Crabby climate change campaigners pollute the air

On an important issue like climate change, there are only two kinds of voices that are heard. One is of the government; whose representatives prevaricate, equivocate and defend the indefensible.

They adopt the tone of rationality when all that they are doing is the most irrational thing. The other is that of the cantankerous and messianic campaigners who want to set up control systems that will arrest and, if possible, reverse the destructive effects of climate change.

They pretend that their case is based on scientific evidence and that it is the right cause. They claim to base their stance on truth and morality. But they speak half-truths, quarter-truths and indulge in exaggerations bordering on lies to drive home their point.

They adopt a self-righteous tone that is morally repulsive because there is so much venom and hatred in the tone and attitude. Of course, they will say that it is all for the good cause.

In the Indian climate change debates, the first voice is that of Union minister of environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh and the second that of Sunita Narain of New Delhi’s Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

What Ramesh and Narain say is not to be trusted because each one of them is batting for their own side and they both are interested in winning. Neither the government nor the CSE have any scientific data on which to base their arguments.

There are no university departments which are studying the climate issue and can come up with value-neutral empirical evidence. As a matter of fact, the campaigners are not interested in evidence. They have made their moral and ideological decisions, and let facts be damned.

The Energy Resources Institute headed by RK Pachauri, Nobel laureate and chief of UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has no trustworthy research credentials in the subject.

There is no informed source in the country which will help us understand the issue and think over it in a rational frame of mind. Ramesh’s announcement to set up a national climate research centre is right but it could be of no use if we do not have scientists who will not take ideological sides.

Scientists are not part of this debate and the few scientists who are there on the two sides trim their evidence and arguments to fulfill the prejudiced demands of each side. The scientists on the side of the campaigners are vague leftists who proclaim their dedication to people’s causes.

And those who work in the government behave like bureaucrats and sometimes even worse than them.

Most of the reports that appear in the Indian media derive their information either from Ramesh or Narain and sometimes, from Pachauri.

All of them are polluted sources of information. That is why, when Ramesh announced in Cancún that India is willing to take on the legal obligation of curbing green house gas emissions in the future, there was more noise than sense.

The minister was accused of changing India’s stance, and Narain accused him of capitulating to the Americans. The minister was motivated by politics in what he said rather than by any true understanding of the issue.

At least that is what he made it out to be. Instead of stating principles and reasons, he cited the dangers of India being isolated in international fora.

If there had been true concern about climate change, then Ramesh’s announcement would have been welcomed. But the campaigners are engaged in a political contest.