Burden of proof

Yes, 0.1% = 1 in 1,000, not 1 in 10,000. But otherwise, amen.

Can we destroy creation? Hubris and self-destruction

We can't destroy creation. Alpha Centuri is going to be just fine, climate change or not. We can't even destroy the planet. It's survived meteors, tectonic upheavals and ice ages. It's a pretty durable lump of rock.

Nonetheless, I frequently see people claiming that it is arrogant to think that tiny little humans are having such a large impact of the functioning of planetary-scale systems as is implied by the mainstream science of climate change, ocean acidification, soil degradation, biodiversity loss and so on. Sometimes this objection has a dose of piety injected: God is in charge of the world; we can't damage it (at least, not more than superficially or locally).

But isn't it arrogant (and historically ignorant) to think that our capacity for destruction does not extend to wiping out entire ecosystems? We have done so on colossal scales in recorded history. Vast forests have disappeared in the face of the axe and bulldozer; seemingly endless prairies have all but disappeared under the plough. Haven't we grown to seven billion and rising, spreading into every continent and visibly altering huge tracts of the earth's surface? Why would we be surprised at anthropogenic climate change or ocean acidification or biodiversity decline when we consider our collective effects in a wide range of areas? Aren't our nuclear arsenals capable of obliterating the vast majority of life on earth at a moment's notice? Haven't we fundamentally altered the appearance, behaviour and distribution of species through millennia of domestication and exploration? Haven't we sent thousands of recorded species (and likely tens or hundreds of thousands of unrecorded species) extinct? Haven't we damned and/or diverted the majority of the world's great rivers, and even (almost) dried up what was previously the fourth largest lake in the world? Haven't we flung craft into orbit that can monitor many of these changes in astonishing detail?

If human civilisations (even ones who considered themselves Christian) have risen and fallen in the past, why would we assume that ours will be immortal? And if human actions have contributed to historical collapses, why would we rule out such influence today?

If we have done all this, then if we have also dug up and burned over 300 billion tonnes of fossil hydrocarbons, might not here, as in so many other places, our capacity for altering our surroundings be manifest? If we have changed the chemical composition of the atmosphere and oceans in measurable and statistically significant ways, might not these changes have far-reaching consequences and implications for life (human and otherwise) throughout the atmosphere and oceans? If we can measure the changes in radiation that occur as a result of these alterations, if we can measure shifts in the timing of flowerings, growing seasons, hibernations and migrations, observe massive and alarmingly rapid alterations to the frozen places of the planet, notice systematic and unprecedented shifts in humidity, precipitation, temperatures over land and sea (and in the waters) and rising sea levels - if we can observe these changes occurring and have an excellent theory that accounts for all the data and which has withstood every criticism levelled against it, seen off all competing explanations and gained the acceptance of every single relevant scientific body of national or international standing in the world, then what is to be gained by withholding judgement? And if we have good reason to be deeply concerned about the already manifest and likely future consequences of the observed, modelled and projected trends, if these consequences threaten the habitability of the planet and its ability to provide sufficient food for our societies and habitat for all our fellow creatures, if our neighbours are deeply vulnerable to these changes, if the most vulnerable are also those who have done least to contribute to the problem (the poor, future generations and other species), then might not Christian discipleship embrace humble acceptance of our predicament and an earnest search for responses that express repentance, care and prudence?

Furthermore, if many of the social and personal changes required are not simply consonant with, but already actively required by, Christian discipleship due to the rejection of idolatry, greed and consumerism, if the infrastructural changes are both affordable and viable, if those most vocally opposed to these changes have a history of engaging in less than honest advocacy and have a business practice that currently kills millions of people annually, then might we not have a strong case for prophetic witness in defence of the goodness of the created order, in pursuit of justice for the suffering, in the hope of wise care for our children's future?

And now for the weather report

Perhaps a few more weather reporters giving this kind of context could help public understanding, since studies indicate that weather reporters remain one of the primary sources of information about climate (despite many reporters having little or background in climate themselves).

