In the new issue of Rolling Stone, Jeff Goodell has a profile of James Lovelock, father of the Gaia Hypothesis and foremost representative of the OMFG we're all totally f*cked!!1! school of green thinking:
In Lovelock's view, the scale of the catastrophe that awaits us will soon become obvious. By 2020, droughts and other extreme weather will be commonplace. By 2040, the Sahara will be moving into Europe, and Berlin will be as hot as Baghdad. Atlanta will end up a kudzu jungle. Phoenix will become uninhabitable, as will parts of Beijing (desert), Miami (rising seas) and London (floods). Food shortages will drive millions of people north, raising political tensions. "The Chinese have nowhere to go but up into Siberia," Lovelock says. "How will the Russians feel about that? I fear that war between Russia and China is probably inevitable." With hardship and mass migrations will come epidemics, which are likely to kill millions. By 2100, Lovelock believes, the Earth's population will be culled from today's 6.6 billion to as few as 500 million, with most of the survivors living in the far latitudes -- Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia, the Arctic Basin.
... To Lovelock, cutting greenhouse-gas pollution won't make much difference at this point, and much of what passes for sustainable development is little more than a scam to profit off disaster. "Green," he tells me, only half-joking, "is the color of mold and corruption."
Naturally, someone so deeply in the throes of panic will turn to any solution, no matter how far-fetched, that might match the size and speed of the catastrophe just around the corner. It's the green version of the Hail Mary pass, and Lovelock's recommendations serve as a kind of Guide to the Environmentalism of Fear:
-
•Nuclear power
•Geoengineering
•Synthetic food
A couple of things to note about this list.
First, though the items on it might seem "radical," and Lovelock certainly sells them that way, in fact they're anything but. The are big, yes. And expensive. But they fit perfectly well within the industrial paradigm. It's all about constructing enormous, complex devices to beat back or overcome nature. All of Lovelock's solutions -- like the solutions that tend to be favored by the industrial powers that be -- are a species of violence. One can perfectly easily envision governments embracing these solutions, diverting huge amounts of taxpayer money to enormous, politically connected industries, engaging in fraud-ridden boondoggles while increasing and cementing control over their populations.
Fear begets violence. Violence begets authoritarianism. That Lovelock is trying to "save humanity" doesn't change the dynamic.
This is how humanity has approached its problems for centuries now. Lovelock's advice is a kind of reductio ad absurdum of humanity's hubris, a Strangelovian way to ride the rocket of our own exceptionalism into the inferno.
The alternative is to learn from nature -- to act on the knowledge that we are in and of nature. Here are some principles of natural design as conceived by the biomimicry community:
• Waste = Food
• Self-assemble, from the ground up
• Evolve solutions, don't plan them
• Relentlessly adjust to the here & now
• Cooperate and compete, not just one or the other
• Diversify to fill every niche
• Gather energy and materials efficiently
• Optimize the system rather than maximizing components
• The whole is greater than the sum of its parts -- design for swarm
• Use minimal energy and materials
• "Don't foul your nest"
• Organize fractally
• Chemical reactions should be in water at normal temperature and pressure
• Vogel's mechanical-engineering-specific principles (summarized):
- Nature's factories produce things much larger, not smaller, than themselves.
- We use metals, nature never does
- Nature makes gradual transitions in structures (curves, density gradients, etc.) rather than sharp corners.
- We make things out of many components, each of which is homogeneous; nature makes things out of fewer components but they vary internally.
- We design for stiffness, nature designs for strength and toughness.
- Our mechanisms have rigid pieces moving on sliding contacts, nature bends/twists/stretches.
- Nature often uses diffusion, surface tension, and laminar flow; we often use gravity, thermal conductivity, and turbulence.
- Our engines are mostly rotary or expansive, nature's are mostly sliding or contracting.
- Nature's engines are isothermal.
- Nature mostly stores mechanical work as elastic energy, sometimes as gravitational potential energy.
Imagine a post-industrial future for humanity, based on these principles. Compare it to Lovelock's desperate council. Pick which one you prefer, and fight for it. Don't be bullied into panicked, desperate measures by tales of impending doom -- there's already been enough of that in this young century.
New interactive map shows devastating effects of global temperature rise
Comments
View as Flat
charlesjustice Posted 4:21 am
23 Oct 2007
Charles Justice
Permalink
Sam Wells Posted 4:40 am
23 Oct 2007
But immanent gloom versus everlasting hope, neither one really works. And face it, with all the wars, crappy economy, scandals, and bad stuff going on, it's not very easy to be hopeful these days, is it?
I have repeatedly warned people against using climate change as a religion and David, sorry man, you really blew chunks on that one! It does not help the cause...
Onward through the fog
Permalink
apsmith Posted 6:00 am
23 Oct 2007
David, when you say large-scale solutions are
"... a species of violence. One can perfectly easily envision governments embracing these solutions, diverting huge amounts of taxpayer money to enormous, politically connected industries, engaging in fraud-ridden boondoggles..."
you seem to be rejecting out of hand organized, thoughtful, cooperative efforts at solving our problems. Is government always bad in your view?
