An investigation of the theme of Transparency in the Canadian Federal Government. Non-partisan: Power corrupts and Absolute Power corrupts absolutely. Our model: the muckracker journalists.
Corey Robin: The Reactionary Mind, Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin, Oxford University Press, 2011, 248 pages, chapter notes, index.
".. an inspired move, characteristic of all great counterrevolutionary theories, in which the people become actors without roles, an audience that believes it is onstage. (emphasis added)
"'A free act is only that which proceeds from the free election of the rational will'. And 'where there is no consideration nor use of reason, there is no liberty at all.' Being free entails acting in accordance with reason or, in political terms, living under laws as opposed to arbitrary power." Prof Robin's approach to Conservatism and socio-political Reaction (he does not distinguish the two) is iconoclastic. He rejects the idea that the core of Conservatism is a desire to hold onto the good things of the past - "Tradition" - and, instead, sees a power dialectic at work:
“Though it is often claimed that the left stands for equality while the
right stands for freedom, this notion misstates the actual disagreement
between right and left. Historically, the conservative has favored
liberty for the higher orders and constraint for the lower orders. What
the conservative sees and dislikes in equality, in other words, is not a
threat to freedom but its extension. For in that extension, he sees a
loss of his own freedom.” In Robin’s understanding, conservatives aren’t
traditionalists who seek to maintain the status quo, but
counterrevolutionaries: “People on the left often fail to realize this,
but conservatism really does speak to and for people who have lost
something. It may be a landed estate or the privileges of white skin,
the unquestioned authority of a husband or the untrammeled rights of a
factory owner. The loss may be as material as money or as ethereal as a
sense of standing.” While I might harbor some doubts as to the identification of conservatives and reactionaries (note 1), Robin's portrait of the conservative / reactionary co-incides pretty well with my own observations of true reactionaries. Traditional definitions of Conservatism tend toward the bucolic, toward the idealization of the "pastoral" and (supposedly) simpler - and better - life of the past. Conservatives are said, and themselves often claim, to respect Tradition.
However, reactionaries I have met - and most of the conservatives I know are reactionaries - , schoolmates, neighbors and family members, don't fit these traditional depictions. My reactionaries tend to be mavericks, wild cards, innovators, iconoclasts (or, at least, see themselves as such). On one point in particular I concur with prof Robin, reactionaries seek power and, specifically, power over others (as opposed to power wielded to empower, liberate or heal others).
Can you identify these two famous reactionaries?
Today, and since at least the end of World War II, the forces of political Reaction are in ascendancy in the West. This is true despite some tactical, battlefield victories like second (or third) wave feminism, the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s (U.S.A.), the decolonization of third world countries, the founding of the United Nations, the overthrow of apartheid in South Africa and the fall of Communism. However, if one looks closely, one sees that these (apparent) victories for Reason and the empowerment of minorities and the oppressed are, at best, partial, incomplete or truncated revolutions. Thus, racism is still very much alive and well, despite attempts over the last five decades to render it politically incorrect and to empower its victims. Witness the recent shootings of young black men in the U.S.A. and Canada, the oppression of the Roma in central and eastern Europe, the general rise of anti-immigrant sentiment, and growing religious intolerance and fanaticism. Liberal and progressive forces may still be able to win battles, but the forces of reaction seem to be winning the war (note 2).
The cultural signs of the rise of Reaction are everywhere, if one takes the time to look.
"In 1998 readers responding to a Modern Library poll identified [reactionary Ayn Rand's] Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead as the two greatest novels in English in the twentieth century.." Page 76
http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/ ".. the conservative position stems from a genuine conviction that a world thus emancipated will be ugly, brutish, base and dull. It will lack the excellence of a world where the better man commands the worse. When [conservative theoretician Edmund] Burke adds,.. , that the "great Object" of the [French] Revolution is 'to root out that thing called an Aristocrat or Nobleman and Gentleman', he is not simply referring to the power of the nobility; he is also referring to the distinction that power brings to the world. If the power goes, the distinction goes with it. This vision of the connection between excellence and rule is what brings together in post-war America that unlikely alliance of the libertarian, with his vision of the employer's untrammeled power in the workplace; the traditionalist, with his vision of the father's rule at home; and the statist [fascist], with his vision of a heroic leader pressing his hand upon the face of the earth. Each in his own way subscribes to this typical statement, from the nineteenth century, of the conservative creed: 'To obey a real superior.. is one of the most important of all virtues - a virtue absolutely essential to the attainment of anything great and lasting.'"