Very helpfully, the American Meteorological Society has updated its statement on climate change to reflect scientific research completed since the last one in 2007. The new statement is considerably stronger in its language than its previous one. Here are a few tastes of the new statement:

"Warming of the climate system now is unequivocal [...] many of the observed changes noted above are beyond what can be explained by the natural variability of the climate. It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases [...] Since long-term measurements began in the 1950s, the atmospheric CO2 concentration has been increasing at a rate much faster than at any time in the last 800,000 years. [...] Climate is potentially predictable for much longer time scales than weather for several reasons. [...] A helpful analogy in this regard is that population averages of human mortality are predictable while life spans of individuals are not. [...] Future warming of the climate is inevitable for many years due to the greenhouse gases already added to the atmosphere and the heat that has been taken up by the oceans. [...] Global efforts to slow greenhouse gas emissions have been unsuccessful so far. However, were future technologies and policies able to achieve a rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions — an approach termed “mitigation” — this would greatly lessen future global warming and its impacts. [...] In the 21st century, global sea level also will continue to rise although the rise will not be uniform at all locations. [...] Atmospheric water content will increase globally, consistent with warmer temperatures, and consequently the global hydrological cycle will continue to accelerate. [...] changes in precipitation patterns are expected to differ considerably by region and by season [...] more severe droughts and floods [...] significant regional shifts in precipitation patterns [...] heavy precipitation events will continue to become more intense and frequent [...] longer dry spells between precipitation events in the subtropics and lower-middle latitudes [...] Widespread retreat of mountain glaciers is expected to eventually lead to reduced dry season flows for glacier-fed rivers. Drought is projected to increase over Africa, Europe, and much of the North American continental interior, and particularly the southwest United States. [...] more extreme warm periods and fewer cold periods are expected [...] more severe episodes of extreme heat. Critical thresholds of daily maximum temperature, above which ecosystems and crop systems (e.g., food crops such as rice, corn, and wheat) suffer increasingly severe damage, are likely to be exceeded more frequently. [...] It is unclear if the land biosphere and oceans will be able to continue taking up carbon at their current rate into the future. [...] Another unknown is the amount of methane that will be released due to high-latitude warming. There are indications that large regions of the permafrost in parts of Alaska and other northern polar areas are already thawing, with the potential to release massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere beyond those being directly added by human activity. The portion of the increased CO2 release that is absorbed by the world ocean is making the ocean more acidic, with negative implications for shell- and skeleton-forming organisms and more generally for ocean ecosystems."

If you're pressed for time, or already familiar with recent climate research, then you can just skip to the conclusion. Here it is in full:

"There is unequivocal evidence that Earth’s lower atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are warming; sea level is rising; and snow cover, mountain glaciers, and Arctic sea ice are shrinking. The dominant cause of the warming since the 1950s is human activities. This scientific finding is based on a large and persuasive body of research. The observed warming will be irreversible for many years into the future, and even larger temperature increases will occur as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere. Avoiding this future warming will require a large and rapid reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions. The ongoing warming will increase risks and stresses to human societies, economies, ecosystems, and wildlife through the 21st century and beyond, making it imperative that society respond to a changing climate. To inform decisions on adaptation and mitigation, it is critical that we improve our understanding of the global climate system and our ability to project future climate through continued and improved monitoring and research. This is especially true for smaller (seasonal and regional) scales and weather and climate extremes, and for important hydroclimatic variables such as precipitation and water availability.

Technological, economic, and policy choices in the near future will determine the extent of future impacts of climate change. Science-based decisions are seldom made in a context of absolute certainty. National and international policy discussions should include consideration of the best ways to both adapt to and mitigate climate change. Mitigation will reduce the amount of future climate change and the risk of impacts that are potentially large and dangerous. At the same time, some continued climate change is inevitable, and policy responses should include adaptation to climate change. Prudence dictates extreme care in accounting for our relationship with the only planet known to be capable of sustaining human life."

There is much to commend in this new statement. It clearly and unambiguously affirms the three basic pillars of climate science: (a) the planet is warming rapidly; (b) humans are the dominant cause; (c) the consequences are a serious threat. There is not a relevant scientific institution of national or international standing that questions any of those three claims.

