Climate Trickery

One of the tasks that takes up a considerable amount of my time in public office is trying to convince politicians and bureaucrats about the importance of knowledge and education for the proper functioning of democracy. Some agree, others nod absentmindedly and pat me on the back. “Don’t call us—we’ll call you.”

For the latter, I’ve changed my approach. I no longer argue why education is important for democracy, but instead explain why ignorance, stupidity, and “alternative facts” are so popular among populists and autocrats.

Objectively speaking, being an autocrat is a tough and lonely profession. You have few real friends; many are just waiting for the chance to stab you in the back and take your throne. That loneliness brings very practical difficulties in running a state and maintaining power, which autocrats solve in three main ways.

The first is corruption. Money can buy a lot—including people. The problem is that loyalty bought with cash spoils quickly, since there’s always someone willing to offer your supporters a better deal. And bribery is a capital-intensive hobby, not well-suited to autocrats who didn’t get into power to share hard-earned loot with others.

The second method is intimidation. No decent autocrat will allow public criticism or dissenting opinions. Sloppy authoritarianism is doomed to collapse even faster. But suppression also has its drawbacks. It’s labor-intensive—if your survival depends on spies, police, and the army, you can’t afford to have too few of them. And it damages the reputation of populist strongmen who haven’t yet completely stopped caring about their international image.

The third and perhaps most important tool of populism and autocracy is manipulation. Its main advantage is that it’s effective even before taking power. It requires some investment, particularly in media, but thanks to the rise of social networks, it’s become cheaper, more effective, and easier. Plus, a savvy populist will always find a comrade willing to slip them a few euros, forints, or rubles for startup costs.

But the most essential lubricant of manipulation is not money—it’s stupidity and ignorance. The rise of right-wing, illiberal, autocratic populism is inseparably linked to the rejection of facts, irrationality, and the uncritical, blind parroting of all kinds of nonsense and drivel. In the brave new populist world, scientific facts are seen as tools of alien exploitative elites, which the honest people can only resist by heroically kicking into the dark.

Lies are glorified as virtues, experienced by the humiliated and aggrieved as a rallying cry, and used by populist manipulators as a tool for distraction, fueling public rage, making profit, consolidating power, and discrediting opponents.

Lies are plastered on buses, whipped up in stadiums and arenas, spark international tensions, destroy democratic institutions, shake the foundations of the post-war global order, justify the most inhumane policies against vulnerable groups, and ultimately undermine efforts to address global threats to humanity's survival.

Which brings us to the recent presidential consultation on Slovenia’s climate strategy. Of course, it’s absolutely right to involve not only experts but also politicians, who have the scissors and cloth in hand—and the responsibility to shape our country’s future strategy, whatever it may be.

But given the President’s selection of participants, it seemed as if he believed this strategy should be anchored somewhere in the arithmetic middle between those who deny scientific facts about the climate crisis and those who actually understand them. In the name of unity at all costs, we’re expected to compromise halfway between populist delusions and scientific evidence. If we’re lucky, maybe our children and grandchildren will still vacation by the sea, just a few miles inland, in Dekani or Kozina.

In the short term, lies in politics are undoubtedly more effective than the truth. Politics grounded in the gray reality of facts is far less attractive to voters than a thrill ride through the dreamland of populist promises. This is especially true when it comes to climate change. Here, lies and manipulation are weapons used to defend neoliberal capitalism’s total freedom, which, unsurprisingly, doesn’t give a damn about the climate and is unwilling to sacrifice even a fraction of today’s profits for a safer—or even remotely livable—future for coming generations.

The alliance between right-wing populism and neoliberalism benefits both. Populism, by obstructing climate action, simply returns the favor to unregulated capital, which has tarnished the image of liberal democracy, impoverished vast swaths of the population, and paved the way for populism to rise to power.

In such a scenario, responsible politicians can’t act like my grandmother when we grandchildren fought among ourselves. It’s one thing to bridge differences in implementing constitutional values and the vital interests of citizens—which surely include the survival of the human species—but it’s another thing entirely to compromise those values and interests in the name of overcoming differences.

Compromise is not always a sign of moderation, strength, or wisdom. In the conflict between tolerance and intolerance, liberal and illiberal democracy, truth and falsehood, the “middle ground” is a victory for hatred, unfreedom, and lies.

I support the President’s enthusiasm for listening to diverse views—in fact, I was invited to one of the consultations myself. But I would suggest he move away from the value-neutral search for the lowest common denominator, to achieve unity as a purpose in itself. I believe we can and must be more ambitious and consistently strive for a country whose value lies in the very values on which we built our independence.

When it comes to human rights, political freedoms, democracy, dignity, a decent life, and the well-being of all citizens—let alone the long-term survival of human civilization—there is no wisdom in splitting the difference with populists.