We are now left with a plausible - but yet to be empirically tested - mechanism to explain the rise of Reaction today, particularly in its populist forms: Donald Trump, Marie Le Pen in France, Putin's appeals to Russian chauvinism, the anti-drug war of Duterte in the Philippines, the Brexit campaign in the UK.
In Western democracies, the populace is taught that the people is king. Some, of course, are "superior" to (more gifted than) their fellows; these are the "natural rulers" lauded by novelist and reactionary theoretician Ayn Rand. The problem is that today the average citizen (the "King" of democratic societies) feels himself threatened from all quarters: climate change, environmental degradation, the loss or risk of loss of employment as blue collar jobs are off-shored to third world sweatshops, incomprehensible and incredibly violent international terrorist movements capable of striking our homeland, uppity minorities and "deviants" who refuse to accept their status as inferiors.. The general sentiment today is one of loss of control or power, a generalized attack on status (climate change threatens to destroy everyone's status!) Since many of these threats are "tentacular" - hard to comprehend and omnipresent - , deep, but poorly focused, fear is generated. Now fear is perhaps the greatest incitement to violence (the classic "fight or flight response"). To provide temporary relief from chronic invasive fear, scapegoats are sought. Attacking the scapegoat provides temporary stress reduction but, since it does not affect the root cause of fear, its effects soon wear off and, like the junkie, another "fix" is soon needed.
It is interesting to note how contemporary populist leaders lash out against vulnerable - and expendable - groups: immigrants, Mexicans, Muslims, drug addicts, gays, transgendered,.. and how they promise to deliver the harrowed populace from their enemies, real or imagined. All of which coincides with prof Robin's definition of Reaction as a response to a sense of impending loss.
Since our social, political and economic institutions seem helpless either to address - or even to adequately define the challenges we collectively face - , Reaction must surely grow till a social explosion (war, revolution) occurs. We are in the early stages of that detonation today..
Perhaps because I am a congenital optimist (who sees the glass as half-full as opposed to half-empty), I don't see The Reactionary Mind as a doom and gloom book. My take away is a positive message. Prof Robin argues that a language of displacement and falsification is employed by reactionaries. Rather than frame political struggle in terms of power and powerlessness, reactionaries falsely frame struggle in terms of security. Thus Hitler tried to protect the Aryan race from the nefarious Jew. Trump wants to protect Americans from criminal Mexican illegals. The Reactionary Mind teaches us to look past the verbal smoke and mirrors of security-speak to the real issue of empowerment.
interview with Prof Corey Robin
notes: 1- I have encountered "red Tories" who describe themselves as fiscal conservatives and social progressives. One red Tory mother held up American president John F. Kennedy and his civil rights project as an exemplar for her children to emulate. When speaking of red Tories and moderate conservatives (on a case by case basis), we may indeed be justified in adhering to traditional definitions of Conservatism (such as the valorisation of Tradition, Hierarchy and Authority). In the case of the red Tory, one's rank in the social order is determined by earned merit, not inherited status or Machiavellian thuggery. I would therefore nuance my appreciation of Robin's thesis by making a pragmatic distinction between more moderate conservatives and reactionary power trippers.
2- Reaction will probably win the war for a number of reasons, the most salient being a growing perception (often unavowed) that the world is going to hell. Climate change, for example, threatens disruption of major regional agricultural systems in the near future which will trigger regional conflicts and (most likely) intensified global terrorism. ISIS terrorism in Europe is probably only a foretaste of the globalized terror to come. Those who have - the peoples of the West in particular - (consciously or not) are afraid of losing what they have and becoming have-nots.