At the same time, the new AMS statement acknowledges many areas of lower confidence, where research is ongoing, including: the precise sensitivity of the climate to greenhouse gases; the precise role of clouds and aerosol particles; the precise distribution of disruptions to the hydrological cycle; the ongoing effects of natural variation within the larger trends; the rate of ice sheet disintegration and sea level melt; the potential negative side effects of geo-engineering proposals; and perhaps most importantly the uncertainties in the human systems that cause and are impacted by climate change: how fast will we continue to modify the chemical composition of atmosphere and oceans? And how well will we respond to the risks and threats these changes will bring?

Given the uncertainties, both in the geophysical systems and especially in the human systems that drive and respond to them, the AMS statement remains agnostic about the most important debate regarding the threat of climate change: does climate change represent a level of risk that is merely disastrous or truly catastrophic?

The closest it comes to addressing this question is in the very interesting final sentence: "Prudence dictates extreme care in accounting for our relationship with the only planet known to be capable of sustaining human life." We're not talking merely about losing the polar bears, or an acceleration of species extinctions more generally, or even severe economic disruption or a rising threat of climate-related conflict. Implicitly at least, this statement acknowledges that what is at stake is the ongoing capacity of the planet to sustain human life.

UPDATE: The scriptwriter for the video above shares his thinking behind the clip.

The end is nigh? Apocalyptic thought and our present distress

Apparently, the apocalypse has already come and gone. Did you miss it?

The relation of apocalyptic thought to our present and likely future distress is an interesting and complex question, not easily answered in a few sentences. I've recently been reading a book edited by Stefan Skrimshire titled Future Ethics: Climate Change and Apocalyptic Imagination, which I mentioned back here. As is usual in an edited collection of essays, quality and relevance vary considerably, but the theme is an important one. How do our images of "the end" shape our understanding (or misunderstanding, as the case may be) of climate change?

For some activists, the pace and scale of anthropogenic climate change on our current trajectory represents an existential threat to the present order of the biosphere, including the human order of a globalised industrial civilisation of almost seven billion and rising. The language of apocalyptic is borrowed in order to try to gain some traction with policy-makers and the public. It matters not whether this borrowing represents a reflexive reliance on a thread of thought with its roots in religious discourse or the deliberate appropriation of concepts and tropes that still inhabit our imagination and so which will resonate widely. The goal is to induce an emancipatory shock, a recognition of our situation as extreme, a justification for emergency measures that disrupt the usual flow of commercial, political and social life with a radical reordering.

Some Christians, noting the borrowing of apocalyptic language by activists, are inclined to ignore the whole thing as another human attempt to claim control of even how the world is going to end. Instead, affirming that the end is in God's hands alone, they argue that any claims of humanity bringing about the end by our own efforts (even inadvertently) must be treated with extreme suspicion.

Personally, while it is difficult to get a good grip on the magnitude of the threat represented by climate change without recourse to some very strong language, I think that it is best to remain agnostic about the relationship between our preset distress and threats and the divine promises relating to ultimate realities. It may be that there is some link, but there is no particular reason in my opinion to think so. Even if our actions lead to the downfall of our way of life and the utter transformation of our society into something so different that in hindsight it is appropriate to speak of industrial civilisation having experienced a self-induced collapse, this need not be the end of the world. To use a line that is growing increasingly common, the end of the world as we know it is not necessarily the end of the world.

And where this cuts the mustard for me is that sometimes apocalyptic thought can become a lazy way out of ethical deliberation. Apocalyptic becomes lazy where it is in the service of a fatalism that assumes our destiny is doomed by the greater power of nature (whether acting blindly, under its own authority as a personified (and angry) mother earth, or as the instrument of God's inexorable judgement) or which conversely rejects the possibility of social self-destruction in principle. In each case, the future is seen as closed and human actions as ultimately irrelevant, in which case, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. It can also be lazy where it is used to create panic and a desperate acceptance of whatever medicine is closest to hand. This is a kind of non-emancipatory shock that stuns the hearer into passive acceptance of the salvific social, economic and/or political solution that swiftly follows the apocalyptic account.

