Thinking Like an Iceberg

            Last week, fifty New Hampshire scientists from seven institutions, including UNH and Dartmouth, called on the Republican presidential candidates to accept the “overwhelming balance of evidence” for climate change. “Ignoring the issue of climate change places our health, our quality of life, our economic vitality, and our children’s future at risk,” said the scientists. In Iowa, scientists from reputable Iowa institutions released a similar statement. In both cases, the message was clear: We must reduce the emission of greenhouse gases and we must develop local and statewide strategies “to adapt to near-term changes in climate.”

            But the Republican Party has not shown much interest in addressing near or long-term changes in climate. Mitt Romney accepts that climate change is occurring but isn’t sure how much of it can be attributed to human activity. Rick Perry describes global warming as “one contrived phony mess,” Michelle Bachman refers to it as a “hoax,” and Rick Santorum has called it “junk science.” Ron Paul voted against cap and trade and has vowed to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency. Both he and Newt Gingrich believe that market forces, not government regulations, will help us to reduce emissions and adapt to climate changes. Jon Huntsman is the one presidential candidate who has consistently supported efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While governor, he signed Utah into the Western Climate Initiative and he was the only candidate to support cap and trade. According to most analysts, his candidacy is going nowhere with Republican voters.

            The issue of climate change is a thorny subject for any political leader, but it is particularly troublesome for Republicans. Since the Reagan era, Republicans have presented themselves as the can-do party and much of their enthusiasm for America’s possibilities has been built on a particular type of faith, one grounded on the Doctrine of Overconsumption. Our national identity smells distinctly of high octane.  “Yes, we can,” has come to mean, yes, we can drive jet-skis over water and fly jumbo jets through the skies and zoom SUV’s across interstates. And even if we’re crawling through urban traffic, we’ve got a monstrous eight-cylinder engine reminding us that we’re a very special nation. Were we to reduce our greenhouse gases, we wouldn’t be very special at all.

At least that’s what the GOP tells us. The party operatives are betting that a majority of Americans do not want to live within the limits of planet earth, do not want to adapt to climactic change. Given a choice between the gas-fueled faith of their GOP fathers – most boldly proclaimed with “Drill, baby, drill!” – and the reality of climate change, they believe voters in Iowa and New Hampshire will go with the former. They may be right. (As I write this column, the evangelical Rick Santorum is reported to be gaining on the two front-runners, Romney and Paul.)

I’d like to believe that the Obama campaign will put climate change at the head of its agenda, but that would put them on the side of adaptation to reality, something that most Americans don’t want to vote for. We get things done in this country through fossil fuels and an irrational belief in our own capacities. We don’t adapt to reality; rather we use a self-serving brand of Christianity to make reality adapt to our desires.

In 2008, Obama won by running on the Democrat’s version of “Yes, we can.” Yes, we can help the poor. Yes, we can provide health insurance for all Americans. Yes, we can extend human rights to queer people. Yes, we can get our troops out of Iraq. If his supporters feel disappointed with Obama’s first term in office, some of that disappointment may come from an exaggerated sense of what they thought an American President could do.

In truth, we can’t stop climate change. Even the richest country on earth cannot stop the glaciers from melting and the polar bears from dying off. Even if the President, as Commander in Chief, ordered the military to shut down the airports and coal-burning plants and interstate highways, the effects of decades of carbon emission cannot be erased. The reality is that we have to adapt to a strangely new world, one that will not so easily reflect back the high-octane faith of our fathers.

            The United States is like a massive iceberg that has broken away from the Antarctic shelf and floats, melting, in the sea. For centuries, it was firmly attached to the mainland and its place in the cosmos seemed permanent and proud. The scientists on the iceberg explain the new situation using indisputable data. The Republicans, for the most part, say “Pshaw! All this iceberg talk is just a bunch of liberals wanting us to feel bad about America.” The Democrats notice that the voters are having a hard time adjusting to life on an iceberg. Do they go with the science and burst our illusions? That would be like telling a fifth grader there is no Santa Claus.

            This new world of melting glaciers and rising sea levels requires a different sort of faith, one that stresses adaptation and response instead of the imposition of will. It would be a faith of people unaccustomed to being in charge, who know how to thrive when they own very little. Elements of this faith persist in the African-American community, on the American Indian reservations, in the prayers of Sufis and Quakers, and in twelve-step meetings. The refrain is not “Yes, we can,” but a turning towards the luminous limits of this world. To adapt to the rising waters and respond to warmer winds is this next generation’s holy affair.