Climate change is not a culture war issue

The blame lies with both the right and the identitarian left.

Climate change is an existential threat to humanity and needs to be taken seriously by political figures on the left and right. The reality and potential risks of global warming and climate instability are undeniable. However, the possible solutions may vary according to your political persuasion and figures both sides of the political divide need to listen to each other on this issue.

Sadly, the climate change narrative is being corrupted by identity politics on the left and a strand of reactionary and murky politics on the right. Blame for this disastrous state of affairs lies across traditional left and right.

How is the identitarian left corrupting the narrative?

Predictably, figures on the identitarian left are using climate change as a wedge to drive between identity groups and as a stick to wield against outgroups (white men). The most aggressive users of these short-sighted and divisive tactics have been the feminists.

For example, the oft-repeated claim that women and girls are disproportionately affected by climate change. I have seen no evidence to support this assertion whose truth lies entirely with its frequency of repetition. Indeed, during the recent floods in Pakistan, more men than women drowned. This may have been because they stayed behind to protect farms and houses while women fled to higher ground. Despite this, the UN proclaimed that women and girls were bearing the brunt of the crisis. I suspect we will see a similar pattern emerge over the flood unfolding in Libya.

Then there is the other form of attack that holds men and toxic masculinity in particular, responsible for climate change. Once again, evidence for this is lacking and it would require the kind of detailed audit that has not been done to verify this claim. It may be true that men and women contribute to climate change in slightly different ways, but there is no doubt that they both contribute and any difference is likely to be small. Humankind is responsible for climate change and the identity prism adds nothing useful to the debate. For a good example of this kind of toxic narrative, read Stephen Burrell’s academic posturings. Stephen is an ‘academic’ at the University of Durham who was featured in this blog previously after airing some ill-informed views on COVID. More recently, he has argued, without supporting evidence, that climate change is a form of masculine violence. The issue of climate change is being used to drive a wedge been men and women at a time when we need to be at our most cohesive and focused.

Another problem is that academic feminism and ‘critical social justice’ in general have done a lot to undermine the credibility of our Universities which, when functioning properly, should be the engines of knowledge. Indeed, Some feminists have completely unmoored themselves from objective reality. For example, according to Kelly Oliver,

In order to be revolutionary, feminist theory cannot claim to describe what exists, or, “natural facts.” Rather, feminist theories should be political tools, strategies for overcoming oppression in specific concrete situations. The goal, then, of feminist theory, should be to develop strategic theories—not true theories, not false theories, but strategic theories.

Or take Professor Emma Renold of Cardiff University who has ‘widened the purview of what is considered knowledge’ by claiming to read minds through the medium of of interpretative dance and even divine the forces of the oppressive patriarchy operating in Welsh mining valleys.

This sort of ‘scholarship’ is endemic within ‘critical social justice’ in general and feminism in particular. Unfortunately, the harms extend well beyond the narrow disciplines that underwrite this pseudo-science. They also undermine trust in the wider work of our universities including the science of climate change. If you can’t trust universities on the subjects of gender and race perhaps we should dismiss climate science too. Figures on the right have been quick to lump together credible scientific findings backed by empirical data, with the wackier fringes of critical social justice scholarship and use that to undermine well-founded science. Universities have themselves to blame for this state of affairs.

A final problem, in the UK at least, is that the Green Party, instead of trying to build coalitions across left and right to fight climate change and environmental destruction, has backed the crazier fringes of identity politics. In doing so, it has alienated many moderates who might otherwise support them. For example, in Scotland, the Green Party’s female MPs were at the forefront of pushing for gender self-ID. Similarly, in Brighton the Greens have pushed an extreme RSE curriculum in local schools. If the Greens are not to alienate many environmentally concerned, but socially conservative voters, they should remain neutral on those contentious issues.

How are the right wing commentators poisoning the narrative?

First, by capitalising on the junk scholarship published by critical social justice scholars and using that to cast doubt on academic research in general. However, climate science is the antithesis of the pseudo-scholarship that underpins identity group politics. For example, critical social justice or ‘woke’ relies on lived experience, but only the lived experience of the supposedly historically marginalised and even then, only if it conforms to the tenets of critical social justice. Conversely, climate science relies on verifiable data and models which have been worryingly accurate in predicting climate change over time. Neither does climate science rely on standpoint epistemology (we all have our own truths) or ‘widening the purview of what constitutes knowledge.

Paradoxically, when it comes to climate change denial the right is quite prepared to borrow from the critical social justice playbook.

‘Lived experience’ it doesn’t seem to be getting any hotter to me. Unfortunately, there is a shifting baseline problem here and what we regard as normal summers and winters has shifted as the climate has warmed. As with other forms of lived experience, our recollections of the past are unreliable.

That ‘knowledge is constructed by power’ and the climate change lobby is just a powerful group who have created their own self-perpetuating narrative, or at least that is the flavour of the argument being pushed by some right-wing commentators.

The falsification of history. Feminists often rely on a highly partial account of history. A good example of this kind of revisionism would be the story of universal suffrage. Climate change denialists adopt similar tactics. What are seeing at present, they say, is normal historical variation. To bolster this claim, they invent false histories. For example, that the Romans were growing grapes and oranges along Hadrian’s Wall which would make current changes in climate not at all unusual. There are, in fact, cycles of global warming and cooling, but according to these, the earth should be cooling.

Appealing to those groups demonised by identity group politics. When feminists use climate change to attack men it isn’t too surprising that figures on the right capitalise on this and work to appeal to that same alienated group.

The future.

The climate change narrative of feminists needs to be challenged. In particular that women and girls are disproportionately impacted and blame for climate change lies disproportionately with men. This narrative has a divisive effect and makes concerted action against climate change even more difficult. Climate change affects us all.