Denying knowledge of the relationship between our time and time's telos keeps open the space for neighbourly care. It does this not by rendering apocalyptic inscrutably distant ("since we can't know when the end will come, then let us ignore the coming of the end altogether"), but constantly relevant. In Christian apocalyptic, the hidden meaning of history is revealed to be the stage of divine action, not in competition with human action, but as the previously unknown judge and liberator of human action. Since the day of divine judgement approaches like a thief in the night, unbidden and unobserved, the wise servant knows that her actions are made more weighty, not less. Instead of paralysing fear or enervating schadenfreude, she is liberated to conduct her faithful service in reverent hope of divine vindication. By such acts, she is not heroically securing the future; saving the world (or the present world order) is not her motive or modus operandi. Instead, she trusts that because the hour of her vindication approaches, she has time to prepare, to reflect with prudence on her ability to be a blessing in the limited time she has received. Waiting patiently, she need not dread the outcome of history, but is free to love her neighbour as an instantiation of her wholehearted love for the master with what strength and wisdom she has received. It may be that the immediate future holds suffering, even vast suffering, but not yet the end of all things. In which case, her actions undertaken in hope are not in vain; they are secured by the promise of the resurrection, and thus they are freed from the impossible burden of having to deliver her own life or the continued existence of her society.

And so, there is a sense in which the apocalypse has indeed already come, in the sense that apocalypse means "revelation", an unveiling of what was hidden. After Christ's coming, Christian believers now see the world and its future in a new light. No longer do the dark shadows of anticipated difficulties leave us blindly stumbling along in denial, distraction, desperation or despair. Once relieved of the responsibility to pursue survival above all else, we see the future as a stage on which faithful words and deeds may witness to the redemption of history through the cross and resurrection, and to the coming renewal of all things.

Prudence and hope

What is the relationship between prudence and hope? How do our fallible and stumbling attempts to project, predict and plan for the future that lies immediately ahead of us relate to God's eschatological promises to make all things new? How does Christian hope for the last things shed light (or darkness) upon the penultimate things? In particular, how is our exploration and expectation of the immediate future related to the final consummation of all things? If Christian hope is alien in origin (does not arise from innate possibilities within our present situation, is not from us as creatures) yet intimate in effect (does not abandon or replace the created order or humanity, is for us as creatures) - that is only to say, if Christian hope is properly christological - where does this make a difference as we face the uncertainties and apparent inevitabilities of the coming years?

I suspect that these are going to be significant questions in the constructive theological phase of my thesis. I have a number of thoughts, but have decided simply to throw some questions out there to begin with and see if there are any nibbles or insights.

Things may unfold faster than you think

Nicole Foss, one of the authors at The Automatic Earth, on the triple challenges of economy, energy and environment (especially climate in this case). She sees energy as the most significant driver of where industrial civilisation heads next, though economics is the way that it will manifest itself with most speed and violence in a debt-driven economy. Her analysis of the effects of peak oil as being an exacerbation and acceleration of economic swings is an important corrective to those who imagine that peak oil simply means ever increasing price spikes. I think she underestimates the long term significance of climate, but her points about resilient communities of trust and the importance of forward thinking prudence in order to avoid toxic and violent responses are well made. Whether she is right about deflation as the way in which the next financial crisis (the continuation of the present financial crisis, depending how you look at it) is above my pay grade (which, given that it is almost zero, isn't saying much).

In short, she thinks it is very important to get out of debt as soon as possible, to prepare mentally for a different and more difficult world within the next few years and to invest in local relationships of trust. As a Christian, I don't see much to disagree with in this advice.

Scared yet?

Regular readers will have noted the increased frequency with which I’ve been posting links related to the various ecological and resource crises facing contemporary industrial civilisation. Examples can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Some readers have expressed in comments or in private some concern over these posts. They wonder whether (a) I have lost hope for the world (b) whether drawing attention to such information encourages others to lose hope (c) whether drawing attention to such information is a distraction from the good news about Jesus or its replacement with an ecological gospel. In short, am I scaring people unnecessarily? Have I become an alarmist or fear-mongerer?

I write about these things and provide links because this is the world in which we live and love, where feelings of fear, guilt and impotence are both common and have some basis in reality. To ignore this fact is to remain disconnected from where people are at (and from trends that I believe are only likely to increase as the years go on). There is no virtue in ignorance. Yet our situation and these feelings are not beyond the scope of God's redemptive action in Christ. Articulating why the good news of Christ is good news today amidst ecological and resource crises is a significant part of my purpose in writing this blog.

