Apocalypse how
I'm reading Ronald Wright's novel, A Scientific Romance. It's an example of a popular form of science fiction, the post-apocalypse story. Only, it's not the 1950's or '60's nuclear holocaust that worries us today. Wright places us in the future world beset by runaway global warming and the ensuing collapse of civilization.
It's credible, and depressing. I've spent time thinking about humans and geochemistry, trying to understand whether the consensus is in fact correct, or whether there's a chance that our mild impact on the planet simply doesn't matter. Mere hubris, really, to think we could alter the chemistry of the planet. What organism could? And there are those who think the whole thing is a sham. But no -- the evidence is everywhere, the skeptics are mere cranks, and enough information was available to get the answer right in 1850, much less 1950. (The essential bits are the IR absorption of CO2 and the fact that fossil fuels burn to CO2 -- that's it.) The carbon cycle is a bit complex, true, but burning fossil fuels has increased, by many orders of magnitude, a previously minor process. Buried carbon entered the atmosphere before humans, slowly weathering in the rare places where geological churning lifted it to the surface, but only gradually. That has been replaced by six billion primates mining that energy resource for all of their short-sighted ape-like ends. And just because we know we're doing it, or some of us know, doesn't mean we can stop.
There are the optimists, those who draw neat plans for getting things down, split the difference, half the reduction for this generation, half for the next, and maybe carbon levels won't exceed double preindustrial, and maybe climate effects will be merely severe, not catastrophic. But we're adapted to the climate we came from, not the climate we're creating. And it's not at all clear to me that the rosy predictions of the possibility of controlling our climate impact are realistic. The climate apocolypse seems real and present to me, something to fear.
No doubt a previous generation feared a nuclear holocaust with fresh presence and realism. I am too young for that, though I remember holding hands across america, a nonsensical response to a nonsensical threat. Surely the Russian realized Reagan was the ironic cartoon every American knew he was? You might have believed in professional wrestling as to believe in nuclear brinksmanship.
On the other side are those who fear fossil fuel exhaustion far more than the consequences of burning it. The die-off folks, who make entirely true statements about the limited supply of cheap oil, and note the vast quantities of fossil fuel embodied in every calorie of food we eat. About seven calories of oil per calorie of human-grade food, we're literally eating oil, and all the easy oil is gone. I'm less worried: there's a lot of coal, low-quality oil, and so on; and one could use existing resources more efficiently. We'd be poor, yes, eating meat once a week, or year, but we'd survive.
As a species, maybe. Not necessarily as a civilization. But it's the civilization I want to preserve. The planet doesn't need my help. Nor do my genes: most are the same as other humans, as the monkey, heck, with the yeast responsible for the miracle of turning grapes into wine. No, it's my attachment to this civilization which leads me to concern for the environment it relies on. It is, I admit, an utterly selfish motivation.
So there it is, modern millenialism, more with a whimper than a bang, ending in fire, not ice. Though some think violent climate disruption could lead to premature resumption of ice ages -- who knows, perhaps it will be ice. Should be good for lots of interesting speciation events, once we're gone. And some civilization, a hundred million years in the future, will find our signatures written in the rocks of the world: bands of iron, molecular fossils of organic polymers requiring unusual conditions to form, the sudden leap in atmospheric carbon. Who knows, they might even correctly guess as to what happened. Cold comfort, perhaps, but that's all we have.
It's credible, and depressing. I've spent time thinking about humans and geochemistry, trying to understand whether the consensus is in fact correct, or whether there's a chance that our mild impact on the planet simply doesn't matter. Mere hubris, really, to think we could alter the chemistry of the planet. What organism could? And there are those who think the whole thing is a sham. But no -- the evidence is everywhere, the skeptics are mere cranks, and enough information was available to get the answer right in 1850, much less 1950. (The essential bits are the IR absorption of CO2 and the fact that fossil fuels burn to CO2 -- that's it.) The carbon cycle is a bit complex, true, but burning fossil fuels has increased, by many orders of magnitude, a previously minor process. Buried carbon entered the atmosphere before humans, slowly weathering in the rare places where geological churning lifted it to the surface, but only gradually. That has been replaced by six billion primates mining that energy resource for all of their short-sighted ape-like ends. And just because we know we're doing it, or some of us know, doesn't mean we can stop.
There are the optimists, those who draw neat plans for getting things down, split the difference, half the reduction for this generation, half for the next, and maybe carbon levels won't exceed double preindustrial, and maybe climate effects will be merely severe, not catastrophic. But we're adapted to the climate we came from, not the climate we're creating. And it's not at all clear to me that the rosy predictions of the possibility of controlling our climate impact are realistic. The climate apocolypse seems real and present to me, something to fear.
No doubt a previous generation feared a nuclear holocaust with fresh presence and realism. I am too young for that, though I remember holding hands across america, a nonsensical response to a nonsensical threat. Surely the Russian realized Reagan was the ironic cartoon every American knew he was? You might have believed in professional wrestling as to believe in nuclear brinksmanship.
On the other side are those who fear fossil fuel exhaustion far more than the consequences of burning it. The die-off folks, who make entirely true statements about the limited supply of cheap oil, and note the vast quantities of fossil fuel embodied in every calorie of food we eat. About seven calories of oil per calorie of human-grade food, we're literally eating oil, and all the easy oil is gone. I'm less worried: there's a lot of coal, low-quality oil, and so on; and one could use existing resources more efficiently. We'd be poor, yes, eating meat once a week, or year, but we'd survive.
As a species, maybe. Not necessarily as a civilization. But it's the civilization I want to preserve. The planet doesn't need my help. Nor do my genes: most are the same as other humans, as the monkey, heck, with the yeast responsible for the miracle of turning grapes into wine. No, it's my attachment to this civilization which leads me to concern for the environment it relies on. It is, I admit, an utterly selfish motivation.
So there it is, modern millenialism, more with a whimper than a bang, ending in fire, not ice. Though some think violent climate disruption could lead to premature resumption of ice ages -- who knows, perhaps it will be ice. Should be good for lots of interesting speciation events, once we're gone. And some civilization, a hundred million years in the future, will find our signatures written in the rocks of the world: bands of iron, molecular fossils of organic polymers requiring unusual conditions to form, the sudden leap in atmospheric carbon. Who knows, they might even correctly guess as to what happened. Cold comfort, perhaps, but that's all we have.
posted by TFox at
3:18 PM
