Global Warming and the Anthropocentric and Ecocentric Attitudes

Today I would like to reflect on the terminology which surrounds both the global warming debate and environmental issues more generally.

When I became aware that the human species needs to actively regulate the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere, and that this is a good thing for life on Earth, I wasn't aware of most of the terminology that people have created when they debate such issues. For example, when I wrote

 Is the Human Species Special?: Why human-induced global warming could be in the interests of life

I hadn't even heard of the term 'geoengineering'. I was also unaware of terms which have been created such as 'anthropocentric', 'ecocentric' and the 'anthropocene'. I have subsequently come across all of these terms, and I have found that when people use them they typically don't communicate what was intended. The terms can be interpreted by the receiver in numerous ways, and this means that the user of the term has to explain what the term means. Another unfortunate effect of the creation of such terms is that they provide a mechanism for causing division, and once people associate themselves with a particular term, they will be closed-minded to the realities inherent in alternative positions. For example, when one concludes that one must be an 'ecocentric', then one will be naturally hostile to anyone who identifies themselves as an 'anthropocentric'; for, as these terms have come to be typically used they are opposites; you are one or the other. So, the task of the 'ecocentric' (as they see it) is to persuade the enemy – the 'anthopocentric' – that they should desert their associates and switch their allegiance to a more enlightened camp. But the terms aren’t actually even opposites! We would surely be a lot better off without all of this jargon.

Here are standard definitions of ecocentricism and anthropocentricism:

Ecocentricism  -  A philosophy or perspective that places intrinsic value on all living organisms and their natural environment, regardless of their perceived usefulness or importance to human beings.

Anthropocentricism -  A philosophy or perspective that sees human beings as the most important feature of the universe.

As I have already noted, these terms are typically used as opposites. So, I have been in debates with academic environmental philosophers who identify themselves as 'ecocentric'; on the basis of some of the things that I say they quickly conclude that I am not an 'ecocentric' and they thereby 'accuse' me of being an 'enemy', an 'anthopocentric', and say things such as "you anthropocentric, you don’t care about any of the non-human life-forms on the Earth!!". This really is quite ridiculous, but you can see that the term 'anthropocentric' is hurled around by such people as a term of abuse.

This is ridiculous because anyone can see that the terms, as defined above, are not opposites. One can believe that the human species is the most important feature of the universe, whilst also believing that all living organisms and their natural environment have intrinsic value, regardless of their perceived usefulness or importance to human beings. This is my belief; I am an anthropocentric and an ecocentric. People who see dualities, people who see an opposing enemy camp, have deluded themselves through their desire to create an enemy. The terms are only opposites if one holds that life-forms such as slugs and worms are as important a feature of the universe as humans, and have as much intrinsic value as humans. This could be quite a nice thing to believe (a slug is as valuable and important as a human); however, despite the niceness, it is, unfortunately, plain wrong.

It is one thing having philosophies and perspectives (anthropocentricism and ecocentricism), but when it comes to global warming and the environmental crisis, what is important are actions. When we look at collective human actions (at the global scale) are these actions in the interests of humans? Are these actions in the interests of non-human life on Earth? Are these actions in the interests of the biosphere? These are the important questions. Most people seem to assume that humans are opposed to non-human life on Earth in such a way that the vast majority of actions which are in the interests of humans are not in the interests of non-human life. For example, if humans chop down part of the Amazon rainforest for agriculture, this is in the interests of humans, but it is not in the interests of non-human life. Such a view is narrow and simplistic; this is because it focuses on one particular event at one particular time, whilst the human relation to the non-human life-forms of the Earth needs to be seen in a collective global way which spans large swathes of time. If one focuses solely on a single leaf, one will be blind to the larger reality of the tree, and one will be utterly ignorant of the wonderful forest. Let us give up the leaves and gaze upon the forest.

Anthropocentric actions  =  collective humans actions (at the planetary level, over time) which are in the interests of the human species.

Ecocentric actions  =  collective human actions (at the planetary level, over time) which are in the interests of the totality of life on Earth and the biosphere.

Anthropocentric actions  =  Ecocentric actions.

This is the simple truth of the forest.

