The Munk Debates

by Rudyard Griffiths

  And he does not agree with Bjørn, who — with all due respect, I don’t know what you’ve ever done, but maybe you’ve done a lot for Africa. But Stephen Lewis says clearly, on top of all the poverty, on top of the pandemics, Africans are likely to experience more droughts, reduction of agricultural productivity, and famine, all because of climate change. Climate change is a nightmare for Africa.

  RUDYARD GRIFFITHS: It’s been a great exchange, and I want to allow each of our speakers to give their final arguments.

  GEORGE MONBIOT: The reason I’m concerned about climate change is because of my experiences in northwest Kenya. I mentioned the region before, but I haven’t told you exactly what happened.

  When I was there in 1992, they were suffering the most severe drought they had suffered to date. Since then they’ve suffered two more droughts which have been even worse. And because of that drought, everyone was under the most extraordinary pressure. They had run out of basic resources, and the only option they had was to raid neighbouring tribes and take resources from them.

  At one point, I was about to go up to the cattle camp that my Turkana friends and their families were running. And it had been stricken by a tremendous drought, and I fell very ill just before I was due to go up. I got malaria, and I collapsed on the street and eventually had to be taken away to Nairobi. And I thought it was a terrible misfortune that had befallen me. It was actually the luckiest thing that ever happened in my life. Because when I finally recovered, I went back to this cattle camp I was supposed to have visited before. I was with one of the relatives of the people in the cattle camp.

  About ten miles before we got there, this man suddenly burst into tears, and he was screaming and wailing and crying, and I asked him what on earth was going on. And he said, “Can’t you see?” And I said, “I’m sorry, I can’t see.” And as I got closer and closer, I did see. There were vultures hanging in the air just above this cattle camp. And when we arrived, all that remained of the ninety-eight people who lived there were their skulls and backbones. They had been eaten by hyenas. The Toposa people had come in the night and surrounded this cattle camp and machine-gunned it with AK-47s and G3 rifles. They killed ninety-six people that night. There were two that got away, and they killed them the next day. They killed them because they were desperate, and they were desperate because of the droughts. And that drought almost certainly was a result of climate change.

  This is what we are up against. Not the esoteric abstractions and the figures and the squabbles we’ve been having over spreadsheets and computer programs and what this and that figure says. This is about life and death to these people — people I came to love and respect when I was there. And I was seeing that, which turned me into a climate change campaigner.

  I was always switched on to social justice and environmental issues. But all these other things that I’d been fighting for all my adult life — getting people properly fed and preventing conflict and preventing disease — all that spending and that effort becomes wasted in the face of climate change. And when I was working there I was working with Oxfam in East Africa, and it was Oxfam who told me that climate change was the major problem. They said, “If we don’t deal with climate change, forget the rest of our programs. We might as well pack up and go home.”

  And this is why Oxfam, along with Christian Aid and scores of other development agencies, are lobbying and bellyaching at the Climate Conference in Copenhagen and elsewhere. They are desperate to get their governments to respond to this massive crisis. These people who are most concerned with poverty and famine are telling us that climate change is mankind’s defining crisis, and it requires a commensurate response.

  BJØRN LOMBORG: Nobody doubts that George and Elizabeth and everybody else here have their hearts in the right place. That’s not the question. The question is whether George, in his experience with the people who are suffering in northwest Kenya, is saying they are suffering because of global warming — I would be worried about making that connection right away, but let’s just say that it is so and we should do something about global warming. What exactly is he saying?

  Global warming will mean more drought, so the people in northwest Kenya will become more and more desperate. So why do we want to help them by making them slightly less desperate towards the end of the century? If we really have our hearts in the right place, wouldn’t we want to make sure that they become more developed? And stop using the AK-47, and start having civilization that works for them and actually makes them able to feed and educate their kids? That is the fundamental issue.

  That is why focusing on these issues is terribly important. It’s not about saying, “This is the defining crisis for mankind.” If anything, it’s about making sure that we do the right things instead of just the things that feel right.

  George Monbiot also told us that 2.1 billion people are going to be in water stress because of global warming. That’s true. He failed to tell you that studies by Professor Neville Nicholls show that if there was no global warming, there would be 3.6 billion people in water stress. Actually, global warming in that particular area means that there will be less water stress, not more. Why? Because there will be more water vapour in the atmosphere.

  So, there are a lot of studies and a lot of numbers flying back and forth, but we are simply not being well-informed if we are being told that this is the only and defining crisis.

  Still, in some ways, I’m very encouraged by this debate. Both Elizabeth May and George Monbiot actually moved over to our side during the course of the debate. George said he wants us to focus just as much on all these other areas, and yet climate change should be the most important issue. Of course, George is right. We should be focusing on all these things, and that, of course, means that you have to say this is not the defining crisis. It is one of the many crises on which we need to focus.

  And Elizabeth said we need to make much greater investment into research and development of green energy technologies, because that is what is going to solve the world’s problems. It is not about running out of stone. It is about finding smarter, new technology. I commend her for turning around and saying what does work. So we are, in some ways, already agreeing.

