Last week, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) released an interactive tool for the public to model the UK’s future greenhouse emissions.
It’s similar to a game I remember being in the Science Museum when I was about 8, in which you had to launch a rocket by choosing the correct fuel load, speed and flight path – the different parameters interacted in such a way that only one combination created the right balance; if you got them in the wrong proportions, it would cause the rocket to crash.
Likewise, the DECC tool models the UK's contribution to anthropogenic climate change - but instead of choosing flight path and velocity, the player is asked to balance their choices of fuel (solar, coal, etc), and other technologies (eg loft insulation). These factors are applied to the whole country, and the model estimates the resulting energy consumption and greenhouse emissions between now and 2050.
The underlying assumption is that if we choose the right technology, we can solve the problems of pesky climate change. But is it really that simple?
The striking thing about the DECC model is that it excludes all but the most physical aspects of climate change. There’s no mention of political issues; nor social, economic, or historical ones. Even the section on ‘Energy security’ is measured in giga-Watt-hours.
But this isn’t just a simplification, in the way that busking the guitar chords to approximate a Django Reinhardt tune is a simplification.
By framing the situation as a simple selection of technofixes, it changes they very question that is being asked in the first place. For example, we’re not – unsurprisingly – presented with a website that models the possible environmental effects of a radical redistribution of wealth.
The DECC model is thus yet another expression of that old government favourite: that “There Is No Alternative” ('TINA', a phrase coined by Margaret Thatcher). The logic is that those in power get to choose the rules of the conversation, and no one else gets a look in. There's no room for discussion - the options have been decided.
This rhetoric has been deployed forcefully in the debate on public service cuts. We’re constantly told that we must accept the destruction of the welfare state, because there's no money. The idea that the cuts are ideological – that we could stop paying for wars, or tax the rich – is swept aside. The memory of the difficult post-war economic situation Britain found itself in when the welfare state was actually established is conveniently forgotten.
However, the DECC tool takes the old TINA rhetoric one step further. Historically, the terms of debates in the public sphere have always been influenced to some extent by groups seeking to question those in power. Even though political discourse is heavily determined by powerful institutions with vested interests, they don't (quite) yet get to choose what demonstrations happen and what their demands are; television interviewers, however much they perform within the limitations of the corporate media organisations they represent, still pose questions on political and social issues of public interest.
The ability of the government to use tick-box forms in online computer simulators is relatively new, and marks a subtle departure from the old type of debate. It offers enhanced powers to frame debates in rigidly defined and highly technocratic terms, resplendent with technicolour graphs to support their spuriously quantitative analyses. A new peak in the technological bureaucratisation of late capitalist life has emerged.
This hyper-mechanised approach to policy formation allows, to a greater extent than ever before, our leaders to determine not only the outcome of the debate, not just the form and content of the discussion, but the parameters of the questions themselves.
However, far from being an entirely novel phenomenon, it rather invokes the image of some mediaeval high-priest, counselling kings on battle by consulting crystal ball and eye of newt. Notwithstanding the differences in the scientific rigour of their respective claims, the appeal to an opaque and elite authority of knowledge is familiar. The only difference is the New Labour-inspired cloak of apparent inclusivity, which the modern programme cynically shrouds itself in.
All that remains now, is for the government to implement the new online referendum for the Survey Monkey generation.
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