Global Warming and the Anthropocentric and Ecocentric Attitudes

Global Warming: Perceptions, Responses & Energy Policy

I was reading The Sunday Telegraph earlier today and there was an article which raises some questions which are related to the issues I have recently been writing about on this blog, so I thought I would share with you the gist of the article here:


"hidden in the small print of the Budget, were new figures for the fast-escalating tax the Government introduces next week on every ton of CO2 emitted by fossil-fuel-powered stations, which will soon be adding billions of pounds to our electricity bills every year...the Coalition is... hell-bent on driving our...coal-and gas-fired plants out of business."

"So we are doomed to see Britain's lights go out, all because the feather-headed lunatics in charge of our energy policy still believe that they've got to do something to save the planet from that CO2-induced global warming that this weekend has been covering much of the country up to a foot deep in snow. Meanwhile, the Indians are planning to build 455 new coal-fired power stations, which will add more CO2 to the atmosphere of the planet every week than Britain emits in a year."


"Chilly, isn't it? It's payback time for our energy policy", Christopher Booker, The Sunday Telegraph, (24 March 2013, p. 34).



There are a couple of important points arising from this article:


1  This article provides further evidence of the unhelpful and misplaced media concentration on short-term factors (the weather today!) in the debate concerning global warming. In the last post I wrote the following:


"A study (published in the journal Climatic Change) carried out at the University of British Columbia concluded that the local weather (particularly temperature) plays a major role in influencing public and media opinions on the reality of global warming"


The Sunday Telegraph article is a very good example of this, attempting to discredit the reality of global warming because it is currently snowing in parts of England! One cannot take such a connection remotely seriously, but it is an example of the (problematic) way the human mind works, overly concentrating on the very short-term, the immediately experienced reality.


2  The article highlights the continued strength of the force to environmental destruction (see my first book Is the Human Species Special?: Why human-induced global warming could be in the interests of life ). In the UK we might be facing future power cuts due to the attempt to reduce CO2 emissions, but at the global level (and the broader UK level; eg. the number of UK airplane flights) these efforts are dwarfed by the larger reality. As Booker says in the article:

"the Indians are planning to build 455 new coal-fired power stations, which will add more CO2 to the atmosphere of the planet every week than Britain emits in a year."


One might be troubled by this and one should be troubled by this. One might be environmentally aware and want to "do the right thing" relating to the environment; one might try and live sustainably and minimise one's 'carbon footprint'. One probably feels that one must make an effort, and will probably rationalise as follows: "what I do might be miniscule in the bigger scheme of things (environmental changes at the planetary level) but if enough individuals act like me then it will make a difference". However, within one there is likely to be a nagging doubt, a sense of one's actions being ultimately futile, simply a gesture which makes one feel better about oneself ("I have purchased a reusable bag from Tesco so I must be a good person!"). At a deeper level the nagging doubt exists, the realisation that all that one has done is buy a bag, and that in India 455 coal-fired power stations are about to be built (just one example of the larger reality), and that one's lifestyle is still highly unsustainable (on the one hand a reusable Tesco bag, on the other hand all of the supermarket packaging that gets put into the bag, the air miles of the food and one's holidays, the car journey to the supermarket and to work, etc, etc). One should realise that one really is insignificant in the bigger scheme of things, and that one is especially insignificant if one thinks that one's attempts to be environmentally-friendly make any difference whatsoever to global-warming at the planetary level.

We really need to face the reality of the situation rather than put our hope in trivial and futile gestures which are ultimately insignificant. And, as I have outlined in many of my earlier posts, the reality of the situation is that the human species needs to actively regulate the temperature of the atmosphere of the Earth for the good of 'life on Earth'. This is a positive outcome, not a measure of last resort which should be carried out out of despair.

The sooner this is fully realised and accepted the better. Then we can stop pursuing futile carbon-cutting policies and replace them with the required geoengineering policies.

Global Warming: Perceptions, Responses & Energy Policy

Perceptions of Global Warming

In the last post I outlined my concern at the fact that much of the debate relating to global warming tends to focus on very short-term factors; this is a problem because the factors which are of importance are long-term rather than short-term.

In this post I will delve into this subject a little deeper. Firstly, I will mention a recent study carried out in the US relating to how attitudes to global warming are formed. Secondly, I will put this into a broader theoretical context by proposing that the way that the human perceptual processes work almost makes it inevitable that, whatever the subject, there will be a tendency for humans to draw conclusions on the basis of the short-term at the expense of the long-term.

