July 9, 2010
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Geo-engineering and the Coming Anti-science Dark Ages
I saw this interesting debate on Democracy Now! between two environmental activists on whether or not we should even be considering geo-engineering.
Now I have no idea if Gwynne Dyer is correct about the terrible panic within the Scientific community surrounding climate change. It wouldn’t surprise me though. Recent events over the last couple of years have certainly made it seem like the world’s governments really do plan to do absolutely nothing meaningful about climate change, especially in the world’s biggest CO2 producers. The US and China.
But what I find really scary is this idea that the very people who are suffering the most might end up blaming the entire crises entirely on SCIENCE. Those damned “arrogant” “irresponsible” scientists! They shouldn’t keep thinking they can control the planet! That’s the message portrayed by Vandana Shiva. Sure she blames rich societies for their excesses, but she also puts an extraordinary amount of blame on science and the scientific community itself not just the people who have miss used it.
That scares the shit out of me. Because one of two really bad things could happen as a result of this attitude.
One is that the climate could reach a state where the only viable solution that remains is geo-engineering. Without it many millions, perhaps billions of people will die. But then the very people who are hurt THE MOST will be soooo distrustful of science and so suspicious of the more advanced economies that they won’t LET them do geo-engineering no matter HOW devastating the consequences of doing nothing will be.
Alternatively, maybe the wealthy countries will take it upon themselves to do geo-engineering over the objections of the less wealthy countries in their name. And when we do that geo-engineering, there will almost certainly be some negative consequences. Or at least some visible consequences that will disturb and scare people. Changing the color of the sky or the color of water for example. That’s why scientists always stress cutting emissions first and only talk of geo-engineering as a last resort.
But then all those people will blame all those negative results, real or imagined, whatever they may be entirely on SCIENCE. The scientists will be villified and scapegoated. People will turn further away from science and reason and embrace a kind of weird naturism and mysticism that explicitly rejects advancement in science and engineering.
That would be freaking horrible! We already see how much damage the anti-science movement in the United States has caused in spreading madness and slowing down the development of the society. A global anti-science movement could herald the initiation of a new dark ages.
Throw nuclear war and global climate resource wars into the mix and I’d say that outcome will be almost an inevitability. Who will be blamed for nuclear war? For all war? The scientists of course! It’s their knowledge that enabled the creation of the weapons!
And it’s inevitable that some corrupt people will manipulatively use this anti-science sentiment to their advantage. If you don’t think some brutal dictator won’t take that anger and funnel it to obtain power over others you don’t understand human nature.
Maybe I’m just being overly imaginative, but the whole idea of “HOME” (hands off mother earth) freaks me the hell out.
And yet I mostly agree with Vandana Shiva in terms of the ways society needs to change in order to create a sustainable future. I doubt you’ll find many scientists anywhere who disagree with the value of things like ecological farming and not cutting down rain forests. Where I strongly disagree with her is her simplistic view of what and who is to blame for this mess we’ve gotten ourselves into!
It’s NOT the fault of scientists that the planet is warming! Just like it’s not their fault we created world destroying arsenals of nuclear weapons! That’s crazy! It’s OUR fault. Our societies fault. So blame the organization system of western societies. Blame the governments. Blame the corporations. Hell, even blame the selfish fat and lazy people. The undeveloped and developing world will have every right to be outraged if we don’t get this problem under control.
But for the love of God, don’t blame the Science!
All this is just more reason why we can’t afford to fail to get our CO2 emissions under control. It is not an exaggeration to say the fate of advanced human civilization may well lie in the balance.
Comments (7)
Ok the first video wasn’t so bad. But on the second she just started talking and refuse to let the other guy get a word in edgewise.
I stopped at 3 min in. I may not have fully informed thoughts about this right now, but I know that I don’t agree with her completely. The other guy, well I don’t what he thinks. haha
@The44thHour - yeah the talking over bothered me a little too. But in her defense, in reality the guy had had a previous segment where he got to talk alone and the hosts only decided to expand it out into a debate in the middle of the show. To see what he has to say check out here: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/8/gwynne_dyer_on_climate_wars_the
Basic summary. He thinks if we don’t do geo-engineering we’re totally screwed.
I’m a big fan of Stephen Jay Gould’s non-overlapping magisteria, a concept that says science and spirituality have nothing to do with one another and shouldn’t get in each other’s way. Unfortunately it’s not terribly popular on either side. They’re always blaming each other for everything. Blaming science for the inhumane decisions of society makes no sense (and when those on the science side of things blame spirituality in the same way, that makes no sense too).
I would step carefully into a realm like geo-engineering because it’s all one big experiment at this point. But to blame science for the things that are wrong is just ignorant.
@SoapAndShampoo - I agree. I don’t know why people are intent upon blaming religion or science when human beings are so much more the obvious culprit.
I also think we have to be very careful with geo-engineering. It’s definitely a last resort thing. But I think the other guy made a good point. Basically we’re doing a pretty crazy experiment right now. We can’t undo it. Everything we do will have an impact. We just have to be cognizant of it and make rational decisions.
@nephyo - Yeah, it’s *all* experiment, everything going on right this minute. :/ It reminds me of how the dustbowl happened. People who knew nothing about farming (or didn’t care to follow proper procedure) were overcultivating the land and making mistakes that encouraged erosion. Next thing anyone knew, topsoil was stripped and blowing all the way up to New York City.
There’s a lot more going on now than poor farming practices.
I agree with you
An interesting debate, although I also wish the gentleman had been able in the segments posted to quietly explain that his grasp of the problem already includes the human factors his ‘adversary’ describes so aggressively.
I do not see any of the horsemen of the new dark ages in this. Both sides are solidly grounded in data and statistical models.
I did wander off into thinking that if the Ms. Shiva had had six arms, two of them would have been poking fingers in her opponent’s eyes.
Thanks for inspiring me to quietly research some of the experimental ideas being proposed. Here in Israel we have completely changed the climate in many once barren areas, through intensive planting and use of brackish underground aquifers along wirh pin-point drip-irrigation. Proof: the winter rains quit on a later date almost every year. This year it drizzled on the 4th of July(!)
Once again, thanks for another thoughtful post