…and it doesn’t care what we do to it. Thoughts from George Will.
13 thoughts on “Earth Abides”
I’m not sure this qualifies as “thought” from George Will, other than presenile maundering (and I like Will). He doesn’t address the obvious rejoinder, vice Lord Keynes, that in the long run we’re all dead. People are not comforted by the statement that, even following nuclear holocaust and a new Ice Age, the Earth and life of some form — giant mutated cockroaches, say — will go on.
What he could have done is point out that, unless you are an extremist who believes the fate of humanity itself not of interest (in which case you are a traitor to your DNA and we are justified in setting the importance of your opinion at zero), the prosperity of the species is a significant factor in any reasonable calculation of the costs and benefits of environmentalism.
We will not be able to do any good for the environment if we snuff ourselves, or drive ourselves back into savagery. (One has only to look at what primitives did to Easter island, supposedly, or what Africans have done to Africa, to appreciate that on a per-person basis primitive societies have far more negative impact on the environment.)
So anybody who says the climate status quo must be preserved at any cost whatsoever is a priori an idiot not worth listening to.
“The earth did not reverse the extinction of the dinosaurs.”
True. Instead it refilled their niches with a more life form that had managed to survive the die-off: mammals.
Then again, from the Earth’s point of view (:facepalm:) that would be exactly the same as “reversing” the dinosaurs’ extinction.
World War II did not wipe out the Earth or humanity. That does not mean World War II was a good thing.
Recognizing that humans are changing the climate does not mean that we must preserve the current climate at any cost whatsoever.
The best time to prevent WWII would have been 1919. Similarly, the more we do now to reduce or mitigate climate change, the less costly and dramatic it will be later.
There is a much simpler point: the relevant question is not whether humanity can “destroy” Earth on geologic timescales, but whether we can badly damage it for humanity, at least on time and technology scales where we still depend on the Earth for quality of life.
Eventually, we may become independent of agriculture, rain, etc., or alternatively acquire the ability to terraform Earth as we desire. Either are likely to occur on shorter-than-geologic timescales. But until then, humanity will remain vulnerable to the state of our (sole) biosphere.
The best time to prevent WWII would have been 1919.
Attempts in 1919 to avert the next war 20 years in the future would have had just as much credibility as those for AGW — but they would not have been accorded more credibility than they deserved, as the case for AGW has been.
“Good” and all of its opposites have no meaning apart from that given to them by human beings, the only species on this planet known to be able to hold conceptual knowledge. Without human consciousness holding the concepts of good and evil, they do not exist. They’re concepts, for gosh sakes…
Recognizing that humans are changing the climate does not mean that we must preserve the current climate at any cost whatsoever.
Follow your own advice, Chris.
The best time to prevent WWII would have been 1919. Similarly, the more we do now to reduce or mitigate climate change, the less costly and dramatic it will be later.
Why? No one has established that anthropogenic global warming (what you call “climate change”) is a problem on the order of the Second World War. Mitigation is only a relevant strategy, if there is a need and ability to mitigate. Chris, you need to recognize that doing nothing may well be the better strategy.
Carl, you wrote:
I’m not sure this qualifies as “thought” from George Will, other than presenile maundering (and I like Will). He doesn’t address the obvious rejoinder, vice Lord Keynes, that in the long run we’re all dead. People are not comforted by the statement that, even following nuclear holocaust and a new Ice Age, the Earth and life of some form — giant mutated cockroaches, say — will go on.
The obvious rejoinder doesn’t apply because he’s not rebutting any argument of yours. Keep in mind that there’s a significant minority of people out there who think Earth has some sort of sentience and will punish humans because the atmosphere has a little more carbon dioxide (or merely because we don’t have the right attitude of subservience) in it than before. George Will is addressing that belief system.
The obvious rebuttal to such tripe is to actually consider what would bother a sentient Earth. And as Will notes, humans would have to do a lot more than they are to even cause a noticeable long term change in the Earth’s biosphere much less affect the Earth itself.
Personally, I think it’s a waste of effort, much like trying to correct flat earthers. Anyone who thinks Gaia is an active accountant of morality (much like the previous various gods and spirits that have been assigned that role) isn’t going to listen to counterargument.