 

So, to the US study. A study (published in the journal Climatic Change) carried out at the University of British Columbia concluded that the local weather (particularly temperature) plays a major role in influencing public and media opinions on the reality of global warming. If there is a period of cold weather then there is a large increase in public and media scepticism towards global warming. Whereas, during a short-term hot spell there is much greater public and media concern about global warming. Prof. Simon Donner states that:

 

"Our study demonstrates just how much local weather can influence people's opinions on global warming...We find that, unfortunately, a cold winter is enough to make some people, including many newspaper editors and opinion leaders, doubt the overwhelming scientific consensus on the issue."

 

People are clearly heavily influenced by the present when they form their opinions about the future. One can easily think: If it is very cold now, how can global warming be a problem in the future?!

This way of forming opinions about issues which are long-term is clearly hopeless. Long-term issues require a consideration of long-term factors and processes, not of transitory short-term fluctuations which pertain in the present!

Why does this tendency for conclusions to be so heavily influenced by short-term factors exist?

There are, I believe, good reasons for the seeming inability of the majority of humans to adequately account for the long-term in their thought processes. There are surely many factors which are of relevance here. I will concentrate on what I consider to be the two most important factors. Firstly, the human life-span is itself only very short-term. Secondly, the human perceptual apparatus operates in such a way as to reveal and highlight only very short-term movements (the movements which are of importance in the global warming debate are very long-term movements). The result of this is that human thought processes tend to concentrate on these very same short-term movements (in other words, humans typically think about what they perceive). For now, I will provide an excerpt from one of my books which addresses the subject of the temporally constrained nature of human perception:

An Evolutionary Perspective on the Relationship between Humans and their Surroundings: Geoengineering, the purpose of life & the nature of the universe

3.1.4   Inevitable Constraint 3: Temporal

The human perceptual apparatus is also inevitably constrained because it has in-built temporal constraints; it is only able to perceive movements from an exceptionally narrow temporal perspective. This is possibly a hard thing to envision; how is one to get a handle on this inevitable constraint? Let us start with the evolutionary perspective.

The universe has been evolving and moving in various ways for billions of years; in contrast, the average contemporary human will be lucky to reach the age of one hundred years. One can barely comprehend what it would be like to perceive a movement that spanned a thousand years or a million years – in contrast to the movements which our perceptual apparatus has evolved to perceive, such as the running of a wild animal towards one, which is a movement which lasts a matter of seconds – but such long-term movements clearly exist. The human perceptual apparatus has evolved to connect to short-term movements and is unable to connect to long-term movements.

How exactly does the exceptionally narrow temporal perspective from which humans are able to perceive movements in their surroundings inevitably constrain their perceptions? It is perhaps helpful to start by considering a relatively short-term movement which a human could, in principle, be able to perceive. So, there is no reason why one could not perceive the movement pattern that is the Earth taking 365 days to move around the Sun. If one was located in an appropriately positioned space station, and was able to continuously observe for 365 days, then one would be able to perceive this movement (of course nearly-all, if not all, humans alive at the moment would not be able to do this as they need to sleep roughly every 24 hours). Of course, when we start to consider slightly longer-term movement patterns, those that exceed the lifespan of a human, then it is obviously the case that it is impossible for a human to be able to observe these movement patterns (a human can only observe whilst they are alive!).

Why is this important? If a human only has perceptual access to a small temporal slice of a movement, then that human is not in a position to accurately judge the nature of the movement. The inability of humans to access long-term movements means that they are likely to conceive of much of their surroundings as mechanistic – this is because the small segments of movements that humans are able to access appear to them to be mechanistic. If humans had perceptual access over a longer temporal window then all of the movements which humans perceive in their surroundings might appear to them to be non-mechanistic. So, the inevitable temporal limits of the human perceptual apparatus can easily lead one to conceptualise the vast majority of one’s surroundings as mechanistic – as very different from humans.

I will use an example to clarify this point. Let us consider a series of very short-term movements such as all the movements of the players on the pitch in a 90 minute football match. If you perceived this series of movements over a 90 minute period you would, no doubt, conclude that they were non-mechanistic. However, if you only had perceptual access to the first second of the match what would you conclude? The movements which you were able to perceive within this temporal window would not be of long enough duration to enable you to conceive of them to be non-mechanistic. You would, no doubt, conclude that the movements were mechanistic. It is only if you had a longer time slice of perceptual data that you would be able to conclude that the movement which you previously conceived as mechanistic is actually part of a much longer duration movement pattern which you would now wish to assert is non-mechanistic.

