Like most reasonable bear replicas, Paper Mache Bear believes that reducing waste, promoting energy efficiency, and looking out for the environment are important things to do. PMB understands that individual contributions to these causes can go a long way, so he is sure to be consumption conscious in his daily 'life.' Knowing that there are live bears (Polar) in places that are rather imminently affected by climate change, PMB considers carbon emissions reduction a serious issue. But PMB knows that when sentient human beings get involved in political issues, all hell breaks loose.
Consider the following:
Much of the rhetoric of political advocacy for reduction of carbon emissions emits populist overtones, perhaps for good reason: the 'small steps can go a long way' approach, aimed at effecting big change through the relatively minute, quotidian behavioral changes of committed individuals, is powerful and potentially solvent. The problems arise, however, when this fervor and rhetoric suffuse over any possibility of substantive progress.
What are you talking about, bear?
It has become popular among climate change activists to promote community pledges to the tune of "We, Community X, pledge to try to reduce carbon emissions at our facilities by ten percent by the year 2010 (everyone's doin' it).'
OK, that sounds like a great idea. How do you plan on doing this?
By encouraging individuals to try to take more trains or eat less meat or turn off the lights or take shorter showers or...and then you can report to the community, individually, what you've done, individually, to help us all reduce carbon emissions.
OK, that sounds reasonable to me. So what is our level of carbon emissions now?
Hmm, I don't know.
So how do we measure our carbon emissions, or, for that matter, our carbon reductions?
Hmm, I don't know. It's very difficult to do this. We have some reports, but they're not very precise. It's very difficult to do this.
So let me get this right: we're going to pledge to reduce our unknown quantity X carbon emissions by ten percent by 2010, but we have no way of measuring our carbon reductions? How do you take 10 percent of I Don't Know, measured in increments of I Don't Know Either? It's been a while since I had algebra...
Well, I don't know either...either?
PMB recognizes that there is a major problem here. A pledge of solidarity is one thing; but making what is essentially a rhetorical pledge couched in the language of a substantive pledge is both disingenuous and incredibly self-righteous. Such a pledge amounts to empty words aimed at making everyone feel lovely, and rather ineffectually conceals the fact that there are zero measures of progress, and zero measures of accountability for the pledging community.
PMB could pledge to cure AIDS by the end of the week, or to end global hunger by the end of the month: just make a commitment, he could say, as individuals, to drop off a few cans of pinto beans at the shelter--you know, do your part--and then stop off at the monkey research lab and prod a few Rhesus for a few hours until we get a vaccine. So long as no one has any idea how and to what extent we're progressing, no one can say we haven't succeeded. Furthermore, without any reasonable means of measuring, or even accounting for what we've done, nobody knows what we've failed to do.
Well, OK, PMB didn't mean to be that snarky. But when a debate over a real, concrete, important issue like climate change becomes blinded by such suffusions of goodwill, it can be ultimately counterproductive. PMB applauds the enthusiasm of activists who fight the good fight while most bear replicas sit perched on their walls with no torso or legs; but he also thinks we would all benefit from injecting a healthy dose of intelligence and a dash of prudence into the pulsing veins of this debate.
What's at stake here, apart from the polar bears, is NOT what individuals might fear they might have to do under such a community pledge, nor what potential life or comfort restrictions might be 'imposed' by such a pledge, no. What's at stake, rather, is what individuals might get away with NOT DOING under the warm, pledgy cover of accidental subterfuge. An empty pledge is an enabler of insouciant inaction.
PMB Issue 3 thus concludes with PMB Maxim 3: global warming might be curtailed drastically by reducing the amount of hot air coming out of the mouths of some emissions reduction activists.
