patterns of consumption and production as its South was on slavery in the mid-nineteenth century. That US congressmen tend to rationalize fossil fuel use despite climate risks to future generations just as Southern congressmen rationalized slavery despite ideals of equality is perhaps unsurprising then.

Looking back at earlier times in America through the perspective of our modern age, one would be hard-pressed to find someone who would defend the institution of slavery, but yet, (using Davidson's analogy) in certain circles today, it is considered fashionable to deny the merits of climate science (or Science for that matter) in the face of the clear reality of a deteriorating environment, escalating atmospheric imbalances, and negative economic implications.

Our current addiction to fossil fuels as well as the institution of slavery are/were both fundamentally energy issues at their core.  Central to defending the status-quo of both is the notion that without fossil fuels/slavery, the basic building blocks of both respective American economies would collapse.  We are reminded by business-as-usual supporters of just how reliant we are upon fossil fuels and the economic price we will pay if we deviate from the current course quite regularly; the same arguments, it can be said, were made in order to defend slavery.

It was/is human nature that those people or businesses that did/will suffer economically from the abolition of both respective resources defend their turf.  By continuing to try to rationalize the failed practices of a flawed energy paradigm, we are setting ourselves up to repeat our mistake.  That flawed energy paradigm, in both cases, acted/acts to tear the American nation down socially, economically, and politically to the point where we begin fighting amongst ourselves.

In the case of slavery, it was the South that vigorously defended the continuation of slavery.  In the case of fossil fuels, it is those states that are heavily reliant on fossil fuels for their economic stability that defend the continued use of fossil fuels.  In both cases, strong arguments were/are being made by academics against the continued reliance upon discriminatory and destructive energy sources; in both cases, the nation remained/remains divided on the issue with advocates for each side of the argument animating their messages with vitriol at times.  In the case of slavery, the clash of ideals led to the Civil War.

Is it possible for Americans to pick up arms and turn them on themselves again?  Is it possible today for an issue to cause such a clash of ideals that certain states threaten to secede from the Union again?  Are people so entrenched in their beliefs regarding climate change that civil discourse is no longer an option?

Davidson explores some of the similarities between the current reactionary arguments being made regarding abolishing fossil fuels and addressing climate change today and how people responded to the proposition of abolishing slavery in America's past.

Both energy paradigms rely heavily upon transferring costs to third party shareholders.  In the case of slavery, while slave owners and society in general benefited from the institution, people who were forced into slavery paid disproportionally for societal advances.  In addition, slave owners benefited disproportionally from the institution than people that were forced to be slaves.

The same transfer-of-cost principle applies to fossil fuels; while multinational corporations benefit from lax regulations and minor penalties for disasters, people in countries not as heavily reliant upon fossil fuels as those that are pay the same costs associated with a warmer atmosphere and collapsing global environment.  Additionally, the main costs of fossil fuels, including environmental degradation and disasters, are transferred onto the general public today and onto future generations whose only implication in the matter was being born.

Both slavery and fossil fuel addiction are inherently unfair energy paradigms; both seeking to concentrate wealth and societal benefits into the hands of a few while displacing the costs to many 'others'.  In the case of slavery, the stubbornness of the entrenched power brokers led to war. In our modern times, we have hopefully learned from our mistakes and have gained the skills necessary to tone down the escalating rhetoric and introduce rational dialogue.

There is no doubt that climate change is upon us.  What we will do next is the question.

The paradigms that we lived/live under are (for most of us) the only realities we know.  Most people can not conceptualize another life outside of their own perspective.  We have trouble as a society today, imagining a world without fossil fuels and unlimited economic growth the same way that people living during the times of slavery had trouble conceptualizing a world without the institution.

The arguments being made today through the disinformation campaigns regarding climate change are eerily similar to some of those made against abolishing slavery, namely, the argument that the opposite of reality is true.

In the case of slavery, supporters argued that:

The Central African race...had never existed in so comfortable, so respectable, or so civilized a condition as that which it now enjoyed in the Southern States.  Slavery was not an evil.  Not at all.  It was a good – a great good.
A merrier being does not exist on the face of this globe, than the negro slave of the United States.

In the case of fossil fuels, supporters argue that:

Thus far, no one has seriously demonstrated any scientific proof that increased global temperatures would lead to the catastrophic predictions by alarmists. In fact, it appears just the opposite is true, that increases in global temperature have beneficial effect on how we live our lives. What gets obscured in the global warming debate is the fact that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is necessary for life. Numerous studies have shown that global warming can actually be beneficial to mankind.  It would be beneficial to our environment and the economy.

We know now, looking back at America's limited reasoning for the continuance of slavery, that our logic was faulty then.  We see the foolishness of reframing reality in this way.  Today, we have improved upon these disinformation campaigns, using focus groups to hone in on marketing strategies that will confuse the issue the most.  But like with slavery, no amount of disinformation can escape the clutches of time.  It might take a century to do, but the abolition of fossil fuels will be as certain and as powerful of a catalyst for positive economic and social growth as was the abolition of slavery.