Andrew H Knoll: Life on a Young Planet, Princeton University Press (2003, 2015), 246 pages, index, numerous photos and diagrams, very extensive "further reading" list for those who want to pursue the origin of life and early evolutionary development.
We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time T S Eliot
Despite an almost bewildering diversity of form and function, all cells share a common core of molecular features.. The reciprocal observation is equally striking. In spite of their fundamental unity of molecular structure, organisms display extraordinary variation in size, shape, physiology, and behavior. Life's unity and diversity are both remarkable in their own ways; together they comprise the two great themes of comparative biology. (page 17, emphasis added)
Animals may be evolution's icing, but bacteria are the cake (page 19)
abbreviations used in this article:
CO2: carbon dioxide, involved in the photosynthesis / respiration cycle. It is also a greenhouse gas, trapping heat (infrared radiation) and warming the earth.
Mya: million years ago
geological periods discussed:
Cambrian: 543 Mya to 485 Mya. During the "Cambrian Explosion", "large" - multicellular - plants and animals appeared. "Modern" - oxygen breathing- forms of life proliferated in the seas and soon spread to land in the following order: plants, arthropods (insects and their kin) and, finally, our own ancestors, the vertebrates (marine tetrapods)
Proterozoic (also called the pre-Cambrian): about 2.5 billion to 543 million years ago. Aside from colonial microbial stromatolites which formed coral-like structures in water, life was microbial. See two stromatolite photos below.
Most definitely a nerd book. The intended readership are both science literate general readers and workers in the earth and life sciences. To appreciate this text fully you need a decent background - self-acquired or school learned - in the earth sciences, paleontology and evolutionary theory in particular. A basic grounding or working knowledge in biology (ecology) and (bio)chemistry helps. On the plus side, the author's style is remarkably readable. Essentials are generally well explained, allowing the novice to tread into deeper waters than they otherwise would be capable of handling.
The subject of Life on a Young Planet is the appearance and evolution of early life on earth before the Great Cambrian Explosion, about 600 million years ago (Mya), when "large" (visible to the naked eye) plants and animals wildly proliferated and "the world as we know it" was born. On young earth, life was microscopic: bacteria, one celled animals and plants.
How old is life? The first microfossil traces of life are hotly contested. Mineralogical processes can produce microfossil like structures. Finding "biomarkers", chemical signatures of life (or of its decomposition products), in association with putative microfossils can, in some circumstances, provide a strong case that one is dealing with real microfossils. Today, claims of microfossils 3.7 years old are being made. If confirmed, they would indicate an extraordinary early emergence of life. The solar system was born 4.5 billion years ago and the earth itself is only about 4 billion years old!
The modern tree
of life, based on genetic similarity. Modern multicellular animals and plants are found in
the upper right hand corner among the "more evolved" Eukaryota. Click on image to enlarge.
Everything you wanted to know about Archaea - the extremophiles - but were afraid to ask:
A modern
testate amoeba, which lives in a mineral shell which is secreted by this one
celled "animal" (technically, a protist, neither animal or plant). Testate amoebas are Eukaryota, "more evolved" lifeforms, and lie on the rightmost branch of the Tree of Life along with animals and plants. See above diagram. They are one of earliest animal-like life forms dating back at least 750 Mya, well before the Cambrian Explosion when modern multicelled animals and plants proliferated, diversified and flourished. Testate amoeba are still important members of contemporary aquatic and soil ecosystems!
A fossil testate amoeba shell unearthed by author Knoll. The white bar on the lower left of the photo is 25 microns (millionths of a meter). The shell is thus about 100 microns in length, the width of the average human hair. It was secreted about 720 to 635 Mya in the pre-Cambrian.
Video of living testate amoeba. The shell is composed of sand grains cemented together with silicic acid secreted by the amoeba.
