Restoring Nature—Part 1

We humans—supposedly the smartest critter on the planet—have been industrially fouling our nest for centuries. Back when we were primitive and our numbers were few, these environmental attacks had minimal impact on the natural world. But as our big brains conceived of ever-increasing ways to advance our technology, we became increasingly adept at causing damage. Add to that a population explosion that has sent our numbers sailing past seven billion, and we're becoming very adept at environmental damage.

Scientists have understood for a few decades now that we are headed towards big problems, if we continue our profligate ways. They have tried to inform the public and those in power that something needs to be done to alter our course, before we smash into an environmental brick wall and suffer the many dire consequences that our behavior is leading to. Unfortunately, the leaders and the majority of people have turned a deaf ear to the warnings. Worse yet, powerful interest groups have dominated the media and convinced many people (especially in America) to carry on with business as usual: not to worry, no need to back off from the pursuit of whatever appeals to us. Go buy another car; build a bigger house.

Even worse yet, these powerful forces have attacked scientists and have attempted to show that the scientific findings and predictions about climate change are specious and irrelevant. The unfortunate consequence is that many scientists have been forced either to go on the defensive, or consciously mollified their statements, or even have abandoned their attempts to inform humanity of the truth of the matter. They find it too painful to tell the truth.

This last point has led to a very disturbing development that has recently emerged: the inclination for some scientists to give up the struggle and pursue a dangerous alternative tack. They recognize that it's already too late to correct course—that we've gone beyond the point of no return (we haven't been able to check ourselves), and we must therefore look to technology to get us out of this fix. Their thinking seems to be: we can't convince people to change their ways—to back off on their relentless pressure to consume and proliferate—and it's getting too late, so maybe the only alternative is to use our powerful technologies to try to compensate for our damage.

I find this last argument very troubling, because it continues to avoid and/or deny the truth of what we are doing. Worse yet, it's a form of playing God—as if we think we know enough to restore the environment to the condition it was, before we upset it; without having to change our problematic ways. Many of these ideas seek to tinker with the environment, in an attempt to counter what we've done. This approach is arrogant enough to think that we understand the complexities of nature, to the extent that we can engage in worldwide experiments to reduce or counter the effects of all the CO₂ we've dumped into the atmosphere—simply by a creative technological fix.

One of these schemes is to dump huge quantities of iron into the oceans. Another would purposefully scatter particulates into the atmosphere to cool things down. Yet another would rocket jillions of tiny mirrors into space to reflect some sunlight away from us. While these notions could theoretically bring about some global cooling, they will also likely cause side effects that could make things worse, or send the whole delicately-balanced atmospheric system spiraling out of control. Yes, we've developed an impressive understanding of how Earth's climate works, but as yet we have the most primitive grasp of the nature of the many complex interactions going on. You'd think that maybe we'd have learned from some of our past catastrophes (remember DDT?) of unintended consequences, but it seems that we haven't.

More on attempts to restore nature next time...