The Hope and Adaptation Special – Issue #46
Hope or defeatism? Climate change is a daunting problem, and it's easy to feel overwhelmed or hopeless in the face of it. But defeatism may be just as dangerous as climate denial.
The Big Picture
Last week, Washington Post published an important article.
The barrage of bad news on the climate front – as scientists, activists and others try to mobilise change by depicting the costs in unsparing terms -- is creating climate “doomers”. These are people who, said the daily, have come to “believe that the climate problem cannot, or will not, be solved in time to prevent all-out societal collapse. And some scientists and experts worry that their defeatism — which could undermine efforts to take action — may be just as dangerous as climate denial.”
This is a real tightrope act. Fear might lead to action – or defeatism. Hope might lead to complacency – or action. “Psychologists have long believed that some amount of hope, combined with a belief that personal actions can make a difference, can keep people engaged on climate change,” says the WaPo article. “But, according to a study by researchers at Yale and Colorado State universities, “many Americans who accept that global warming is happening cannot express specific reasons to be hopeful.”
Nearly everyone reading this newsletter works towards environmental justice. And so, the question writes itself. Do we imbue people with hope?
Hailstorms, crop losses, and a question about elusive state capacity
The video, uploaded onto twitter, was extraordinary.
Shot from a moving vehicle, one sees a thin road flanked on both sides by bare snow-covered fields.
All rather scenic and pretty if not for three things. The video was from normally arid Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan. The fields had been planted with wheat, mustard and fenugreek – all laid low by a freak hailstorm. Similar reports came from other parts of north and central India.
Just weeks ago, we were wondering if the faster build up of heat would reduce crop yields. And look at where we are now. In all, 2023 is following in 2022’s footsteps. Last year too, as The Wire reported, Punjab and Haryana lost about 15-20% of their wheat crop due to excessive heat and untimely rain, ending India’s wheat export dreams. This year, wrote the website, climate damages have reached MP as well. “Due to untimely rain, the grains have darkened and the moisture invites disease too,” it wrote. “That is why wheat is selling way below MSP in MP.”
Similar tales come from other parts of the country. This year too, Punjab has seen hailstorms, high speed winds and rains. So have, as the tweet says above, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Maharashtra. Hardwired into all this is the question of adaptation – and state capacity. In the case of Punjab, as The Wire wrote: “There was no notification on the weather and many farmers, not expecting rainfall, had irrigated their fields.”
This lack of notifications is a surprise. This problem – of aseasonal rain – has been around for long. The problem of poor dissemination of climate alerts has been known for long as well. Here is a report from 2015 where scientists bemoan Punjab’s failure to alert farmers about developing weather systems. And yet, here we are again.
At this time, it cannot even be said that state capacity (towards adaptation and mitigation) is unevenly distributed across India. Over the last two weeks, we have seen the failure of Goa’s forest department to anticipate forest fires – despite rising temperatures. Turn to Tamil Nadu and you find – superficially -- a state which is moving to rid its forests of invasives. The subtext, however, is interesting. “Since the state forest department’s measures proved to be largely ineffective,” wrote the New Indian Express, “The government has taken a major policy decision to allow Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Papers Limited (TNPL) to remove the invasive trees and use the wood for manufacturing paper.” The department has similarly failed to bury high-tension wires, resulting in the death of one more elephant.
Flood-prone Assam, as this report showed, is yet to start dealing with the second-order effects of flooding. “While the government and some not-for-profits provide food, ration, medicine and relief material, there are no special provisions to help pregnant women receive proper nutrition and reproductive healthcare facilities during the floods,” says an activist in the report. That is just one instance.
As much as 40% of Assam is flood-prone. One would think the state would have a template for coping with these disasters by now – one which treats its citizens with some care. India does, remember, prepare for the Kumbh Mela with immaculate precision year after year.
Punjab in the North. Tamil Nadu in the South. Goa in the west. And Assam in the East. A real case of unity amidst diversity.
News of the Week
Inspired by Africa's 'Great Green Wall' concept, India wants to create a green belt -- 1400 kilometres long and 5 kilometres wide -- along the Aravalis to stop the Thar desert from expanding to the East. In tandem, however, the country has also reported the highest rise in deforestation in the last 30 years. Between 2015 and 2020, the country registered a strong surge in forest loss – second only to Brazil, as per Utility Bidder, a UK-based energy consultant.