Over time early microbes developed communal "biofilms". Later, biofilms would evolve into the tissues of higher multicellular organisms like plants and animals). Stromatolites are pseudo-corals consisting of layers of mineral matter (sand grains or fine sediments) alternating with photosynthesizing microbial mats. Stromatolites may achieve impressive dimensions and some stomatolite fossils have been dated at a credible 3.5 billion years. Interestingly, living stromatolites are found in some seas today.
living stromatolites, Shark Bay, Australia
pre-Cambrian stromatolite fossil from Bolivia
Life on a Young Planetargues that life is a co-dependent, co-evolving network of energy flows, chemical cycles and living organisms, a living tissue or fabric which includes the body of the earth itself, its seas and atmosphere. The health of individual organisms and species ultimately depends upon the integrity of the whole fabric, a lesson humanity is painfully learning today because of our disruption of vital ecological systems and the chemical equilibria of the planet.
An interesting example of co-dependence and co-evolution are the Eukaryota, the domain which includes dominant modern life-forms like plants and animals. It is now believed that the Eukaryota arose from the symbiotic co-dependence of single celled organisms. It is believed that the mitochondria - the sub-cellular "organelles" which our bodies' cells use to burn sugars with oxygen to liberate vital energy - were once free living organisms. Several lines of evidence support this conclusion, including the fact that mitochondria contain their own DNA (genetic code) and replicate independently when our bodily cells replicate.
From the micro-level to the macro-level, the co-dependence and co-evolution of life is evident. Plants absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and water from the soil. Using the energy of visible light rays from the sun, sugars, starches and other energy rich molecules are synthesized from CO2 and water during photosynthesis. Oxygen is released as a by-product. Photosynthesized energy rich hydrocarbons (sugar, starch, oil, fat) form the basis of the food web. Herbivores eat plants to incorporate energy rich hydrocarbons to power their metabolisms. Carnivores eat herbivores to incorporate energy rich molecules incorporated in the herbivores bodies. Through co-dependent co-evolution, efficient carbon cycling was established over time: the photosynthesis / respiration cycle. Plants absorb CO2, synthesize energy rich hydrocarbons and release oxygen during photosynthesis. Animals respire the oxygen released by plants to burn energy rich hydrocarbons, releasing CO2 in the process. A rough equilibrium between photosynthesis and respiration has been established over time allowing all organisms to flourish. Too much oxygen, and our forests would burn up in planetary conflagrations while too little would prevent the emergence of animal life.
But co-dependent co-evolution runs even deeper. Both plants and animals are Eukaryota. When these organisms die most of their organic matter is quickly recycled by decomposers: insects, worms, fungi, bacteria.. But not all organic matter is recycled. In water, organic matter may precipitate to the bottom as sediment before it decomposes. Such environments are often anoxic, contain little or no oxygen. Now, Eukaryota like plants and animals require oxygen and are therefore incapable of extracting energy from buried sediments (and, in the process, recycling vital bio-elements back into the environment, in this case, sea or lake water). Only anaerobic prokaryota - micro-organisms not requiring oxygen for metabolism - are capable of processing buried organic matter to liberate essential bio-elements like nitrogen and sulfur. In effect, without the recycling activity of the "lowly" prokaryota, we "more evolved" Eukaryota would disappear as vital bio-elements were buried and removed from biospheric circulation! The "web of life" is much more than a fuzzy New Age or mystical meme. It is a literal, physical reality upon which our very lives depend..
As prof Knoll puts it so eloquently,
"Life on a Young Planet records that moment in time when biologists and Earth scientists began working together to build an integrative picture of our planet's history. We now know that we can only understand life's evolutionary trajectory by embedding it in the chronicle of Earth's dynamic environmental history. That is the lesson of deep Earth history, and it is also a lesson for today, when human technology has emerged as an environmental force of geological prominence. Whether we look outward, searching for a second example of life, or forward, hoping to navigate wisely through an era of mounting global change, the record of Earth and life through time provides a fundamentally important catalog of experience that can help guide our actions." (page XV, emphasis added)
As is so often the case with the best science writing, much of the charm of this book comes from it's evolutionary approach to science itself. The clash of competing theories, the fruitful alliances between disciplines, the slow unearthing of critical clues.. all these are grain for Prof Knoll's mill. For those interested in life's early history and deep ecology and who possess the requisite science background, this book is a must read. Even novice earth science readers should find it a challenging and stimulating read (and don't forget the extensive suggested reading list for aid..) Definitely recommended.
