Addressing climate change the responsibility of us all

Greenpeace campaigners are building a model of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat, in eastern Turkey (May 25). They hope to challenge modern-day complacency on climate change.

The model ark "is directed mainly at the politicians of this Earth, to world leaders who are primarily responsible for the climate catastrophe which is taking place".

Our politicians, clearly, let us down. The world could be a perfect place, but somehow our elected representatives fail us. We are good. They – to judge by a recent poll putting their trustworthiness below that of astrologers, sex workers, car salesmen and telemarketers – are somewhere between incompetent and evil. How mysterious and tragic is life.

In other words, nothing is my fault. It is always someone else's, in this case, politicians'. We do not have to do anything. Let them fix it without any effort or sacrifice on our part. If they do not solve the problem, that just shows how useless, if not worse, they are.

World leaders are not responsible for climate change. The responsibility lies with everyone who drives a motor- vehicle, flies in an aircraft, uses natural gas or unsustainably logged wood, or participates in almost any way in our unsustainable fossil-fuel dependent society.

In other words, we are all to blame. This should be obvious. It is always easy and cheap entertainment to complain about politicians, but might it not be more fruitful to urge everyone to shoulder a little personal responsibility?

Until catastrophes begin to bite, no-one is prepared to give up our comfortable but unsustainable lifestyle. That is not necessarily hypocrisy on our part. Our whole social organisation is based on inexpensive private transport.

Anyone without a motor- vehicle is instantly disadvantaged in terms of employment, social life and so on. The young, fit and single may be able to manage on bicycles, but for working adults with families, life at present is impossible without a vehicle.

You cannot make bricks without straw. If politicians were to avert climate change, they would have to have the tools for the job. Those tools would have to include huge taxes on fossil- fuel use and major restrictions on the use of motor-vehicles and the burning of coal and natural gas. Such measures would inevitably lead to profound inconvenience, economic disruption, poverty and physical misery.

A dictatorship could perhaps impose such measures, if it were resolute and well armed enough, although there would still be riots in the streets. A democratically elected government would fall the next day. If just some countries did this and not others, those countries that did would instantly be at a major disadvantage.

Greenpeace should be honest. Politicians can do only what the people let them do. Is Greenpeace genuinely arguing that governments should acquire far-reaching, dictatorial powers to throw the life of all citizens into turmoil? It may come to that one day, but we are not ready yet.

Would Greenpeace not mind if some politicians used these powers for other purposes?

To blame politicians makes the problem worse. It tells people that they themselves do not have to do anything. Consequently, they will not. A genuine solution is postponed.

We choose politicians, yet we hold them in contempt. When I recently attempted to become a politician, strangers would angrily tell me that all politicians, myself included, were liars, cheats, hypocrites and so on, although they were unable to provide corroborative evidence. There is an anger- management problem here.

There is, as everywhere, the occasional bad egg. There is the odd broken promise, for which parties are usually later punished at the polls. There are mistakes – we all make those – and there are policies we dislike, but which someone probably supports.

Power, too, certainly hardens and corrupts. Nevertheless, most politicians of all parties began as decent and well- meaning people. Why else would they attempt so thankless a task, under the severest public scrutiny and paid, indeed, substantially less than many unelected public servants?

Our contempt for our elected leaders not only reflects badly on our own judgment but is dangerous for democracy.

If we despise them, will we respect the laws they make and the government they exercise?

Worse, if we seriously believe that they, and not we, are responsible for climate change – if we are foolish enough to believe that the right politician can give us everything we want at no cost – then we are liable to be badly deceived by smooth- talking charlatans who promise us the Earth.

Politicians, like lawyers, do what other people want them to do. Then we blame them. They are our scapegoats, taking our sins upon them, shouldering the blame that is rightfully ours.

That may be momentarily satisfying, but it is no recipe for long-term improvement.

Politicians may or may not lead, but no leadership is of any use if people do not follow.