OpenSpace4Life

Here are some intriguing closing remarks from President Phil Chase, a character whom I first quoted in this post, from the end of Kim Stanley Robinson's epic trilogy of near-future environmental catastrophe: Forty Signs of Rain, Fifty Degrees Below, and Sixty Days and Counting. (These books are far better than their hokey titles suggest.)

( Economics-related )

On sustainability:
    "By permaculture I mean a culture that can be sustained permanently. Not unchanging, that's impossible, we have to stay dynamic, because conditions will change, and we will have to adapt to those new conditions, and continue to try to make things even better—so that I like to think the word permaculture implies also permutation. . . .
    "Taking care of the Earth and its miraculous biological splendor will then become the long-term work of our species. . . . People worry about living life without purpose or meaning, and rightfully so, but really there is no need for concern: inventing a sustainable culture is the meaning, right there always before us . . . [and] will never come to an end while people still exist. . . .
    "We have to become the stewards of the Earth. And we have to start doing this in ignorance of how to do it. We have to learn how to do it in the attempt itself."

This from a president who has supported dumping mass quantities of salt into the north Atlantic to restart the Gulf Stream, as well as pumping massive amounts of water from the rising seas inland to form new salt lakes.  The full impacts of actions on this scale are unknown, and some of Robinson's characters do worry about this, but they rationalize that things have already gotten so bad over the course of the trilogy that there's no time left to look before we leap.  Hence the title of this post, which recurs several times throughout the trilogy.

One might conclude that we have a ways to go yet before that attitude becomes unavoidable.  On the other hand, consider how far we've already leapt in the wrong direction:

    "Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently estimated the ocean has absorbed 118 billion metric tons of CO2 since the onset of the Industrial Revolution—about half of the total we’ve released into the atmosphere . . . [which] is good for our atmosphere but bad for our ocean, since it changes the pH. Studies indicate that the shells and skeletons possessed by everything from reef-building corals to mollusks to plankton begin to dissolve within 48 hours of exposure to the acidity expected in the ocean by 2050. . . .
    "Collectively, marine phytoplankton have influenced life on earth more than any other organism, since they are significant alleviators of greenhouse gases, major manufacturers of oxygen, and the primary producers of the marine food web. Yet because many phytoplankton produce minute aragonite shells, these pastures of the sea may not survive changing pH levels."

Major manufacturers of oxygen, eh?  That would be an understatement: "phytoplankton draw nearly as much CO2 out of the atmosphere and oceans through photosynthesis as do trees, grasses and all other land plants combined" (p. 57), converting it all to oxygen.  We're talking about a large fraction of the world's oxygen supply, slowly dissolving before our eyes.  In this light, crazy proposals like those described above, or like using iron dust to promote phytoplankton growth as described in the linked SciAm article, start to seem worthy of strong consideration.

"Man is the driving force behind what could well prove to be the last and greatest mass extinction, as species are lost at a several hundred times the 'natural' background extinction rate.

Nonetheless, we can be reasonably certain that we will survive, even if we drive the majority of all other species out of existence. And if the study of mass extinctions has taught us anything it is that life will always continue and, in time, even flourish."

-www.bbc.co.uk/education/darwin/exfiles/biotom.htm

I don't think we should be so sure that humanity will make it--at any rate, if we do survive, I have to believe there will at least be some kind of disaster that wipes out a fair number of us. If that makes me sound like I relish the idea, I assure you I don't--but if no such disaster is necessarily ahead on our present course, it's going to be a whole lot harder convincing people that biosphere collapse is something to be avoided at all costs.

(originally posted February 8, 2004)

What if humanity handily survives the death of the biosphere? What if we sustain ourselves with vat-grown yeast and algae and live in Asimov's Caves of Steel beneath a nearly lifeless landscape, with the blood of trillions or quadrillions of creatures on our hands?

It seems like it should be said that this would be worse than letting the human race die that the biosphere may live, but I can't say it. It's too hard to give up the notion that Intelligence, Technology, and Civilization are somehow more important that Life, to say nothing of simple species loyalty. And there are attractive excuses: without some kind of intelligent intervention, everything on Earth will surely die as the sun gets hotter; wouldn't that be worse than a mass extinction now, from which the biosphere may eventually recover?

So our task is to fight for a third alternative, to convince people that the human cost of the Caves of Steel is too high or the risk of failure too great, that we must either continue to depend on the biosphere or separate ourselves from it before we do any more damage. The latter solution is next to impossible to implement, so the real alternative we have to choose is learning to live with nature rather than against it.

(originally posted December 24, 2003)

"The Sixth Great Extinction" is not just the way anarcho-primitivists like Derrick Jensen and the folks at eces.org describe what's happening to our planet. Many scientists also believe that's what's happening.*

The reasoning is simple: about 70 more species go extinct every day.** (There is very little doubt that this would not be happening if human civilization did not exist.) This rate could increase or (hopefully) decrease, but let's assume it remains roughly constant for a while. Then 25,550 species will die out in the next year; over the next century, the number is 2.5 million.

Now, I don't know how many species of multicellular life there are, but it's not a bad bet that at this rate, within a geologically very short timespan, a large fraction of them will be gone. How large a fraction depends on how long this can go on before civilization falls, and what lingering aftereffects might continue to cause extinctions after that fall. But it's clearly not a pretty picture.


*From a question at the Quiz Bowl college trivia tournament at UCLA. Some pretty smart people go to these, so the question writers have to check their facts pretty carefully.

**From a t-shirt sold by Northern Sun. Will try to find a better source later.

(originally posted October 15, 2003)

The fight to save the environment must take precedence over battles against terror and tyranny as well as poverty and inequity. Here’s why:

Millions, if not billions of people currently face the serious threat of death from starvation, disease, or war. At the moment, starvation is largely a problem of the poor nations, whose populations increase regardless, and does not threaten the entire human species. Also, as yet even the most virulent diseases can be contained using quarantine, unless they are used in large-scale warfare.

Terrorists have yet to obtain anywhere near enough weapons-grade viruses to pose such a threat. They also have yet to obtain even one nuclear device; it takes at least dozens, possibly hundreds of mushroom clouds to produce nuclear winter and/or deadly global fallout levels.

So, barring improbable celestial events, there are only two main threats to the existence of the human race: global war between nations, and biosphere collapse. This site deals with the latter.

Because the species we use as food are dependent on so many other species, biosphere collapse will make starvation a truly universal problem; if it significantly affects algae populations as well as forests, it will eventually threaten even our air supply. An elite may manage to keep power stations running and use them to produce oxygen and nutrients chemically, but at present there is little hope for the vast majority of humankind if biosphere collapse occurs.

There are a variety of views on the current situation and the necessary counteractions:

1. The root problem is overproduction, i.e. overuse of natural resources. The expansion of production under capitalism must be slowed to a halt. For example, see the film Advertising and the End of the World by Sut Jhally.

2. The fantastic power of technology got us into this mess; it can get us out, if we apply it in the right ways before it's too late. For example, see Rachel Carson's famous book, Silent Spring, and the end of Arthur Clarke and Stephen Baxter's novel, The Light of Other Days.

3. We may not be able to undo the damage we've done, but a large-scale artificial replacement for the biosphere is possible, one that could support at least a sizeable fraction of the current human population. For example, see Stanley Schmidt's novel, Lifeboat Earth.

4. Biosphere collapse is already underway, and the only way to prevent a mass extinction is to dismantle civilization and return to the Stone Age. For example, see www.eces.org.

(originally posted May 24, 2003)