A Classic Catch-22 That May Spell Disaster

Economist Paul Krugman has a very good post up about the slim passage of the environmental bill in the U.S. Congress last week. He writes about how the actions of some of those who voted against it may very well constitute treason against the planet. I certainly wouldn't disagree with him one little bit on that perspective. It's becoming increasingly clear that many individuals and organizations are working in what they consider to be their own, selfish best interests in the short term, with little or no regard for any long term consequences to the species.

What strikes me is the Catch-22 nature of the situation we find ourselves in, vis-a-vis Climate Change. In Joseph Heller's World War II novel of the same name, one of the examples of a Catch-22 was a fighter pilot requesting release from his duties on the grounds that he believed that he was losing his mind. The person in charge, however, argued that anyone sane enough to worry that he was losing his mind must therefore be sane enough to continue flying missions: Catch-22!

We're in a similar boat on the environment, I fear. In order for some people to believe that Climate Change is real and in need of a strong response (one that might even *gasp* involve raising taxes on American citizens!), something fairly dramatic and undeniable is going to have to happen. It can't be anything that can be explained away (see: Katrina) but has to be something unprecedented... like New York City being drowned under a tidal wave, for example. The problem, of course, is that by the time something like that actually happens, it'll be well beyond the point where anything could be done to stem the tide. In other words, we need something definitive to happen before enough people will believe, but by the time that thing occurs, believing won't make any difference: Catch-22!

As I'm sure I've blogged about before, the aspect of the argument that makes it easy for me to decide which side to come down on is this: if Climate Change isn't real, then the cost of being wrong is that we reduce our dependence on foreign oil, develop renewable energy sources that will power our lifestyles for centuries, protect more of the planet from plundering, and generally encourage people to treat natural resources as precious. Oh, and yeah, OK, some stuff may cost more as we learn to build the real expense of items into the price tag. I can live with all that!

Whereas the "oops" factor if we err in the other direction is that we may end up wiping ourselves out, along with many other species, in addition to the hundreds or thousands that we've already made extinct. Hmm, that's a Hell of a big "oops"!

As project management risk analyses go, that's pretty much a no-brainer in terms of deciding between Plan-A and Plan-B. I wish most of the choices I've had to make in my career were as black and white as that one! Unfortunately, many of the Climate Change deniers are playing the part of the Eternal Optimists of Project Management, who bury their heads in the sand when it comes to risks and simply continue to believe that everything will work out fine as long as we all keep doing what we've been doing. It just happens that, in this case, "failure" may end up meaning that there aren't any more projects... ever.