In other news, Wall Street Journal is the latest publication to ask if India can simultaneously chase the goals of decarbonisation – and atmanirbharta. Writing on India’s crackdown on electric two-wheelers who sought FAME subsidies, it says: “India might be putting the cart in front of the horse when it comes to electric vehicles. EVs are starting to take off, but the government is determined to build a local component industry simultaneously,” it wrote. “That might be a big ask, at least until the market reaches substantially larger scale—and certain other supply-side roadblocks are removed.”
All of which brings us back to the question we started with. Where is hope?
Well, there is. Amidst all the ugly processes, there are also signs of fundamental change. One instance surfaced this week from the department of decarbonisation. Fortescue Future Industries has successfully tested a new technology which lets it make steel without using coal.
Much has been written, too, about the difficulty of moving hydrogen and if ammonia can be used as a medium for transporting it. French industrial gases giant Air Liquide is betting so. It will build an industrial-scale ammonia cracking pilot plant at the port of Antwerp in Belgium to convert imported NH3 into hydrogen and nitrogen.
There is also news on ESG. “Hundreds of funds are about to be stripped of their environmental, social and governance ratings and thousands more will be downgraded in a shake-up being pushed through by index provider MSCI,” reported Financial Times.
In these ways, one sees the pieces for a new energy architecture fall into place. At the same time, pieces of the old energy architecture continue to get hammered. News came this week that Europe is heading towards overcapacity in LNG terminals. Closer home, India’s Adani group stayed in trouble. The Financial Times reported that offshore companies “linked to the Adanis” and “bearing funds of unclear provenance” invested close to half of all the FDI the group attracted. Even as question rise about the ownership of that money, other questions surround the group as well. As its flagship ports business faces higher borrowing costs, can it support the rest of the group?
Climate change, however, cannot be defeated by fixing energy architectures alone. Social progress is needed too. And so, look at the world and you will see a melee of movements – all struggling but persevering to make the world a more just place.
Climate Long Reads of the Week
'Whose Forest?': Why Indigenous People from Tiger Reserves Across India Gathered at Nagarahole (Wire)
Project Tiger at 50, by environmental historian Mahesh Rangarajan
Sri Lanka reels from aftershocks of debt crisis (FT). Also see this: Sri Lanka’s IMF Agreement Will Not Alter the Trajectory of a Collapsing Economy (Wire)
Rhetoric Aside, India Must Find Answers to These Seven Critical Questions on Green Hydrogen(Wire)
Fallen Forest: Cambodia’s Political Reforestation Unlikely To Survive. A Pulitzer Center investigation on how outdated reforestation tactics are dooming Southeast Asia’s ecosystems and carbon capture efforts.
Talking of poor adaptation and mitigation, read this: Forced into construction jobs, migrants must now contend with climate change. (Morning Context)
I Saw the Face of God in a Semiconductor Factory. As the US boosts production of silicon chips, Wired goes inside TSMC, the mysterious Taiwanese company at the center of the global industry.
Solar power: Europe attempts to get out of China’s shadow. (FT)
Why Bhutan failed its hydropower goal, and what this shows about the geopolitics of energy. (Thirdpole)
And then, there is the paradox that is the world’s middle-eastern petrostates. “Flush with revenue, they are also becoming bankers to the world,” writes Phenomenal World. “And with many of their clients increasingly bent on the energy transition, their role as financiers is increasingly at odds with their role as drillers.”
Books of the week
Given our yammering about hope this week, our book of the week is going to be CLR James’ The Black Jacobins.
This is the account of the world’s first successful slave rebellion – in San Domingo. Under Touissant L’Ouverture, a poorly-educated slave, the people of San Domingo invoked the principles of the French revolution – and fought off the French. Thereafter, they kept Spain and Great Britain off their island – modern-day Haiti – as well. This is a remarkable book, written by a historian at the peak of his powers, with enough years behind him to be able to look back and mull on the human condition as he wrote the island’s history. One of the truly unputdownable books this, um, newsletter has ever read.
The modern-day history of Haiti continues to be one of struggle. Neo-colonialism ensured that. But, for a while, its people rose up against three of the greatest empires of the world has seen – and defeated them all.