"For scientists, unanswered questions are like Everests unclimbed, an irresistible lure for restless minds" (page 224)
David Keith: A case for climate geoengineering (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2013), 2013, 174 pages, chapter notes. No index, glossary, photos or graphics. Compact, may serve as an introduction and even as basic reference text (alas! - for the lack of an index and glossary).
Abbreviations used in article:
CC: climate change
CO2: carbon dioxide
GHG: greenhouse gases. GHG are responsible for global warming and climate change. The most important GHG are carbon dioxide and methane.
GW: global warming
Global warming (GW) and the subsequent climate change (CC) threaten, in the next few decades, to disrupt regional climates upon which traditional food production systems depend, affecting crop and livestock choices, yields, timing of planting and harvesting, pest and disease risks, droughts, extreme weather damage risks, erosion rates, availability of water.. - note 1. Such regional disruption of food production would likely entail great misery, large scale population declines and an enormous rise is the risk of war and terrorism. For example GW causes sea levels to rise: through the thermal expansion of water and glacial melt in north and south polar regions.
If things get really bad, low lying countries like Pakistan with nuclear weapons might be tempted to clear adjacent regions of their neighbor's territory of their population with exterminating nuclear strikes before invading and resettling their threatened coastal population on the "cleared" land. (Historical analog: the clearing and resettling of aboriginal populations by European colonists in North and South America.)
Since attempts to reduce GHG emissions to safe levels have failed - a case of "too little, too late" - some researches have proposed "geoengineering" fixes to compensate the negative impact of GW / CC.
Geoengineering technologies fall into several broad categories:
1- carbon removal: offending GHG are removed directly at the source or from the atmosphere. Some technologies attempt to "sequester" or lock up carbon in a secure place: exhausted oil fields, natural underground caverns, absorption by minerals or photosynthetic algae or bacteria (to produce food and biofuels). Generally, these schemes propose capturing CO2 emissions at the site of production although some recent proposals are based on chemical absorption from the general atmosphere.
2- solar geoengineering: these technologies attempt to compensate for the increased quantity of heat retained by the atmosphere by reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface. They aim to reduce the flow of energy heating the earth.
A case for geoengineering pleads for a well-studied, gradually phased-in multilateral (global) adoption of solar geoengineering. The technologies reviewed by Keith may be described as first generation: the "low hanging fruit", the most obvious and least costly applications.
"It is possible to cool the planet by injecting reflective particles of sulfuric acid into the upper atmosphere where they would scatter a tiny fraction of incoming sunlight back to space, creating a thin sunshade for the ground beneath.. it is cheap and technically easy. The specialized aircraft and dispersal systems required to get started could be deployed in a few years for the price of a Hollywood blockbuster.. [It could] stop GW; it could increase crop yields, particularly those in the hottest and poorest parts of the world."
"Solar geoengineering is an extraordinarily powerful tool. But it is also dangerous. It entails novel environmental risks. And, like CC itself, its effects are unequal, so even if it makes many farmers better off, others will be worse off. It is so cheap that almost any nation could afford to alter the earth's climate, a fact that may accelerate the shifting balance of global power, raising security concerns that could, in the worst case, lead to war. If misused, geoengineering could drive extraordinarily rapid CC, imperiling global food supply. In the long run, stable control of geoengineering may require new forms of global governance and prove as disruptive to the political order of the 21st century as nuclear weapons were for the 20th." Pages X - XI (emphasis added)
One of the virtues of this compact, easy reading text is that the author aims for a "neutral objectivity". He states what geoengineering is - he is a researcher in the field - and what are the plausible (and implausible) risks of employing it. He describes why we might need to use it in the next few decades: disruptive GW / CC and resultant geopolitical instability. Then he presents the case why he advocates a cautious, gradual deployment within the next few years.
