This Made My Week

I saw this cheery bit of commentary from James Lovelock in the Independent last week. His view of humankind’s future is seen through the lens of the Gaia Hypothesis, in which the, oceans, atmosphere, lithosphere and biosphere are viewed as integrated components of a single, self-regulating organism – Earth as Gaia, the earth mother in Greek and Roman mythology. His book Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth had an important role in forming my perspectives on the environment. Some might view the Gaia Hypothesis as simply anthropomorphic thinking, but it is still a powerful meme for the interdependency of natural systems. It explains the tone of his article when he says:

This article is the most difficult I have written and for the same reasons. My Gaia theory sees the Earth behaving as if it were alive, and clearly anything alive can enjoy good health, or suffer disease. Gaia has made me a planetary physician and I take my profession seriously, and now I, too, have to bring bad news.

The bad news being that through greenhouse gas emissions, modification of the landscape (particularly clearing the rain forests), loss of species diversity and probably several other things, we’ve probably created a new equilibrium condition for Earth, one that’s not going to be particularly hospitable to humans in the long run:

Our planet has kept itself healthy and fit for life, just like an animal does, for most of the more than three billion years of its existence. It was ill luck that we started polluting at a time when the sun is too hot for comfort. We have given Gaia a fever and soon her condition will worsen to a state like a coma. She has been there before and recovered, but it took more than 100,000 years. We are responsible and will suffer the consequences: as the century progresses, the temperature will rise 8 degrees centigrade in temperate regions and 5 degrees in the tropics.

Much of the tropical land mass will become scrub and desert, and will no longer serve for regulation; this adds to the 40 per cent of the Earth's surface we have depleted to feed ourselves.

Curiously, aerosol pollution of the northern hemisphere reduces global warming by reflecting sunlight back to space. This "global dimming" is transient and could disappear in a few days like the smoke that it is, leaving us fully exposed to the heat of the global greenhouse. We are in a fool's climate, accidentally kept cool by smoke, and before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.

By failing to see that the Earth regulates its climate and composition, we have blundered into trying to do it ourselves, acting as if we were in charge. By doing this, we condemn ourselves to the worst form of slavery. If we chose to be the stewards of the Earth, then we are responsible for keeping the atmosphere, the ocean and the land surface right for life. A task we would soon find impossible - and something before we treated Gaia so badly, she had freely done for us.

Airborne particulate matter as a protective mechanism for global warming means real problems for respiratory health in the short term. What a trade-off.

A different perspective is presented in this article from the Christian Science Monitor. It’s a more hopeful message from the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, asserting that we have the tools to put things back onto a more sustainable course.

. . . the report makes clear that people must view Earth's ecosystems as one interlinked system, rather than as fragments. People must begin to actively manage those ecosystems in ways that ensure that they will receive the benefits those ecosystems provide - from blunting the surge from ocean storms and filtering water to feeding a hungry world. Indeed, with efforts now under way to develop worldwide observing systems to monitor the oceans, atmosphere, and land use, technology is moving into place to support such broad management efforts.

That’s also assuming that we act promptly. Note the difference from Lovelock’s perspective, which is that the task of being stewards of the Earth is a task that is beyond our abilities. Of course, in the short-term, we may not have left ourselves with too many alternatives.

Then I’ll read something like this article about exurban sprawl (people commuting to Washington D.C. from the West Virginia border – it’s worse in California; people commute from my hometown of Salinas to Santa Clara) which shows that we’re still off in the wrong direction. James Howard Kunstler reminds us regularly that we’re behaving idiotically but it doesn’t seem to be sinking in yet.

Oil prices are going up again. Maybe that will help with the reeducation.