Does this mean I think we shouldn't be scared of the threats that face us? No and yes. Many of us need to be far more alarmed than we currently are, to wake up from our comforting illusions and be roused from our apathy and confront the bleak realities of our present situation. But for those who are already paralysed by fears and cannot bear to hear any more, we need to hear again the words of the risen Christ to his friends: fear not. We need our fears put to death, not so as to leave us unfeeling and untouchable, but so that they can rise as a deep loving concern that shoulders the burdens of our neighbour's fear out of compassion and joy.

And so anxiety is indeed a common response to taking these threats seriously, as are anger and despair. Indeed, I think that a healthy response to our situation involves (for many people) some intense grief. Recognition of the scale, complexity and intractability of our predicament often means the "death" of certain cherished images of the future. Grief over lost futures can be quite real, even if the futures imagined were never really ours to claim or expect in the first place.

While the particular shape and challenges of our situations are novel in various ways, the wisdom of relinquishing idealised futures is perennial: "And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?" (Matthew 6.27). This doesn't mean the silencing of the voice of concern or prudence, but the transformation of our fears from a paralysing contraction of the self in a fruitless quest for security to an expansive love for neighbour that seeks to preserve what can be kept, to grieve what will be lost, to discern what we ought to have abandoned long ago and to discover a treasure that does not fade.

How is such a transformation possible? This is where Jesus Christ has good news for us today.

Forgive us our debts

Australian economist Steve Keen predicted the global financial crisis years ahead of when it broke, and doesn't think it is over yet, not by a long shot. He has given a somewhat lengthy and graph-heavy interview over here, in which he doesn't have a great deal of good news to offer.

For those without time to read it, he thinks the government response to the crisis (throwing lots of stimulus money at it) has mainly just masked the underlying debt problems (or rather deferred and increased them). America is already in a depression (hidden by misleading unemployment figures). A significant further period of deflation is inevitable. Australia (largely) avoided the bullet in 2008-09 through propping up a speculative property bubble which will come back to bite us (as speculative bubbles are wont to do). And he claims that the only responsible mitigation policies at this stage would be perceived to cause a crisis when really they would simply be unmasking the crisis that is currently ongoing. Here is his graphic analogy:

"[I]f my preferred remedies were enacted now, they would be blamed for causing an ensuing crisis, when in fact all they would do is make the existing crisis more obvious. I make the analogy between my situation and that of a doctor who has as a patient a comatose mountaineer who climbed too high without sufficient insulation and now has gangrene. If you operate before he regains consciousness, he might only lose a foot, but he’ll blame you for making him a cripple. If you wait till he regains consciousness and sees what the alternative might be, he’ll thank you for saving his life when you remove his leg.

"America in particular — but also much of the OECD — has substituted essentially unproductive Ponzi speculation for real productivity growth in the last four decades, which the rising debt bubble has obscured as it simultaneously allowed Americans to live the high life by buying goods produced elsewhere using borrowed money. There’s no way to come to terms with that without suffering a substantial fall in actual incomes."

He's a cheery chap. But then we get to the kicker: "I regard Peak Oil and Global Warming as far greater challenges to our species than the financial crisis — which I refer to sometimes as Peak Debt".

Keen is articulating something similar to the idea I put (briefly) here, namely, that of the three crises of economy, energy and ecology, the first is most immediate temporally, but is actually a smaller threat than the second, which in turn is closer to us but likely less significant in ultimate ramifications than the third (which, I would argue, is broader than climate change).

Fasten your seatbelts.

Anthropocentrism and automatons: you don't need to be a tree hugger to care about ecology

"The righteous know the needs of their animals, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel."

- Proverbs 12.10.

In a recent post, I included a quote which alluded to the idea that non-human creatures might also in some sense be considered our neighbours, included within our moral community. Properly qualified, this idea has merit and a foundation in holy scripture (where the Law proscribes various forms of cruelty and includes animals in Sabbath rest and Jesus affirms that God cares for even the sparrows). Indeed, Christians were at the forefront of creating the world's first animal welfare charity, the RSPCA. I am not going to attempt those qualifications here (though I note that Jesus tells his listeners that they are worth more than many sparrows), but simply note that there ought to be nothing particularly contentious about the extension of (at least certain kinds of) moral concern to non-human creatures.