I realize the comments here are directed at solutions based on panic - and I agree, panic is not a good start to solving things. But that doesn't mean the solutions can be found through independent individual action without coordination. Real solutions will require state action, "a species of violence" in right-wing terms, that will involve using taxpayer money for things that not everybody agrees on. Regulations, carbon taxes, subsidies for alternatives, developing and deploying new technologies on a large scale will be essential. I seem to recall you've spoken in favor of such things before. Why descend into the rhetorical "return to nature" talk here?
Permalink
Sam Wells Posted 8:48 am
23 Oct 2007
Onward through the fog
Permalink
Matt G Posted 9:16 am
23 Oct 2007
(oh, and nature does use metals - your blood depends on the stuff)
That being said, I was struck by a great solution back in ~1994 in Science Magazine (I think). The author suggested we start building automated solar-powered self-constructing factories in the deserts that would produce solar panels. The author predicted we'd be able to power all of the US after a few factory generations, and then we could shift the focus of the factory to desalinization or a dozen other world-changing tasks. The project would be a massive undertaking, but could have been on its way to running by now if we'd jumped on it.
Permalink
wiscidea Posted 9:55 am
23 Oct 2007
Accelerate the appearance of natural variation, horizontal gene transfer, adaptation, evolution, and biodiversity.
Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?
Permalink
trock Posted 10:59 am
23 Oct 2007
Gravel for grass isn't that bad, I hear it doesn't take that long to get used to it.
Permalink
Sam Wells Posted 11:02 am
23 Oct 2007
Onward through the fog
Permalink
RaySmith55 Posted 12:40 pm
23 Oct 2007
Permalink
Pathos Posted 3:39 pm
23 Oct 2007
Yesterday, it was in the news that net CO2 emissions have increased 35% more than they were expected to in 2000. (That's 35% more increase, not an actual increase of 35%. That would be a cause for panic.) Why? Fuel efficiency hasn't improved like it was supposed to, and the oceans have stopped absorbing CO2 as fast as they were supposed to. Does that mean we're f*cked? Or, does it just mean we need to work a little harder?
It seems to me that the answer is to work for the best, but prepare for the worst. Right now, the bulk of our effort needs to be in safe, feasible, sustainable changes we can make. Shift from coal to solar and wind. Build more fuel-efficient cars. Stop cutting down the g*dd*mned rainforest. All that stuff we all know about, and are all constantly harrassing our Congresspeople to make happen. (We are all harrassing our Congresspeople, or the appropriate elected representatives... Right?)
But while we're doing all that, we need to prepare for the worst case scenario. We need to analyze every geoengineering option, every option for emergency screw-the-economy-and-our-nerves energy conservation, and every other harebrained scheme anyone comes up with. We need to figure out what's likely to work, what isn't likely to work, and what will be necessary to safely and effectively implement whatever option seems the most viable.
Hopefully, none of it will be necessary. Hopefully, we'll move to a sustainable culture in time to stave off the worst effects, and life will be good. (I keep trying to start debate on things like geoengineering, but I'm really not trying to fill our atmosphere with sulfur in a blind panic, I promise. I love this planet, too.) But if it starts looking like Lovelock is right and seemingly cooler heads are wrong, won't it be useful to have a strategy other than "OMFG we're all totally f*cked!!1!"?
Permalink
Charfair Posted 12:59 am
24 Oct 2007
Charlotte Fairchild
http://kduzus.blogspot.com
http://fprayers.blogspot.com
http://icaco.blogspot.com
Permalink
wiscidea Posted 5:37 am
24 Oct 2007
Ozone:
We want ozone in the upper atmosphere to protect the biosphere from ultraviolet radiation, We do not want it at ground level, where is is a severe health hazard. But does kudzu produce more ozone than other plants?
Nitrogen:
Excess fixed nitrogen in the soil somehow contributes to global warming. I can find out more about this for you. Maybe someone else can help. I read abiout it a while ago and not have the article with me.
Also, adding fixed nitrogen to ecosystems not adapted to it can dramatically alter the microbial and plant communities and, therefore, dramatically effect biodiversity. For example, when an aggressive Eurasian plant that fixes nitrogen is added to a North American prairie, it "improves" conditions for other Eurasian plants which displaces native plants -- and all the insects and other animals dependent on them -- adapted to soil low in nitrogen.
See...
http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/1996/A/1996005 ...
... for a little info about this.
By the way, the county should label the sprayed areas. Must be trying to save money.
Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?
Permalink
wiscidea Posted 5:43 am
24 Oct 2007
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/articles/article/n ...
So, not only is the carbon cycle being thrown out of kilter by human activity. The nitrogen cycle is being thrown out of kilter by our tendency to manufacture fertilizer and/or plant vast fields of legumes. If high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere stimulate the growth of wild plants that fix nitrogen, we can look forward to even more global warming.... yahoo...
Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?
Permalink