Earth abides; but we may not.
I think Mr. Will’s point was that the Earth is going to do what the Earth is going to do and the hubris presented by those thinking they can change that is just that, hubris. Throughout the history of the planet temperatures have gone up and temperatures have gone down, CO2 levels have also gone up and down, and yet the Earth abides. Mankind, no matter how we love her, is just a speck on the face of the planet. Anthropomorphic Global Warming is just one group of specs expounding on what they do not understand and assuming power they do not have.
Recognizing that humans are changing the climate does not mean…
…that the correct response is to take economically destructive actions with little or no idea of what’s happening in a complex chaotic system that has been remarkably stable over geologic time.
Butterflies change the climate I’m told. Which ones should we kill?
Perhaps we should learn something about terraforming on mars or venus before we take a chainsaw to the branch we’re sitting on?
Earth has been demonstrated to have at least two stable attractors in the climate system, and maybe three. Maybe more, but we can’t be sure.
One is Snowball Earth. This planet has been there before, and quite a lot of models indicate that this one is quite stable – although over geological timescales vulcanism gets Earth out of it.
Another is the one we are in – the Ice Age cycle one. Of course, there is a split here between ice age and interglacial conditions, which appear to alternate and nobody really knows why the swing from one to the other occurs.
Another is the Carboniferous Era style planetary swamp – but this one is possibly impossible with continental positions as they are.
And the last one is a Venus-style hothouse. That one is permanent, barring macro-scale planetary engineering projects.
Nobody has any idea how much of a push it takes to get us from one of these to another. What we do know is that there are several positive feedback loops in the system such as melting permafrost releasing large amounts of methane, and the possible effects of releasing sea-bottom methane clathrates.
Nobody knows. I don’t want to find out the hard way.
Fletcher, the Venus style hothouse scenario is some extremists wet dream. There is no evidence that such a scenario might come to pass without taking the flawed models to extremis. The Carboniferous scenario is the closest this planet could get to that and that scenario is perfectly survivable. The scenarios that are both possible and probably non-survivable are the ice age and Snowball Earth and if anything we should be studying ways out of that. Of course by the time such a scenario becomes viable one would assume that we would already be off this planet regardless.
I’m not sure this qualifies as “thought” from George Will, other than presenile maundering (and I like Will). He doesn’t address the obvious rejoinder, vice Lord Keynes, that in the long run we’re all dead. People are not comforted by the statement that, even following nuclear holocaust and a new Ice Age, the Earth and life of some form — giant mutated cockroaches, say — will go on.
What he could have done is point out that, unless you are an extremist who believes the fate of humanity itself not of interest (in which case you are a traitor to your DNA and we are justified in setting the importance of your opinion at zero), the prosperity of the species is a significant factor in any reasonable calculation of the costs and benefits of environmentalism.
We will not be able to do any good for the environment if we snuff ourselves, or drive ourselves back into savagery. (One has only to look at what primitives did to Easter island, supposedly, or what Africans have done to Africa, to appreciate that on a per-person basis primitive societies have far more negative impact on the environment.)
So anybody who says the climate status quo must be preserved at any cost whatsoever is a priori an idiot not worth listening to.
True. Instead it refilled their niches with a more life form that had managed to survive the die-off: mammals.
Then again, from the Earth’s point of view (:facepalm:) that would be exactly the same as “reversing” the dinosaurs’ extinction.
World War II did not wipe out the Earth or humanity. That does not mean World War II was a good thing.
Recognizing that humans are changing the climate does not mean that we must preserve the current climate at any cost whatsoever.
The best time to prevent WWII would have been 1919. Similarly, the more we do now to reduce or mitigate climate change, the less costly and dramatic it will be later.
There is a much simpler point: the relevant question is not whether humanity can “destroy” Earth on geologic timescales, but whether we can badly damage it for humanity, at least on time and technology scales where we still depend on the Earth for quality of life.
Eventually, we may become independent of agriculture, rain, etc., or alternatively acquire the ability to terraform Earth as we desire. Either are likely to occur on shorter-than-geologic timescales. But until then, humanity will remain vulnerable to the state of our (sole) biosphere.
Attempts in 1919 to avert the next war 20 years in the future would have had just as much credibility as those for AGW — but they would not have been accorded more credibility than they deserved, as the case for AGW has been.