I hope you can see this. The universe is the 90 minute football match. All of the perceptions that a human can have of the universe occupy the first second of the match. Humans form their conceptions of the universe based on this first second. But the universe isn’t the first second – the universe is the whole 90 minute match! The human perceptual apparatus is clearly inevitably temporally constrained.

 

 

Perceptions of Global Warming

The Calm Before the Carbon Storm

There are three distinct positions when it comes to the human-induced global warming debate:


1  Human-induced GW is happening but it is not a cause of immediate grave concern

2  Human-induced GW is happening and it is a cause of immediate grave concern

3  Human-induced GW is not happening


I find it worrying that the various advocates of these 3 various positions tend to focus their debate on very short-term factors. The debates typically focus on such factors as:


A  Has there been an increase in extreme weather events due to human-induced global warming?

B  Was the massive hurricane last month due to human-induced global warming?

C  How much of recent temperature changes are due to 'natural variation' and how much are due to 'human-induced' effects?

D  Is the atmospheric temperature likely to rise over the next 5 years due to human-induced global warming?



These questions have one thing in common. They focus on the present, the immediate past, and the very near future. The problem is that this approach is quite inappropriate when it comes to the phenomenon of human-induced global warming. Why is this? I will try and briefly explain.


The brief answer is: time lags and timescales.


A slightly elucidated answer: the biogeochemical cycles of the Earth have been 'carbon perturbed' to a massive degree but the effects of this perturbation will not start to become manifest until the second half of this century.


*** In other words, all of the above questions (A-D) at best completely miss the point, and at worst are of trifling insignificance and are dangerous because they distract attention from the real global warming problem that we face.



A slightly longer answer:

i)  The atmospheric temperature of the Earth has been favourable for life for so much of the Earth's history because the increasing amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth from the Sun (non-human-induced global warming) has, until very recently, been offset by an increasing amount of carbon being stored under the surface of the Earth (as 'fossil fuels').

ii)  Very recently humans have upset this long-standing atmospheric regulatory process. The temperature of the Earth has only been favourable for life in the recent history of the planet because so much carbon had been stashed away under the surface of the Earth. Humans have released an enormous amount of this stored carbon and released it back into the cycles at the surface of the Earth. This means that all of this carbon can now exert a very large warming effect on the atmosphere.

iii)  The effects of this enormous release on the atmosphere are not immediate. The released carbon first enters the ocean and most of it finds its way into the deep ocean thermohaline circulation. Since the start of the industrial revolution most of the released carbon has simply entered this deep ocean circulation and none of it has re-emerged yet. The carbon is simply slowing moving through the deep ocean. A slowly ticking atmospheric time-bomb! It won't be until the second half of this century that the massive amount of carbon that humans have extracted from below the surface of the Earth will start emerging from these deep ocean currents. When this carbon starts to 'pour' out of the ocean a very significant increase in atmospheric temperature can be expected.

iv)  Concentrating on the question of whether current / past / immediate future climatic events and temperature variations are 'natural' or 'human-induced' completely misses this bigger picture. The bigger picture is all about time lags and longer timescales.

v)  The climatic regulatory system [i) above] has been massively perturbed and the effects of this have not yet become manifest, and will not become manifest until the second half of this century.


So, when we realise all of this the question becomes:


What do we do?

Well, clearly, reducing carbon emissions is not going to solve the problem. Reducing current and future emissions is a good thing, but it is not going to solve the problem that we face. The massive perturbation will not be offset by slightly reducing the amount by which we continue to perturb the system!  The only thing that we can do is to be as technologically prepared as possible. By the second half of this century we can be in a position which enables us to be technologically proficient at pulling carbon out of the atmosphere. This is the only way that we can restore the long-term atmospheric regulatory system [i) above] to a state of short-term balance. When the carbon starts gushing out of the ocean we simply start pulling carbon out of the atmosphere.

In fact, the sensible option would be to start pulling lots of carbon out of the atmosphere before the massive store of carbon in the themohaline starts to gush into the atmosphere.



Is all of this a 'good' or a 'bad' thing?

