By Scott Graber
It is Tuesday, and we’re in Connecticut driving through a rolling landscape where large properties are defined by thigh-high walls made of gneiss and schist. As we drive through Greenwich, National Public Radio takes us to a conference in Egypt where global warming is on the menu. The question on the table is what the “Global North” owes the “Global South” in term of reparations.
NPR’s expert at this conference says that we in the United States manufacture 25% of the carbon dioxide that has made its way into the earth’s atmosphere. Furthermore that we, followed by China, are the world’s biggest polluters. And that we and China are responsible for the droughts, the floods, the famines and riots that have resulted from the increase in temperature.
The rest of the world — especially the developing countries in the Southern Hemisphere collectively called the Global South — want damages for the resulting calamities, both natural and political. They want “accountability,” and accountability means cash and there is no question from NPR’s expert that the two are logically, legally connected.
Later in the day, the discussion (on NPR) turned to the midterm election and the voting population called “white, without a college degree” — a voting bloc formerly called “Joe SixPack” by our very own Lee Atwater. A voting bloc now owned by the young, scented, gel-applying mandarins in the Republican Party.
Now I do understand that the Republicans “underperformed” in the Midterms, but this go-round the “white without” folks constituted 41% of the entire vote and 65% of this 41% voted Republican.
None of these numbers are news to those of us live in the American South. We know that the white, without-a-college-degree folk who happen to be listening to NPR — and there can’t be a whole lot — view the concept of global warming with suspicion.
As I listened to the coverage of this conference and the implicit endorsement (by NPR) of the cause, effect and culpability of the United States, I have no doubt what “Joe and Joleen Sixpack” are thinking about the “damage and reparations” part of NPR’s story.
But I also wondered what would be required if the “Global South” brought suit in the Beaufort County’s Court of Common Pleas and these plaintiffs were required to prove their damages — to prove that the floods, riots, insurrection and mass migration were caused by our carbon emissions. I also thought about the requirement of negligence that would be necessary in our courts.
Proof of negligence requires the disregard of a code, statute or standard. Furthermore, there has to be a connection between the negligence and injury. There would have to be proof that our carbon dioxide caused their floods, their political upheaval, their insurrections and the resulting mass migration.
The Wall Street Journal has weighed-in on accountability saying that “Attribution science is still evolving.” But other scientists say its going to be hard to pin-down who, in particular, caused the recent floods in Pakistan; or who is sending the Senegalese into the Mediterranean.
“I think we’re in some very undefined territory right now,” says Lisa Graumnlich, a professor of Forest Sciences at Washington State University and President Elect of the American Geophysical Union.
Although automobiles and coal-burning generating plants have pumped billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, most historians believe that the invention of the internal combustion engine was, on the whole, a good thing for mankind. And I would bet the young engineers who currently build the GE97 Turbofan (jet engine) don’t see themselves as defendants.
In the 1950s Chairman Mao Zedong made a decision to encourage mass transportation and bicycles in China — to stay away from automobiles. No one knows why he did this, but it’s a good bet Chairman Mao wasn’t thinking about global warming when he made this decision.
In the last 20 years the Chinese reversed themselves on automobile ownership. That decision, along with the industrialization of India, has made the difference. Now internal combustion emissions threaten everyone — even those Lexus-loving aristocrats who live in Charleston, who now must contemplate an 8- to 20-foot-high wall around their frequently flooded peninsula.
The Biden Administration is trying to get us into electric cars; and has recently enacted legislation encouraging off-shore windmills which, in South Carolina’s case, would be in Myrtle Beach. Getting Americans to embrace these changes is probably better than asking Joe Sixpack to send cash to Niger and Burkina Faso.
Scott Graber is a lawyer, novelist, veteran columnist and longtime resident of Port Royal. He can be onreached at cscottgraber@gmail.com.