  Let me sum up. Both of them mentioned Oxfam, and I think it is crucial that Oxfam told us that the leaders involved in the G8 Summit decided that they were going to spend about 50 billion dollars extra on climate change. They were going to take that money, it appeared at the time, mainly from overseas development aid. Oxfam representatives said, “This is terrible. If you take those 50 billion dollars, you’re essentially going to make it impossible for us to save four and a half million children from dying. Yet if you spend it on climate change, you can postpone global warming by the end of the century by six hours.”

  I ask you, what is more important — to save the lives of four and half million children, or postponing global warming by six hours? That is the challenge. And so to put it very bluntly, Al Gore talks about global warming as being our defining moment. How do you want to be remembered by your children and grandchildren? By spending trillions of dollars to do virtually no good a hundred years from now, or by spending less money now and making a much better world? I ask you to reject the motion.

  ELIZABETH MAY: Certainly during this debate we’ve heard some compelling arguments and some interesting theatre. But this issue is far more important and requires a serious analysis of the real science.

  Bjørn plays with numbers and plays with facts in a way that I find deplorable. I’ve read both of his books and I’ve checked every footnote. Of course, I couldn’t find any evidence to support the claims he made.

  The truth of the matter is that credible scientists have a body of work that has persuaded the politicians of this world. And when you start with former Prime Minister of Canada Brian Mulroney and former Prime Minister of the U.K. Margaret Thatcher as early adherents, taking leadership that we must address the climate crisis, I invite you to imagine what would possibly h
ave compelled them if it wasn’t that the science was clear that we have to act. We’ve lost precious decades.

  In this debate, for instance, you just heard Bjørn say that we would have fewer people with water stress. Well, there’s no one in this world who has done studies that say that. The climate scientists around the world have made it very clear that the climate crisis will exacerbate access to water, and in those places where you have deluge events, so you’d say there’s more water there, you can’t capture it. You’d have to empty every reservoir to capture the excess water that suddenly appears, and it is like pouring water through sand.

  It’s like Mozambique. Mozambique had no rain for eight months, and it got its entire annual rainfall in one two-week period in 1998. It was a dreadful flood and lots of lives were lost. They couldn’t capture the water that came in the two-week period. The nature of the climate crisis is that it will bring extreme water stress and it will create millions of environmental refugees. And, as many people around the world now recognize — including studies out of the Pentagon — we’re looking at issues where the crisis itself is a profound threat to our security.

  We haven’t talked about some key science. I mentioned earlier ocean acidification, which is not temperature-related. It is the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere creating carbonic acid in the world’s oceans, threatening life in our oceans. How do we feed the world’s people or deal with the fact that we could be losing life in our oceans if we don’t act?

  Both Nigel Lawson and Bjørn Lomborg write in their books that there is no sign of the Antarctic ice melting. Yet some of the best science on the subject is being done right here at the University of Toronto. For example, the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, GRACE. There was a presentation to parliamentarians that I recently attended in Ottawa, by Dr. William [Richard] Peltier, who is a scientist with the IPCC. And the information on the western Antarctic ice sheet is very clear. It is destabilizing, it is losing its mass. Sudden, abrupt climate change can’t be modelled, but if the western Antarctic ice sheet were to go, sea level rise would rise nine metres in Canada. Figure out the economic cost to this country of a nine-metre sea level increase. It would be significantly more than the amount we could spend to ensure that we go off fossil fuels as quickly as possible.

  We know about science. We know about debates. We know that there are limits on free speech. When you’re in a crowded theatre, you don’t shout “Fire.” But when you’re in a crowded theatre and you feel the floorboards warming under your feet and you see smoke clouding the exit signs and someone comes to the front and says, “Ladies and gentlemen, stay in your seats. That smoke you see is a malfunction in the popcorn machine. We really have no problem here. Bar the door and stay in your seats” — well, that’s when people need to say, “I can still see the exit sign through the smoke.” Now is when we act. Now is when we save lives.

  LORD NIGEL LAWSON: I will be very brief. Let me make two fundamental points. And the water stress point is actually an interesting example of a whole lot of things right across the board.

  As I said, there has been no warming so far this century — and that is a fact, though our opponents in this debate don’t like it. They hate it. It’s astonishing! They ought to be pleased. They ought to be delighted, but instead they’re upset that there hasn’t been this great global warming. If there were global warming, it might exacerbate water stress, but water stress has always been there. Drought has always been a problem. There has always been water stress. What are you going to do?

  Global warming causes only a marginal exacerbation of water stress and drought. Do you obsess over this marginal exacerbation or do you say, “We’ve got to attack the real problem. We’ve got to have better water resource management, have better storage facilities to capture water, not lose it. We’ve got to have, where it’s effective, water pricing, in order to avoid the enormous waste of water that occurs throughout the world at the present time”? You attack the problem. You don’t attack this minor exacerbation as the result of climate change.