By posing this question I want to get you thinking about the even bigger picture. This technological solution will only put the long-term atmospheric regulatory system [i) above] back to a state of short-term balance. The problem is that this regulatory system cannot last forever because there comes a point when the carbon in the atmosphere runs out! What this means is that the future existence of life on the planet requires a longer-term technological solution. The increasing solar output of the ageing Sun needs to be directly intercepted before it reaches the Earth's atmosphere. This is the only way that humans and other 'interesting'/'complex' life-forms have a long-term future on the planet.

So, in brief, given that the survival of life on the Earth is a good thing, this means that the development of the human capacity to technologically regulate the atmosphere in various ways (both pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and directly blocking incoming solar radiation) is a very good thing for life on Earth. The short-term human carbon perturbations are a side-effect of becoming technological and also the stimulus which catalyses the technological development which all life on Earth needs in order to survive.

So, all of this is an exceptionally good thing!


Further Info:

There is much more detail on all of this in my books.

In my first book I paint the broad (technological) picture of humans in the cosmos and how this relates to environmental issues:

 Is the Human Species Special?: Why human-induced global warming could be in the interests of life

I go into more detail about the nature of the universe and the perturbation of the biogeochemical cycles in this book:

An Evolutionary Perspective on the Relationship between Humans and their Surroundings: Geoengineering, the purpose of life & the nature of the universe

And, in this fairly short book, I make the case that the human species is obviously the saviour of life on Earth, rather than the destroyer (which is the most popular contemporary view):

Saviours or Destroyers: The relationship between the human species and the rest of life on Earth

The Calm Before the Carbon Storm

Evolution versus Creationism

In the last few posts I have concentrated on geoengineering. I have considered both the need for geoengineering and why such an outcome would be a positive event for life on Earth. This need and outcome are firmly embedded within a view of the universe, and life on Earth, as evolving entities. I was slightly disturbed by some of the anti-evolution views expressed in the Metro on Wednesday (12/12/12) and thought I should write about them here.


'Gaps in our fossil records only open door to attacks on Darwin's Theory' (Metro, 12/12/12, p. 14):

"Creationists accept variation within a kind (ie within the dog 'family', cat 'family', bovine 'family', equine 'family', etc) but reject the notion of one type of creature, such as a wolf, turning into a completely different creature, such as a whale."

"the fossil record contains exactly what you would expect to find if the biblical account of creation were true."

"As a creationist, I agree there is such a thing as micro-evolution (changes within species). However, the fossil record does not support macro-evolution, which claims all species are related to each other and, for example, that we are related to apes and descended from fish. Tens of millions of fossils have been dug up and still there is not a single clear, undisputed case of a 'missing link' between species. The fossil record consistently supports creation of separate species, not gradual evolution from micro-organisms to humans."



There appear to be lots of people who believe that if Charles Darwin's proposed mechanism of evolution is false, then this is a good reason to reject evolution and embrace creationism. This misunderstands Darwin's legacy. There are three meanings of evolution:


1   Evolution as Fact - species are not fixed but arise out of and develop into other species.

2   Evolution as Path - the actual routes that evolution has taken.

3   Evolution as Mechanism - the power that lies behind evolutionary change.


Darwin's achievement was to establish beyond reasonable doubt the truth of 1). He had very little to say about 2) and he did his best to postulate a possible mechanism for 3) - 'natural selection'. If one rejects Darwin's proposed evolutionary mechanism, as many evolutionists do, then one really needs to look for a more plausible evolutionary mechanism in accordance with 1). One cannot reasonably reject 1) on the basis of rejecting a single possible mechanism (there are other possible mechanisms which can occupy 3) above).

The Metro quote above states:

"The fossil record consistently supports creation of separate species, not gradual evolution from micro-organisms to humans."

The important word here is "not". In other words, the belief is being expressed that IF "separate species" came into existence THEN this entails that there was no "gradual evolution from micro-organisms to humans". Of course, there is no actually no such entailment. If one rejects "gradual evolution from micro-organisms to humans" then one is rejecting 1) above. However, such a rejection does not follow from an acceptance that "separate species" came into existence. This is because there are very plausible evolutionary mechanisms which entail that "separate species" came into existence.  In other words, one can believe, like I do, that there is "gradual evolution from micro-organisms to humans" AND that "separate species" come into existence throughout the evolutionary process. In Acquiring Genomes Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan propose one such evolutionary mechanism with their symbiogenetic theory of animal speciation.

