Climate Change: The ‘Perfect’ Political Excuse 1

Alejandro Linayo
Research Center on Disaster Risk Reduction – CIGIR and
Latin American Network for Social Studies in Disaster Prevention – LARED

During the 1990's, just when global warming and its implications began to be recognized,
another kind of ‘warming’ was taking place on the planet. This was the heating up of
ideological confrontation over the destiny of humanity. The late 1980s had seen
Perestroika and Glasnost and finally the fall of communist system. Some authors
promoted the idea that we had reached the ‘end of history’ (Fukuyama 1993). The idea of
liberal democracy (both economic and political) was trumpeted as the only option for
society. Today, events have demonstrated how controversial this theory still is and how
‘hot’ the debate about ‘socialism’, ‘neo-liberalism’ and ‘freedom’ still is, particularly in
Latin America (Douzinas and Zizek 2010; Raby 2006).

A barely studied phenomenon associated with these two types of ‘global warming’ is the
invocation of ‘climate change’ as a political tactic. There seems to be a discursive game
in which the responsibility for the occurrence of climate-related disasters is only
attributed to green house emissions of industrialized countries. In this way, the politicians
provide an external ‘excuse’ for disasters caused by unsustainable development models.

Venezuelan scholars from the Research Center on Disaster Risk Reduction (CIGIR
http://www.cigir.org.ve/home.html) have been studying political statements made after
flooding and landslides disasters against the background of situation as the registered, for
example, in the town of Santa Cruz de Mora, a small rural settlement located in the south
of Merida state. In 2005, the town was affected by floods and landslides that killed near a
hundred persons and destroyed much infrastructure. This research has observed
contradictions between explanations for the disaster offered by political authorities and
detailed studies that attribute flood impacts to deficiencies in local development policy
(Linayo 2006, Linayo 2012).

In this case study, researchers found that the Mocotíes River had been diverted during
mid-1990s road construction by the regional and local government. Detailed damage
assessment revealed that flood impact in 2005 was concentrated in the original river bed,
where housing and other construction had been permitted and promoted by government
after the road project (Laffaille 2005).

Blame, however, for such flooding was placed in foreign countries for their contribution
to global climate change, at least from the point of view of local authorities used the
language of climate change to explain the causes of the disaster (Frontera, 2005; Diario
de Los Andes 2005).

1
Published in Handbook of Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction Hardcover; pag
55; Ben Wisner (Editor), J.C. Gaillard (Editor), Ilan Kelman (Editor); 2012.
In December 1999, similar conclusions were offered by leftist political sectors (including
Chavez's own government) about the disaster of Vargas, when claimed that the tragedy
was not "natural" but the product of climate change caused by the emission of gases by
industrial processes worldwide [1] (some articles published in pro-revolutionaries
websites as www.aporrea.org also suggested that United States caused this tragedy,
making use of secret weapons [2]).

Recently, president Chavez said about 2010 national emergencies ‘…[T]he disasters we
are suffering because of these severe and prolonged rains are demonstration, yet again,
that we confront a cruel planet-wide paradox: the most developed countries are
destroying the environment’ (Chavez 2010). Once again persists the doubt about how
much of this disaster could be product of human-made changes on the planetary dynamic,
and how much could be product of decades of unsustainable development models.

References:

Chavez, H. (2010) ‘Pueblo y Gobierno Unidos’, Las Líneas de Chávez, 97: 2, 5 Decmber

Douzinas, C. and Zizek, C. (eds) (2010) The Idea of Communism, London: Verso.

Fukuyama, F. (1993) The End of History and the Last Man, New York: Harper.

Laffaille, J., Ferrer, C. and Dugarte, M. (2005) ‘Evaluación de campo: Estudio preliminar
de los efectos geomorfológicos de evento meteorológico observado el día 5 de Febrero
del ano 2005’, Mérida, Venezuela: Fundación para Prevención de los Riesgos Sísmicos
de Estado Mérida (FUNDAPRIS-Mérida).

Linayo, A. (2012) ‘Cambio Climatico: La Excusa Perfecta’, article published in the 2012
edition of Desastres y Sociedad, isaster a epetial Book “Perspectivas de Investigación y
Acción frente al Cambio Climático en Latinoamerica”, resentation at the Third
International Conference on Early Warning, Bonn, Online, Available HTTP:
<http://www.ewc3.org/upload/downloads/Forum_Earth_06_Venezuela.pdf> (accessed 27
December 2012).

Linayo, A. (2006) ‘Pautas para la implementación de un SAT en el Valle del rió

Mocotíes, Mérida, Venezuela’, Presentation at the Third International Conference on
Early Warning, Bonn, Online, Available HTTP:
<http://www.ewc3.org/upload/downloads/Forum_Earth_06_Venezuela.pdf> (accessed 27
December 2010).

Raby, R.L. (2006) Democracy and Revolution: Latin America and socialism today.
London: Pluto

“Frontera”, Regional Newspaper, February 2005.

“Diario de Los Andes”, Newspaper, February - March 2005.