‘War is a result of climate change’: commentator’s ridiculous call

Extinction Rebellion climate change protesters demonstrate during a rally in Trafalgar Square, London. Picture: AP

Well that was some revelation. According to social commentator, columnist, and feminist Jane Caro AM, climate change is responsible for starting wars. Speaking on 3AW last week in support of Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg’s nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, she told an incredulous Neil Mitchell: “There are many people who believe that, for example, the Syrian conflict is the result of the collapse of the wet season due to climate change,” leading in turn to a lack of crops and food, mass migration, and one of the bloodiest wars of the his century.

“So we’re already seeing war as a result of climate change,” she concluded. Pressed on the issue, she quickly shifted from the definitive to weasel words, stating “It’s not broadly accepted, but it’s certainly arguable”. Asked why Thunberg should be awarded the prize, Caro stated that people had, in great numbers, “marched peacefully and with a sort of joyous hope” as a result of her actions.

• Extinction Rebellion: who are they and what do they want?

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks at a climate strike rally in Denver, USA. Picture: AP

You would hope there is a little more to being awarded the prize than feel-good gestures and the number of Facebook likes, but then again in 2009 Barack Obama took that honour because, hey, black president. Like Thunberg, he was something of a climate mystic. After securing the Democratic nomination in 2008, this humble man declared “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” Thunberg, conversely, is more your angry oracle type, as evident by her “How dare you” outburst at the United Nations climate summit last month. In any event it was another black leader, Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed, who was awarded the prize, although unlike Obama he has done something to deserve it.

As to Caro’s expertise in climate-induced conflict, we need only scan her Twitter feed. “FFS!,” she angrily tweeted last year in response to someone who disputed her pronouncements. “I am a cattle breeder and part owner of a wine company! Don’t tell me about climate change.”

FFS! I am a cattle breeder and part owner of a wine company! Don’t tell me about climate change. Those who think it is not happening, not our fault or something we can just ignore are blinded by ideology.

— Jane Caro (@JaneCaro) August 25, 2018

In 2012, she tweeted to ABC’s Q&A, “In war, people get killed. That’s why you have to think very, very carefully about getting involved.” Could she be the new Sun Tzu? Just think of the magisterial tome to follow: ‘Jane Caro: The Art of Waffling’.

#qanda In war, people get killed. That's why you have to think very, very carefully about getting involved. It's not a game.

— Jane Caro (@JaneCaro) September 3, 2012

In fairness to her, we should not be so quick to dismiss her theory that climate change caused the Syrian conflict. It is well known, for example, that Islamic State fighters were obsessed with killing by fire and drowning. Could it be they were symbolising the existential threat posed by a warming planet and rising seas?

There is additional evidence to suggest these supposed fundamentalists were acting to save the planet. For example, contrary to the belief they were hellbent on establishing a caliphate, it would appear they were making demands in broken English for “a climate abate” scheme. To test this theory and to end the conflict, the United Nations should consider supplying ISIS with solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal technology and a few oversized Tesla batteries, as well as encouraging them to celebrate Earth Hour. If the Caro theory is correct, then within months we will witness the joyful sight of Kurds, Salafi jihadists, and Ba’athist officials laying down their arms and embracing former enemies as brothers.

Social commentator Jane Caro. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Indeed, her theory is so revelatory and groundbreaking that one must also question orthodoxy regarding previous wars. When Bosnian Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, in 1914, thus precipitating the First World War, it was put down to burgeoning Yugoslavian nationalism. It is arguable, to use Caro’s rationale, that Princip was a proto-eco-warrior who acted in desperation to force the Austro-Hungarian empire to impose a carbon tax.

British foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey’s famous lament on the eve of hostilities, “The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime”, has long been regarded as a poetic metaphor. But arguably he was speaking literally regarding the failure of the European nations in 1914 to invest in renewable energy schemes, and the detrimental effect this had on the cost of electricity.

While not strictly speaking a war, the occupation of the Ruhr by French and Belgian troops during 1923-25 was a conflict resulting in the killing of 130 German civilians. You were probably taught this was a heavy-handed response to the Weimar Republic’s continual defaulting caused by crippling reparations, which aroused much-sympathy for the defeated nation. It may be this sentiment is misplaced, as arguably the occupiers’ intention was not to seize raw material, but instead to shut down the coal industry to curb carbon dioxide emissions.

Climate change causation was less obvious in the Second World War, but denialism was a massive factor in Germany’s downfall. After all, what lunatic would send forces to invade the Soviet Union without supplying his troops, tanks, vehicles, and aircraft with the essentials for fighting a winter war? As for the Pacific War, you will have read one of the events that led to the attack on Pearl Harbour was the American embargo on oil and gasoline exports to Japan. Arguably then it is correct to teach children that the cause was — you guessed it — those harmful fossil fuels.

Sadly, I do not think the Caro theory has any chance of holding up. In context it is the most ridiculous observation since 2017, when Canada’s environment minister, Catherine McKenna, praised Syria on Twitter for signing the Paris Agreement on climate change. “We’ve been clear that the murderous Assad regime must end attacks against its people,” she hastily apologised in a subsequent tweet. It did not help McKenna’s cause that she already had the nickname of “Climate Barbie”.

« On climate change, the Liberals are pursuing the most ambitious plan this country has ever had. »

Liberals are the best choice for Canada. https://t.co/InZzoFebvl

— Catherine McKenna 🇨🇦 (@cathmckenna) October 16, 2019

You will be pleased to know our national broadcaster continues to present perspectives on climate change in a rational, informative, and impartial manner. Last weekend, host David Rutledge of Radio National’s Philosopher’s Zone interviewed Dr Lara Stephens, an ecofeminist and research fellow in theatre and performance studies from the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute at the University of Melbourne. According to the institute’s website, it “emphasises the contribution of the social sciences and humanities to understanding and addressing sustainability and resilience challenges”.

Stevens spoke of her theatrical production Not Now, Not Ever, described as a “a sing-and-dance-a-long to Julia Gillard’s ‘Misogyny Speech’ and a meditation on what it means to bring a girl into the twenty-first century”. This performance culminated in her breastfeeding on stage her then 11-month-old child while she laments her belief she will never become a grandmother because of climate change. “For me, the lack of value attributed to my breastmilk and the climate crisis are intertwined problems,” she writes.

Art, she explained to Rutledge, plays a “crucial role” in addressing the “ecological crisis”. Apparently will present challenges for the “bourgeois nuclear family,” she added, “which has been an important part of the capitalist instrumentalist narrative”.

“I think she speaks for all of us”, Rutledge concluded admiringly. Well, yes, I suppose she does, provided your philosophical concept of existence recognises no world beyond Ultimo and Southbank.

As I write this The Guardian has announced its “Environmental Pledge,” declaring that “the escalating climate crisis is the defining issue of our lifetimes and that the planet is the grip of an emergency”.

Our climate pledge https://t.co/up7QeJt7z4

— Chris Moran (@chrismoranuk) October 16, 2019

As part of this, the newspaper has reaffirmed its intention to modify its style guide to use “language that recognises the severity of the crisis we’re in”. Climatespeak, perhaps? It also declares environmental reporting “will always be rooted in scientific fact”. I fear it will be exactly that.

Ideologically-framed terminology, exclusion of dissenting views, self-indulgent interpretative dances — this is what the “science” of climate reporting has become. To that we can add revisionism, as demonstrated by Caro’s claim about the cause of the Syrian conflict. Think of it as the climate road to Damascus.