However, even the most hardened anthropocentrist, who, like Descartes, considers the brute beasts to be unfeeling automatons, is not thereby released from all ecological concern. The damage we are causing to the integrity of the living spaces of the planet is so severe that it is a threat not simply to biodiversity or unique ecosystems, but to the conditions under which human civilisation can flourish, perhaps even survive at all (certainly in anything like its current form, complexity and size). It is not just trees and frogs and sharks and tigers and phytoplankton under threat, it is also our very human neighbours who are increasingly suffering as a result of our failure to live with humility and prudence.
Image by CAC.

A crash in slow motion

Perhaps the present ecological and resource crises of industrial civilisation are a little like a car crash unfolding in slow motion. The car has way too much speed and momentum and is already sliding out of control. If we'd started slowing or turning earlier, then we might have been alright, but as it is, there is little the driver (government and business leaders and whomever else exercises authority or influence in society) can do to avoid a collision (I won’t call it an accident because we've had plenty of warning). However, the reactions of the driver during the last few “seconds” (years) prior to the crash can still have a big effect on the nature and severity of the damage. So, I think the driver still has an important role in preventing a multi-car pile up with many fatalities. Quick reactions could hopefully mean just some severe whiplash and a few vehicles written off.

This puts me at odds with those who believe that the crash can be avoided entirely as long as we floor the accelerator and do a little creative navigation. That may or may not be true, but at the very least, everyone ought to make sure they are wearing their seat belts. It's going to be bumpy up ahead.
If you're a passenger and don't trust the driver's reactions, you may have time to try jumping out of the door. Of course, this doesn't guarantee that you'll be any better off than if you make sure the driver is paying attention.

UPDATE: This image is continued and developed here.

Looking ahead: anticipation and prudence

We are generally not very good at responding to long term threats. We are wired to focus on the immediate. Warnings that smoking or obesity might cut years off one's life all too often fall on deaf ears. Or even where the veracity of the claim is acknowledged, there remains a disconnect between this acknowledgement and remedial action.

Many ecological crises share this structure: incremental changes (often as the result of pursuing certain immediate objectives that may well be good or pleasurable in their own right) lead to unforeseen consequences “in the pipeline” that may take years, decades or longer to become fully manifest. Examples include declining biodiversity, habitat loss, soil degradation, ocean acidification and overfishing. Climate change may represent the most complex and difficult example.

The distance between the actions that cause harm and the suffering of that harm is widened in climate change to be not only temporal, but also spatial and relational, meaning that there is no immediate or proximate visibility to the consequences of actions that are only become highly problematic in a cumulative manner. Thus, there are a raft of distraction techniques that can dilute the fierce urgency of now. We can point out the relative size our tiny contribution and the inefficacy of reducing it by ourselves; we can question the consequences that are as yet only forecast; we can lower our ethical horizons to include only what is visible in my neighbourhood.

The problem is that we are used to making our ethical decisions as though we were walking, where avoiding a pothole or canine faecal incident is only a matter of looking a step or two ahead. But we are no longer walking. Our greater agency through soaring population and technological innovation means that our actions have greater consequences, affecting a wider sphere over a longer period of time. Our consumption and production don't just satisfy our immediate needs and wants but have unforeseen knock-on effects that extend much further than they used to. We are no longer walking. When you drive, you need to look further ahead, observing and anticipating events over a wider field of interactions and responding well ahead of time to possible threats. "Too late" happens surprisingly early. In driving, you need to look further ahead and further afield than when we're walking because the consequences of your actions are so much greater. A mistake while walking means bumping into a stranger and perhaps meeting a new friend. A mistake while driving could mean sending a tonne of metal travelling at superhuman speed into a brick wall, or under a fifty tonne truck coming the other way.
H/T mustakissa for suggesting this analogy.

But we are not even driving. Perhaps a more appropriate image for the scale of our agency and our consequent need to anticipate threats is flying.
Image by Ruth Brigden.