Injection of a fine mist of sulfuric acid droplets in the upper atmosphere, reflecting sunlight back into space, is perhaps the easiest, cheapest and most well understood proposal to date. It is founded on the observation of planetary cooling following massive volcanic eruptions which inject sulfuric acid aerosols into the stratosphere such as the massive Mt Pinatubo eruption (Philippines) of 1991 which produced a global cooling of .6 C (1 degree Fahrenheit).
Thar she blows! Mount Pinatubo, 1991
Cooling the earth to a significant degree would require a fleet of modified commercial or military jets. It could be implemented today.. Demonstrationprojects - to test the technology and observe negative side effects - could cost a "mere" $700 million annually. This is a bit less than half the US military budget of 2015 ($1,600 million), and the burden would be shared among the nations of the earth..
Sulfuric acid aerosol injection has side effects, often opposing, and not distributed equally around the world. Algal growth would be stimulated in some parts of the world ocean, producing more food for fish and possibly absorbing a bit of CO2 in the process. Other parts of the ocean would reach toxic levels of acidity, reducing photosynthetic activity and biomass production. Some regions of the globe will cool more than others; modification of temperature regimes disrupts weather patterns and weather regulating oceanic currents like the Gulf Stream. Some regions will receive more rain, others will become drier. Though the planet will cool and agricultural production rise, there will be winners and losers. The big problem here, of course, is how to redistribute gains - and compensate losses - on a global scale in a just, equitable fashion. Given current geo-political tensions, such redistribution will prove much, much harder than actually implementing aerosol injection and monitoring its effects. Dr Keith, to his credit, addresses such difficulties, being forced finally to admit that a new system of international governance will be required. Good luck on that one!
Aerosol injection should be "ramped up" gradually with close monitoring of side effects, both positive and negative. Fortunately, its effects are reversible. Stop injecting aerosols into the stratosphere and, in a year or two, the droplets have descended. In aerosol injection's favor, Dr Keith argues that crop loss due to heat stress and flooding afflicts most harshly on the world' poorest. It is thus the poorest who could benefit the most - ifaerosol injection "works" ( produces more positive effects than negative ones).
Why GW is really bad. The unprecedented speed of GW / CC will prove costly. Sea costs will flood forcing mass inland migrations. This is really bad because most people actually live near costs and much of the world is already overpopulated. Eleven of the fifteen largest cities of the world lie along sea coasts or on river estuaries. 53% of the US population lives near a seacoast. Relocating climate refugees inland (where else can they go ?) steals land from agricultural production. Our overpopulated world has already put all the arable land under the plow. Where, then, will hundreds of millions of coastal climate refugees go? The moon? Mars? Not likely..
Then there's the question of the increasing frequency of extreme weather events.
As the world warms, evaporation increases. Water vapor carries with it the energy which was required to raise the energy of water molecules from the liquid state to vapor (the "heat of evaporation" or "latent heat"). The hydrological cycle comprises the cyclic movement of water from the liquid state (lakes, oceans), through
- evaporation, - transport of vapor by circulating air currents, - recondensation of vapor as precipitation, - flow of water downhill to lakes and oceans, completing the cycle.
Increased evaporation means two things: 1- more energy (latent heat) carried by the atmosphere, 2- increased speed circulation of water in the hydrological cycle. The big wheel in the sky turns faster and faster.
The result? More droughts in arid regions, greater storm violence with increased risk of flood, high wind, hail and lightning damage.The real costs of GW / CC arise not from a mediocre global temperature rise of a 1 - 2 C but from the increased frequency of extreme weather events, something insurance companies are well aware of.
"The study of Swiss Re and ETH showed a clear trend: in addition to
intensifying storms, the storm paths will shift further northwards,
resulting in a higher storm frequency and higher losses in the regions
affected. For the period 1975-2085, for instance, we expect losses from
winter storms to increase in real terms by 16 to 68 percent, depending
on the region."