“Good” and all of its opposites have no meaning apart from that given to them by human beings, the only species on this planet known to be able to hold conceptual knowledge. Without human consciousness holding the concepts of good and evil, they do not exist. They’re concepts, for gosh sakes…
Recognizing that humans are changing the climate does not mean that we must preserve the current climate at any cost whatsoever.
Follow your own advice, Chris.
The best time to prevent WWII would have been 1919. Similarly, the more we do now to reduce or mitigate climate change, the less costly and dramatic it will be later.
Why? No one has established that anthropogenic global warming (what you call “climate change”) is a problem on the order of the Second World War. Mitigation is only a relevant strategy, if there is a need and ability to mitigate. Chris, you need to recognize that doing nothing may well be the better strategy.
Carl, you wrote:
I’m not sure this qualifies as “thought” from George Will, other than presenile maundering (and I like Will). He doesn’t address the obvious rejoinder, vice Lord Keynes, that in the long run we’re all dead. People are not comforted by the statement that, even following nuclear holocaust and a new Ice Age, the Earth and life of some form — giant mutated cockroaches, say — will go on.
The obvious rejoinder doesn’t apply because he’s not rebutting any argument of yours. Keep in mind that there’s a significant minority of people out there who think Earth has some sort of sentience and will punish humans because the atmosphere has a little more carbon dioxide (or merely because we don’t have the right attitude of subservience) in it than before. George Will is addressing that belief system.
The obvious rebuttal to such tripe is to actually consider what would bother a sentient Earth. And as Will notes, humans would have to do a lot more than they are to even cause a noticeable long term change in the Earth’s biosphere much less affect the Earth itself.
Personally, I think it’s a waste of effort, much like trying to correct flat earthers. Anyone who thinks Gaia is an active accountant of morality (much like the previous various gods and spirits that have been assigned that role) isn’t going to listen to counterargument.
Earth abides; but we may not.
I think Mr. Will’s point was that the Earth is going to do what the Earth is going to do and the hubris presented by those thinking they can change that is just that, hubris. Throughout the history of the planet temperatures have gone up and temperatures have gone down, CO2 levels have also gone up and down, and yet the Earth abides. Mankind, no matter how we love her, is just a speck on the face of the planet. Anthropomorphic Global Warming is just one group of specs expounding on what they do not understand and assuming power they do not have.
Recognizing that humans are changing the climate does not mean…
…that the correct response is to take economically destructive actions with little or no idea of what’s happening in a complex chaotic system that has been remarkably stable over geologic time.
Butterflies change the climate I’m told. Which ones should we kill?
Perhaps we should learn something about terraforming on mars or venus before we take a chainsaw to the branch we’re sitting on?
I hope our future doesn’t follow the book’s plot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Abides
Another way of putting it, Ken:
Earth has been demonstrated to have at least two stable attractors in the climate system, and maybe three. Maybe more, but we can’t be sure.
One is Snowball Earth. This planet has been there before, and quite a lot of models indicate that this one is quite stable – although over geological timescales vulcanism gets Earth out of it.
Another is the one we are in – the Ice Age cycle one. Of course, there is a split here between ice age and interglacial conditions, which appear to alternate and nobody really knows why the swing from one to the other occurs.
Another is the Carboniferous Era style planetary swamp – but this one is possibly impossible with continental positions as they are.
And the last one is a Venus-style hothouse. That one is permanent, barring macro-scale planetary engineering projects.
Nobody has any idea how much of a push it takes to get us from one of these to another. What we do know is that there are several positive feedback loops in the system such as melting permafrost releasing large amounts of methane, and the possible effects of releasing sea-bottom methane clathrates.
Nobody knows. I don’t want to find out the hard way.
Fletcher, the Venus style hothouse scenario is some extremists wet dream. There is no evidence that such a scenario might come to pass without taking the flawed models to extremis. The Carboniferous scenario is the closest this planet could get to that and that scenario is perfectly survivable. The scenarios that are both possible and probably non-survivable are the ice age and Snowball Earth and if anything we should be studying ways out of that. Of course by the time such a scenario becomes viable one would assume that we would already be off this planet regardless.