The conclusion seems to be that those who jump straight from a belief in "separate species" to creationism do not understand that there are evolutionary mechanisms which entail "separate species" coming into existence. The alternative is that they simply choose to ignore this fact.

For more on evolutionary mechanisms and paths see:

An Evolutionary Perspective on the Relationship between Humans and their Surroundings: Geoengineering, the purpose of life & the nature of the universe

Evolution versus Creationism

Accelerating Polar Ice Melting & Geoengineering

An article in yesterday's i newspaper highlights the accelerating rate of polar ice melting ("Polar ice melting three times as fast as 20 years ago", Lewis Smith, Friday 30 November, p.25). The article states that:


"More than 4,200 gigatones were lost from the polar ice sheets from 1992 to 2011, an average of 223Gt a year and rising. Researchers described the rate of losses as being at "the very upper end" of forecasts published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007."

"During the 1990s ice sheet loss accounted for 10 per cent of sea level rises, but in the last five years it has risen to more than 30 per cent, the researchers said."

"The Antarctic ice sheet contains 30 million cubic kilometres of ice and holds around 90 per cent of all the fresh water on the surface of the Earth. If the whole Antarctic ice sheet melted, sea levels would rise by more than 60 metres."


What are we to make of this? I think we need to accept our limitations, utilise our strengths, and properly acknowledge the level of uncertainty about what might happen in the future. Perhaps the most important of these is to accept our limitations. Let us consider the forces at work on the Earth:


1  Biogeochemical Forces  -  There have been biogeochemical forces slowly building up in momentum over hundreds of years which are resulting in the current changes we are seeing on the planet, changes such as a worrying acceleration in polar ice melting.


2  Socio/Economic/Political/Cultural/Individual Forces - These forces have been slowly building up for thousands of years, they have propelled cultural evolution towards globalisation and the human modification of large parts of the planet.


These forces are very strong and they are not about to suddenly weaken. In other words, if human 'interference' with the planet ceased tomorrow (no construction, no greenhouse gas emissions, no car or airplane travel, no deforestation, etc.) then the polar ice would still continue to melt at an accelerating rate for the foreseeable future. In other words, the two forces are interconnected, but also largely independent when they pick up their own momentum (think of a large boulder on the top of a hill; it might need a human to push it to get it to start rolling, but once rolling the human cannot stop it - it keeps on rolling until it gets to the bottom of the hill!).

We need to accept the reality of the situation. We need to accept the existence, the strength, the inertia, of these two forces. We need to accept our inability to stop these forces. For the foreseeable future humans are going to keep on consuming, modifying and altering, and greenhouse gas emissions are going to stay at a very high level - a level which will cause potential catastrophe if we don't utilise our strengths.

What are our strengths? This is obvious. We have walked on the moon, sent probes to Mars, and created a feast of engineering delights across the planet which would have utterly bewildered our ancestors. Surely, with all of that engineering expertise, pulling some carbon out of the atmosphere should be a very simple affair. Releasing carbon from its underground storage areas and releasing it into the atmosphere was a fairly simple human activity; the reverse movement is surely not beyond us. We just need to realise the urgency of the need. Unfortunately, there are many powerful voices which are 'emission-reduction obsessed'; they do not see the need, so they definitely do not see the urgency of the need. These voices could be piloting us towards a very dark future.

Finally, let us move towards uncertainty. There is obviously a very high level of uncertainty about the future. Forecasts have been made in the past, and as time passes the outcomes have been at the very worrying end of forecasts (the most extreme changes, as with polar ice melting). As the Biogeochemical Forces accelerate then it is likely that the changes which occur will far exceed the most extreme forecasts which are currently made. Whilst there is uncertainty, all the danger is on the upside. In other words, the most extreme forecasts could be overshot by a small amount, a large amount, or an exceptionally massive amount! In the face of all this uncertainty we most definitely need our most precious gift at our disposal, our exceptional ability to modify, to geoengineer.

So, we need to accept our limitations, utilise our strengths, and properly acknowledge the level of uncertainty that we face. This seems like a sensible strategy for the future. And all of these factors lead to the conclusion that we need to overcome the current 'emissions-reduction fixation' and push ahead with geoengineering efforts in the immediate future. Our future, and the future of life on Earth, could depend on it.