  However, I will make one concession; that they have the best of the rhetoric. I’ve been in politics for a very long time, and I have observed from time to time that there is somehow a gap between politicians’ rhetoric and the reality. I hate to say that, but one or two of you may sometimes have discerned this difference. And I have to say, too, that I have never, during a very long life in politics — or before politics in journalism, writing about politics — known such a large gap between the rhetoric and the reality on an issue, where the politicians talk big but do very little.

  And why is it? Because the rhetoric sounds wonderful, but, in fact, the cost of going the route they’re recommending is prohibitive. The Chinese and the Indians can’t afford it, and the electorates in the richer countries — well, I doubt whether they’ll go along with it. We can see clearly that it is useless if it’s not a global thing. The rhetoric is marvellous, as are the scary stories — every newspaper knows the scare stories sell newspapers, whether they are medical scare stories or anything else, so there is a tendency to talk in these terms.

  But that’s not the kind of politics I believe in. I believe in reason. I believe that it may be bad rhetoric, but I believe the only way we will actually help humanity is by using the power of reason and working out what is sensible and rational. And that is why I invite you to reject this motion.

  * * *

  SUMMARY: Lawson and Lomborg’s arguments against the resolution were persuasive. Pre-debate votes were 61 percent in favour and 39 percent against the resolution, while the post-debate votes stood at 53 percent in favour and 47 percent against.

  HEALTH CARE

  Be it resolved that I would rather get sick in the United States than in Canada.

  * * *

  Pro: Dr. William Frist and Dr. David Gratzer

  Con: Dr. Robert Bell and Dr. Howard Dean

  June 7, 2010

  HEALTH CARE

  INTRODUCTION: In light of the health bill passed in the U.S. in March 2010, many comparisons were made between the health care systems in Canada and the U.S. This debate continued that dialogue with many detractors and supporters in both countries.

  It was a congenial conversation when four doctors took to the stage to debate the timely issue of health care. Two Canadians — Doctors Robert Bell, the President and CEO of the University Health Network, and David Gratzer, author and Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute — and two Americans — doctors-who-double-as-politicians William Frist, Professor of Business and Medicine at Vanderbilt University and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, and Howard Dean, six-term Governor of Vermont, former Democratic National Committee Chairman, and presidential candidate — wrangled over the following statement: Be it resolved that I would rather get sick in the United States than in Canada.

  On the pro side were Frist and Gratzer, on the con side Dean and Bell. It was Frist who perhaps most surprised the crowd with his praise for President Barack Obama’s political skills in having managed to pass his landmark health care reform bill, despite passionate opposition from some Democrats and Republicans. Frist pointed out that the bill would guarantee coverage for millions more Americans than were previously insured. That said, Frist and Gratzer both highlighted studies indicating that Americans have more access to the latest medical technologies and treatments, while Canadian hospitals and clinics lag behind. Bell and Dean both argued that social inequities in the private system rendered it, in the long term, not worth whatever benefits it offered. Bell moved the crowd by talking about his experiences working at a hospital in the United States, where he saw children from minority groups treated for cancer almost always at later stages than white children.

  Ultimately, though, there was some agreement among all four parties. No one believed that an entirely private or socialized system of health care was desirable or even possible. Even in socialist paradise Sweden, Gratzer said, user fees were charged to those who used hospital emergency wards n
eedlessly.

  * * *

  RUDYARD GRIFFITHS: I’m going to call on Senator William Frist for his opening statement.

  WILLIAM FRIST: It’s an honour to be here, and I think the real goal is to see the contrast, for you to learn, for us to have fun, so thank you for that opportunity. I’m speaking to the 83 percent of you who are willing to change your minds, not the other 17 percent. It has been a fascinating year in the United States. President Barack Obama pulled off what most Americans thought would be impossible. That was to propose, to help legislate, and ultimately pass a health care bill against great odds and in a very partisan way, which is unusual for big social legislation in America.

  He also managed to pass a bill that extends coverage towards the Canadian ideal, universal coverage. Historically this has been a very real defect in our system. In the past sixty years, presidents and others had tried to change it. The one thing it did not do was lower the cost of health care. We’ll come back to that, because both Canada and the United States must address it, or at least lower the cost curve, the growth of health care over time. That bill does nothing, or does very little in that regard.

  Throughout the year-long debate, however, Canada’s health care system was placed out there as an option, as a model of the single-payer, centralized control position. What is important, and hopefully you’ll understand why, is that the model of a single-payer system was rejected by the President of the United States, by the Democratic and the Republican leaders in the United States Congress. It was rejected by the Democratic and the Republican leaders in the United States Senate and by the American people.

  Why? It was rejected because if you get sick you want to be in America. We’ll come back to expectations, but part of what’s in the American psyche is not to have politicians — and you’ve got a couple of former politicians in this debate — or bureaucrats limiting in some way what kind of health care you can have for your daughter who is dying of leukemia.