Climate denialists, like slavery supporters, rely/relied on not only skewing information and creating a false reality, but also on leaving whole sets of data out of their arguments.  While Southern states defended the continuation of slavery for economic benefits, people forced into slavery fought to be free, their voices often silenced and left out of the political decisions of the time.  Likewise, in order to deny climate change, skeptics have to discredit and try to silence climate scientists; they have to come up with alternate, oftentimes irrational explanations for weather anomalies around the globe.  Additionally, fossil fuel advocates must completely ignore the economic ramifications of our continued reliance upon limited resources in an already stressed global economy.  So too, slavery supporters ignored whole sets of data that forecast a giant economic expansion in America as a result of setting people in slavery free.  Both in the past and now, supporters of slavery and fossil fuels had to rely primarily on Americans buying their half-truths rather than on the merits of a rational argument.

Can we learn something from America's transition from a slavery-supporting nation in the 19th Century to one where America became the defender of freedom around the globe during the 20th Century?  Will we advocate energy reform on our own, or will we need policing from a global force to make us stop our abuses?

The pursuit of financial gain will undoubtedly make people defend even the most egregious of crimes, all the while touting their convictions as truth despite the evident lack of certainty that life offers us.  Fossil fuel supporters currently are defending their way of life using similar arguments and tactics to those who attempted and failed to defend slavery.  Slavery went away because humanity evolved; fossil fuels will also go away for the same reason.

In the case of slavery, the issue was solved through a bloody civil war that threatened to tear apart the country.  In the case of fossil fuel addiction, we are still trying to sort through our mitigation options.

As we sort through the respective options as a nation and as a global community, it is becoming apparent that a fair solution to our current energy crisis may just undermine success at averting calamity.  Fairness may inhibit success.  We are going to need, to be able to embrace uncertainty in both what to expect in a changing environment and climate and social order, as well as be able to accept uncertainty regarding whether or not our mitigation methods will work over time.  We are going to have to remain calm and maintain a rational dialogue.

Currently, though, negotiations surrounding a transition from fossil fuels to cleaner renewable energy sources are not being inhibited by climate science; rather, the stumbling blocks' source is coming from the age old childhood argument: 'Why should I if they don't?'

Advocates of this line of reasoning advance the notion that emission regulations on the part of some nations while others continue to rely on coal, oil, and gas will undoubtedly lead to a world still dependent on fossil fuels with climate change still advancing its collapsing influence. 

The same reasoning was used in the case of slavery:

Every prudent slaveholder in the slaveholding part of the State, would either migrate with his slaves to some State where his rights in slave property would be secured to him by the laws, or would surrender at once his rights in the parent stock as well as in their future increase, and seek some land where he may enjoy at least the earnings of his own industry.

Non-uniform regulations undoubtedly would lead to corporations seeking out environmentally unfriendly nations in order to continue their destructive practices and overall emissions would remain the same.

We won’t even get reduced carbon emissions. That’s because every ton of reduced emissions in the United States and other developed nations will be made up – and then some – in the developing world.

The most poignant comparison that Davidson makes in his paper is on the topic of sovereignty.  He makes the case that with both slavery and fossil fuels, advocates for both pushed the idea that states rights trump federal law.  This can be seen today with states like Texas all but declaring war on the EPA over emission regulations and threatening to secede from the U.S. if federal regulations take precedent over their individual state's rights. 

The argument of sovereignty gets even more heated when the regulatory body becomes the United Nations.

It cuts to the heart of our national sovereignty by setting up an international authority that would subject U.S. businesses and industries to its authority and penalties. Never before in the history of this free Nation has that occurred. This is one U.S. Senator that will not allow it to occur.

In the case of slavery, sovereignty was what ultimately led to states seceding from the Union:

Slavery is a domestic institution. It belongs to the States, each for itself to decide, whether it shall be established or not; and if it be established, whether it should be abolished or not. Such being the clear and unquestionable right of the States, it follows necessarily that it would be a flagrant act of aggression on a State, destructive of its rights, and subversive of its independence, for the Federal Government, or one or more States, or their people, to undertake to force on it the emancipation of its slaves. It is not for them, nor for the Federal Government to determine, whether our domestic institution is good or bad; or whether it should be repressed or preserved. It belongs to us, and us only, to decide such questions.

Whenever change becomes necessary, there will always be those who seek to gain from the established paradigm that will work to keep the destructive system in place, employing whatever means necessary, for as long as they continue to benefit from it.  The suffering of others never quite enters their reasoning because they have used their now-failing infrastructure to insulate themselves from the reality of a collapsing economy, environment, and social order around them.  In the end, though, they can never escape the evolution of humanity and its critical eye of past offenses.

There are many parallels regarding the difficulty with which America had abolishing slavery that are now beginning to show themselves again in our attempt to abolish fossil fuels.  America failed to engage slavery on an intellectual level, which nearly caused the collapse of our nation.  We are destined to repeat the mistakes of our past if we continue to inject irrational rhetoric and stalling tactics into the most serious discussion surrounding climate change and our dependence on fossil fuels. 

Errors that slumber peacefully through one age, may be instantly detected in the next, because they are looked at from other points of observation.

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