Mitigation vs adaptation: a question of prudence

For some time there has been a debate concerning the best response to the climate disruption human actions are currently causing. Should we try to minimise or even prevent the disruption (known as mitigation) or should we simple prepare for the changes and make adjustments as they arise (adaptation)? In other words, are we aiming for prevention or cure?

A good answer was given in a recent interview by John Holdren, science advisor to US President Obama:

“Mitigation alone won’t work because the climate is already changing. We’re already experiencing impacts from that. Nothing we can do in the mitigation domain can stop it overnight. And so a mitigation-only strategy would be insanity.

"Adaptation alone won’t work. Adaptation alone won’t work because adaptation gets more difficult, more expensive, and less effective the larger are the changes in climate to which we are trying to adapt. If you live on an island that is one meter above sea level and the sea level goes up two meters, adaptation is no longer the question. You are dealing with evacuation.

"Clearly what we need is enough mitigation to limit changes in climate to a level with which adaptation can largely cope.”

The question is whether we have the political and social will to do enough of the former in sufficient time to make the latter actually achievable.

Crucial in this is the role of the somewhat overlooked virtue of prudence, wise consideration of the future. Whether our political and economic systems are designed to encourage this virtue in our leaders remains to be seen.

I made the mess; I'll clean it up?

The myth of reversibility

I made the mess, I'll clean it up.
I opened the door, I'll shut it.
I tangled the fairy lights, I'll unknot them.
I pulled apart the radio, I'll reassemble it.

I scrambled the eggs, I'll unscramble them.
I ate the omelette, I'll regurgitate it.
I burned the masterpiece, I'll repaint it.
I chopped off my leg with a chainsaw, I'll sew it back on.

We depleted the aquifer, we'll recharge it.
We burned the oil, we'll regenerate it.
We destabilised the climate, we'll restore it.
We pushed the species into extinction, we'll resurrect it.

Not all actions are equally reversible. Some, like opening and closing a door, can be easily "undone" with similar effort to the original deed. But many actions lead to a significantly lower level of order (i.e. a gain in entropy), and consequently are significantly more difficult to reverse. While microsurgery may indeed be able to reattach an amputated body part, this is far more difficult than causing the initial injury, and there will still be scars.

Yet the idea that "because human actions have caused our various ecological crises therefore human actions must also be able to be solve them" is a common theme in popular environmental discourse. Even some scholars repeat this unfortunate meme.

Despite this frequently expressed hope, some deeds have effects which are very difficult, if not impossible, to undo. The inequality of ease between actions that increase order and those that decrease order is one implication of the second law of thermodynamics.

Prevention is cheaper than cure
In other words, prevention is better than cure. At least, it requires less effort in most instances. In fact, an EU report on the costs of biodiversity loss due out later this year is expected to put the costs of prevention at somewhere between one tenth and one hundredth the costs of remedy.

We underestimate our ability to cause damage (a topic for a future post) and overestimate our ability to fix it. This is not a recipe for inaction, paralysed for fear of doing harm, but a reason for taking greater care in what we do. Humanity has a marvellous ability to adapt to new and challenging circumstances, but we are also right to cherish prudence.

Do not be anxious about tomorrow

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

- Matthew 6.23

Is it possible for a government to follow this instruction? Can a corporation? What does this mean for thinking about possible threats that might arise the day after tomorrow? Or for any projects that require years of careful planning?

Perhaps we need to distinguish two meanings of "worry". On the one hand, worry can have a negative meaning similar to anxiety: a persistent fear of what might be, an endless imaginative dwelling in negative possibilities over which one has little control. I am worried that it might rain tomorrow and the party will be ruined.

But worry can also have a more neutral meaning close to concern: a careful focus upon the welfare of the object of concern. This need not involve anxiety, but is simply love looking forwards, anticipating needs before they arise.

I don't think that Jesus is ruling out this latter meaning, only the former. It is the anxious striving after security that he is addressing in this passage. Instead of trying to obtain safety, we are to seek first the kingdom of God, God's loving reign over all things. This kingdom is something that needs to be sought, it is not obvious. It is a treasure hidden in a field over which you might stumble, or a jewel of great price that you might discover after much seeking. It is hidden in plain sight in this extraordinary ordinary man from Nazareth.
Image by Andrew Filmer. Ten points for guessing the city.