8 August 2021

While Greece burns, unfathomable nonsense reigns supreme in the rhetoric of the UK minister in charge of COP26, as reported* in the Guardian today [We’re on the brink of catastrophe, warns Tory climate chief]:

“We’re on the brink of climate catastrophe, warns Alok Sharma, as he backs UK’s plan for new oil and gas fields.”

Come again?

“[The IPCC report to be published tomorrow] is going to be the starkest warning yet that human behaviour is alarmingly accelerating global warming and this is why Cop26 has to be the moment we get this right,” Sharma says, while insisting that the UK could carry on with fossil fuel projects.

There’s no use trying to square this circle.

On the one hand, Sharma says that this IPCC report “is going to be a wake-up call for anyone who hasn’t yet understood why this next decade has to be absolutely decisive in terms of climate action… Disaster is not yet inevitable, and actions now could save lives in the future… Every fraction of a degree rise [in temperature] makes a difference and that’s why countries have to act now.”

On the other hand, Sharma refuses to criticise the UK government’s plan for allowing more fossil fuel projects, including a new oil field off Shetland, more oil and gas wells in the North Sea, and a new coal mine in Cumbria.

If the uncanny obliviousness is making your head spin, you’re not alone. The absurdity of Sharma’s position has led to accusations of hypocrisy, with green campaigners warning that the UK is losing credibility on the world stage.

But what exactly is at play in Sharma’s display of jiggery-pokery? Is it shameless denial of scientific evidence, or brazen self-contradiction?

There’d be no excuse for the denying the evidence. The global energy watchdog the International Energy Agency has made it plain that there cannot be any new investment in oil, gas or coal projects if we want to limit global warming to 1.5C and avoid its most severe impacts. A failure to acknowledge the factual basis of the IEA’s warning would suggest that Sharma has lost touch with reality.

The alternative is no less worrying: If he implicitly accepts the evidence, then the endorsement of new fossil fuel projects represents a fatal self-contradiction in the logic of Sharma’s position.

The law of non-contradiction states that two inconsistent propositions cannot both be true at the same time. The existence of a contradiction is logically disastrous, because if either one of two contradictory statements can be proven, the very concepts of truth and falsity are trivialised.

Sharma’s defyingly unreasonable stance, if he does indeed accept the relevant evidence, is a case of contradiction being not merely disastrous for logical coherence but also disastrous for the health of our biosphere, for the survival of most animal and plant species, for the stability of human lives and livelihoods, and prospectively for the continuation of human civilisation.

How can we answer such a devastating contradiction?

Perhaps with an assemblage of others, because isn’t it an open secret that the tragicomedy of true lies is no cruel kindness, but rather a living death?

Yeah, no.