Accelerating Polar Ice Melting & Geoengineering

Emissions Cuts: The Gap between Ambition & Reality

In the last few posts I have been considering greenhouse gas emissions. I have cited journal and newspaper articles which reveal a growing realisation that greenhouse gas emissions are at a level which makes it very likely that there is going to be an extremely dangerous increase in the temperature of the planetary atmosphere later this century.

Despite the increasingly widespread realisation that this is so, there is still optimism that this extremely dangerous scenario can be averted if governments get together and agree to significantly reduce their emissions. One is tempted to believe that many people are blinkered into thinking that the only solution is to significantly reduce emissions. So, whilst the reality is that this isn't going to happen, people still want to believe that it can happen. People are, in the main, optimistic; so, if there is only one solution to a problem, then it is natural to keep on hoping that this solution can be attained, whatever the reality of the situation. There is clearly a gap between ambition and reality. Indeed, in the recently published Emissions Gap Report 2012, Achm Steiner, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, states that the report:


 "provides a sobering assessment of the gulf between ambition and reality"


The gulf between the reality of emissions being way too high to prevent dangerous warming is accepted; this reality is completely out of kilter with the ambition to have massively lower emissions. Yet, the report still tries to be optimistic in its conclusions, stating that it is "technically possible" that emissions can be slashed and that dangerous warming can be averted.

What does it mean to be "technically possible"? This way of looking at the situation seems to simply be a case of misplaced optimism and it could be extremely dangerous; it just seems to mean not theoretically impossible (which is, of course, true). It is also "technically possible" that I could win the National Lottery Jackpot every week for a year. However, when one gets serious, one needs to leave these theoretical "technical possibilities" aside, and return to reality! The reality is that 'the force to environmental destruction' (see Is the Human Species Special?: Why human-induced global warming could be in the interests of life ) will continue to dominate; greenhouse gas emissions will not be slashed in the time-frame that is required.

Another report has just been released by the World Bank:

http://climatechange.worldbank.org/content/climate-change-report-warns-dramatically-warmer-world-century

According to this report:


"the world is on track to a “4°C world” marked by extreme heat-waves and life-threatening sea level rise"


and that:


"As global warming approaches and exceeds 2°C, there is a risk of triggering nonlinear tipping elements. Examples include the disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet leading to more rapid sea-level rise, or large-scale Amazon dieback drastically affecting ecosystems, rivers, agriculture, energy production, and livelihoods. This would further add to 21st-century global warming and impact entire continents.

The projected 4°C warming simply must not be allowed to occur—the heat must be turned down. Only early, cooperative, international actions can make that happen."


In this report there is clearly an admirable ambition to avoid the extreme danger that we face from a massive increase in temperatures triggered by an above 2°C rise (due to the associated nonlinear tipping points which are likely to result in a runaway warming effect). Yet this ambition is again out of kilter with reality. This is because there is a misplaced belief that the desired outcome can be achieved through emissions cuts.

The sooner that reality is fully accepted the better it will be. When one realises that one's proposed solution to a problem is completely out of kilter with reality, then it is usually best to seek another solution. This isn't a bad thing, a sign of failure. In this case, the realisation will simply cause one to shift one's energy and focus to a real solution to the problem; a solution which is in accordance with reality. Of course, you know what this solution is: the geoengineering of the temperature of the atmosphere.

As a final note, many people still seem to believe that if emissions were 'magically' slashed from tomorrow, that everything would be fine. However, this seems to be another case of the widespread human need to be optimistic; there are good reasons to believe that in reality even this would not make any difference; the 'damage' has already been done due to past actions whose time-lag biogeochemical perturbation effects have yet to be manifested in increasing atmospheric temperatures. For more on this see: An Evolutionary Perspective on the Relationship between Humans and their Surroundings: Geoengineering, the purpose of life & the nature of the universe .

So, the World Bank report is right that "only early, cooperative, international actions" can avoid a 4°C rise. The real question which needs to be addressed is what these actions are. When reality is accepted then the ambition to avoid such a rise can be met with a solution that can work (geoengineering), rather than with the current obsession with the completely ineffectual alternative (attempting to slash emissions). So, if reality can be widely accepted then there is still reason to be optimistic; one just needs to place one's optimism in the right solution.

Emissions Cuts: The Gap between Ambition & Reality