Delusion in A Beautiful Mind

If you’re interested in saving the environment, you don’t need to be convinced that climate denial is both delusional and deadly; that it flies in the face of a massive scientific consensus held by NASA and nearly 200 other international scientific organizations, and will result in the ruination of our home planet.

But those interested in saving the environment often suffer from a different deadly delusion: faith in democracy to solve our environmental problems. Nearly all the solutions proposed by environmentalists involve persuading our current democratic institutions to change their ways. Yet this strategy has delivered no results after decades of dedicated attempts; indeed, things have become worse. Remember the popular definition of insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”?

The alternative seems unthinkable to most progressives (keeping in mind that most environmentalists are progressives): an authoritarian regime that will impose environmental solutions onto the whole of society. The “unthinkable” is an interesting point to contemplate, because this boils down to the very foundation of the political mind. The cognitive linguist George Lakoff argues that there are two basic metaphors that govern the political mind: the nurturing parent and strict father models. Progressives — and, by extension, most environmentalists — envision politics along the nurturing parent model; whereas conservatives — and, by extension, most climate deniers — envision politics along the strict father model. This means that environmentalists are pretty much hard-wired to resist authoritarian solutions, even if they make sense.

A further problem for progressive environmentalists is that the small subgroup of environmentalists with an inclination towards authoritarian solutions tends to be an unsavory bunch who use the environment as a smokescreen to hide a racist and nationalist worldview. However, there are more credible voices who acknowledge the limitations of democracy. One such person is James Lovelock, the scientist who proposed the “Gaia Hypothesis” that provided great inspiration to the environmental movement in recent decades. Lovelock identified democracy as being an obstruction to meaningful action, noting that “Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.” If you have the time, this argument is explored in detail in the book The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy by David Shearman and Joseph Wayne Smith.

So between an inclination to resist the strict father model and a perfectly understandable desire not to be aligned with racists, environmentalists cling to a hope in democracy. Most environmentalists are fully aware that people justifiably have diminishing faith in the democratic process, as shown in two recent reports: Global Dissatisfaction with Democracy 2020 from the University of Cambridge and Global Democracy in Retreat from The Economist Intelligence Unit. Most environmentalists are aware that democracy has been co-opted by billionaires and corporations to serve the needs of capitalism. However, these same environmentalists would rather discuss reforming democracy than choosing a different system. If we weren’t in the middle of an environmental crisis, it would be entirely reasonable to try and reform democracy, but this will takes decades, and we simply do not have the time. So in the end, climate denial and faith in democracy take us to the same place: ruin.

We need to move beyond the knee-jerk reactions to this possible solution. Yes, it’s true that authoritarian regimes have historically been corrupt and bad news for most people. However, imagine your choice was distilled to the following: “democracy and environmental catastrophe” or “authoritarianism and environmental salvation.” Salvation is a compelling choice. In reality, this is the choice we currently have: it’s just most people have yet to realize it.