An additional problem, rarely discussed. Some northern nations like Canada, Sweden, Norway, Russia.. may, in the long run benefit from GW. Their growing seasons will be longer and slightly warmer. GW temperatures rise faster in polar regions; northerntemperatures rise about double the global average. The recently implemented Paris Climate Agreement seeks to limit GW to 1.5 C. In fact, the measures stipulated in the Accord fall short of the mark and will lead to a 2 C or greater increase in global temperature. Therefore Canada should, conservatively speaking, expect a 4 to 6 C (7 to 11 degree Fahrenheit!!) rise in annual temperature by century's end. Such a rise could, "all things being equal" (they may not be though!), boost agricultural ouputs significantly. The hick is that the transition to the warmer "Northern Bread Basket" climate will require decades (??) of unstable, "kaleidoscopically shifting", weather patterns, highly variable from one year to the next, and, in any case, "out of synch" with traditional farming practices and crop choices. If northern countries benefit from GW in the long run, the short and medium terms promise a chaotic transition with reduced agricultural outputs, social and political disruption. We even have an historical analog to study. A similar phase of acute climate instability marked the end of the Little Ice Age (1300 - 1850) in western Europe. Recurrent local and regional crop failures contributed to the social strife that fueled the French Revolution. See, for example, Simon Schama: Citizens, a chronicle of the French Revolution, (Random House, 1990).
Prof Keith argues convincingly that geoengineering, judiciously chosen and democratically implemented (with full compensation to those negatively affected), with all its risks, may be less costly (in lives and money) than current wimpy GHG reduction and green energy policies. These "policies", be it admitted, are a lot of hot air: CO2 levels now stand 50% above pre-industrial levels (as measured from glacial ice cores). They are still rising with no end in sight.
Keith proposes research on the development of geoengineering technologies. Then if, at some time in the near future, it is decided that we need geoengineering to avoid catastrophic ecological and social breakdown, we will have a viable Plan B, ready to go.
Keith emphasizes that geoengineering should not be taken as a substitute for renewable energy development, GHG emission reduction or CC mitigation strategies (reclaiming wetlands, sea walls, alternative crops, water conservation, tree planting in arid zones..) A rational approach to geoengineering, cautions prof Keith, is to employ it as an emergency measure to buy more time for green energy deployment and CC mitigation.
"Cutting [GHG] emissions to zero means replacing a big chunk of the heavy infrastructure on which our society rests." Page 31 And that, of course, takes time - too much of which we have frittered away and wasted, to date..
Where we disagree. Prof Keith believes that nuclear energy provides a viable transitional technology to a green future. I don't. This probably arises from the fact that I am less of an optimist (and certainly less of a techno-optimist) than he is. At this late date, I no longer believe that a smooth, peaceful transition to a green energy future is possible. I believe in the near inevitability of large scale societal breakdown and rapid regional population collapse. To deal with the Hard Days Ahead, we need simple technologies to maintain Cultural Refugia.
"At this time of planetary crisis, I propose we should take a page from those great survivalists of Late Antiquity, the early Christians. Christian monasteries preserved a good part of the philosophy, law, science and mathematics of antiquity during the Dark Ages which followed the breakup of the Roman Empire. These preserved teachings served a vital role in the Renaissance of Western civilization and the birth of Modernity (12th through 17th centuries).
We need to think of doing something similar today, to preserve what is worth saving in our civilization so that the survivors won't have to start from scratch, so they will have the best seed from which to grow a new civilizational cycle. I call communities designed to preserve and pass onour civilization's knowledge and our best values, Cultural Refugia. We have payed a high price for our science, we should not throw it away lightly (very bad karma!) We need to preserve the Periodic Table, Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, Ecology...We need to preserve essential technologies to kick start a new cycle of civilization. Ideally, the larger Refugia would maintain 19th century metalurgy and electrical technology, early 20th centuryvacuum tube technology (intergrated circuitry is probably too high tech to survive the social chaos I see coming. Ditto for nuclear reactors: too complex, too demanding of infrastructure and capital). To the degree possible, we should attempt to maintainmid-20th century medicine.. Above all, we need to preserve our most precious spiritual acquisitions like Civil or Human Rights: liberty, equality, fraternity; the belief in the dignity of the human person and the Universality of human nature; the gains of modern feminism,.."
Prof Keith spends much time deflating "propagandistic" distortions and selective readings of geoengineering research by the environmental Left. Example: solar geoengineering necessarily causes droughts which will afflict poor farmers in the third world. Once again - alas! - we encounter that ancient - but always forgotten - truth: in war the first casualty is truth.
As an environmentalist, I found Keith's discussion of the Left's propagandistic distortions to be a healthy corrective to the natural human failing of seeing one's own camp as virtuous and our opponent's camp as a cesspit of iniquity. Such hypocrisy is all too evident when one takes the time to look. Liberal professionals in North America decry geoengineering as "technological hubris". Yet, geoengineering may be the fastest stopgap measure to reduce Third World drought and famine until renewable energy technologies really kick in and reduce our carbon footprint to zero. Meanwhile, the same liberal professionals continue to buy gas guzzling, GHG spewing SUVs, nor do they militate for GHG reducing public transport and green energy. Collectively, we speak from both sides of our mouths..
"It's vital that the debate about geoengineering shift from the physics of climate models to focus on human and environmental impacts. The risks of geoengineering need urgent attention, along with the benefits. But the current debate reveals the extent to which people fit geoengineering into convenient narratives while ignoring facts that don't fit their theory." Page 61, emphasis added.
To this I can only say "amen!" I remain skeptical about the feasibility of a global program of gradually phased in and moderately dosed geoengineering in today's increasingly chaotic, divided and conflictual world. Given the speed of climate deterioration, the world's leaders may soon be forced to deploy geoengineering within the framework of a scientifically based United Nations administered program. Unfortunately, it is as least as likely that rogue states, heavily impacted by CC, will undertake ill-advised, crisis driven climate modification projects - and to hell with the neighbors! Think: Kim's North Korea, Putin's Russia, Trump's America..
If Keith is right, a judicious mix of green technologies and palliative geoengineering could allow technical civilization to scrape through the Hard Days Ahead. The real problem, though, is not sciento-technological in nature, but spiritual: as a world we lack the collective, political will to work together for the Common Good of all.
notes:
1- GHG: Greenhouse effect. The most important GHG are carbon dioxide and methane. These gases are produced naturally by respiration, the decomposition of organic matter, and volcanism. Carbon
naturally cycles in the the earth's ecosystems and between ecosystems and geological reservoirs (sedimentary rock produced by compression of ocean sediment..) These fluxes maintain a
rough equilibrium over long periods of time, geologically speaking. Excesses of GHG produced by the combustion of fossil fuels and modern agriculture are responsible for GW and CC.
In the last two centuries, industrial activities, rising living standards and rapid population growth have increased global atmospheric levels of CO2. Carbon which was once harmlessly sequestered in subterranean reservoirs of coal, petroleum and natural gas has been burned to sustain increased industrialization, living standards and population.Likewise, forest and grassland clearing for agricultural activities and settlement release carbon stored in soil humus to the atmosphere as CO2. Rice cultivation and livestock production are net sources of methane.
Like the glass wall of a greenhouse, GHG trap heat radiated by earth and water heated by the sun, thus raising the earth's average temperature. GW, in turn, profoundly affects the productivity and timing of biological processes such as maturation, migration and the geographical distribution of species. The planet's average temperature also profoundly affects average weather patterns: precipitation, extent and location of deserts, the trajectory of agriculturally vital monsoon rains and the availability of mountain glacial melt water. A complicating factor, increasing the uncertainty in predicting the evolution of tomorrow's climate: GW is not uniform in time and space. Nigh time temperatures are raised more than daily temperature maxima. Northern and southern polar regions warm faster thanfor lands falling near the equator.
