The invisible science of our future
Of all the aspects of America’s conservative culture that make me anxious, the most troubling is the fierce reaction that many traditionalists have to the science of our collective future.
We know from a vast body of research that the earth has entered into what a growing number of scientists call the anthropocene, the age of man.
This is an epoch where we collectively influence the nature of life on our globe, replacing natural phenomena (glaciers, volcanoes, solar cycles) as the most powerful force.
In large measure because of the conservative movement, a serious civil discussion of what this means has ground to a halt. Democrats and Republicans who once talked productively about climate change have fallen silent.
Population growth is a taboo subject, even for many environmental groups.
The irony, of course, is that we know more and more about what our planetary civilization is doing to the planet we rely upon for, well, everything.
We know that fishing pressure and pollution are literally altering the bios of our oceans, making them more acidic, eliminating whole species with an efficiency that would be impressive if it weren’t so bleak.
We know that human commerce is rapidly spreading invasive species around the globe, so that the Great Lakes begin to look more like the Black Sea and whole forests in America fall prey to insects from Asia.
We also know that by the end of this century, there will be another 2.4 billion of us sharing this rock.
To put that in perspective, that population growth will require the construction of four additional New York City’s per year, every year, until the year 2100.
That’s four NYC’s this year. And four NYC’s the next year. And four more the year after. And repeat.
Economists also expect the standard of living to rise for billions of humans. That’s a good thing, except that it also means more consumption of resources and food, and likely far more emissions of carbon and other forms of pollution.
Balanced against these facts are two human traits that make it very difficult for us to confront what the science of the anthropocene will mean for our civilization.
First is the fact that for many of us our basic cosmology — the mental construct that we use to imagine our world — is still based on a world where humans weren’t such a big deal, at least in scientific terms.
In 1804, when the grand experiment of the United States was just hitting its stride, the population of the earth was one-seventh its current size.
It stood to reason that mankind could “use” and “master” the natural world around him without considering the wider consequences. We like to think of that kind of behavior as “freedom” and a part of our “manifest destiny.”
When a pointy-headed bureaucrat, or an egghead scientist, suggests to us that it might be a bad idea, say, to dump a factory’s toxins into a river that now has tens of millions of other people living along its banks, that sounds to us like “big government” and “regulation.”
The second thing that makes it difficult to grapple with the new science of life on earth is what some researchers call “shifting baseline syndrome.”
This is our tendency as a highly adaptive species to see the world around us as “normal.” Generations growing up now in China and India have no visceral sense of what their countries were like before human activity overwhelmed the natural world.
Here in the US, we like to tell ourselves that we’ve tackled some of these problems. In recent decades, we’ve restored much of our environment. We’ve protected forests and rivers to a remarkable degree.
But the truth is that we accomplished many of those gains simply by shifting the burdens we place on the planet to other places. And we now know that what happens in China doesn’t stay in China.
There are also signs that our impact on the planet is entering a new, more unpredictable phase.
The Gulf oil spill was a vast science experiment in what happens when the anthropic system hiccups. We still don’t know what the long-term impacts will be on the Gulf’s vast ecosystem.
The idea that we might generate energy for the next century by pumping caustic chemicals into the groundwater table is another big lab project.
And it’s inevitable that as our population grows the search for energy, and food, and other resources will force us to take bigger and bigger risks.
It’s also worth pointing out that the 2.4 billion population increase now projected could be wrong. The best estimates suggest that population growth will begin to plateau, and reach some kind of long-term stability.
But if birth rates are just a tiny bit higher, and life expectancy grows just a little bit more, the number of humans relying on our world could easily double.
I suspect that for a while longer, we’ll avoid talking about the ramifications of all this.
The cosmology of a world where humans — beautiful, precious humans — must also be reckoned as a burden and a problem, is just too frightening. It forces us to think hard about basic moral questions.
And the ramifications of what it might mean to be required to think globally are just too complex. We’ll have to re-examine what a healthy family looks like and what a healthy nation-state looks like.
But as scientists will tell you, it really doesn’t matter in the end what we believe, or what we want to talk about. The earth is a closed system, finite and ultimately fragile.
As more and more of us look to share the world, we will sort out how to be good stewards, respectful of the facts of life. Or we will watch in dismay as it breaks under our weight.
Tags: analysis, environment, politics, science
Evolution is a theory. While there is evidence to support it, there is evidence that supports creationism, too.
With all due respect that statement simple proves (1) you do not understand the definition of “theory” in science and (2) you do not understand the scientific method.
Evolution is as close to a scientific fact as you can get. How evolution occurs is still under investigation. I am not aware of any scientific evidence that supports creationism.
I would love to see your idea of an experiment that could be done that would support the hypothesis of creationism (BTW, I admire your honesty in the use of word creationism rather than “intelligent design”).
And the Gulf Oil spill? Doom and gloom proponents predicted catastrophic results. Were there consequences. Yes. Did we use our intelligence and resources to deal with the best way possible? Yes.
It is way too soon to understand the effects of the Gulf oil spill regardless of the oil industry commercials we see on tv every night. Did we deal with the spill in the best possible way? I’m almost positive that we will see that we did not. The Gulf appears “clean” because of the 1.1 million gallons of Corexit 9500 and 9527 dispersants sprayed in the gulf. All that oil is still in the gulf, just in much smaller particles.
Evolution is fine, unless you go beyond the science and enter philosophy and believe somehow that the theory of biological evolution on our little planet can answer questions concerning existence or a creator one way or the other.
But most people want to work on solutions to our problems surrounding the environment and our world. I just think we have to have a little humility about our lack of understanding. We don’t want our solutions to be worse than the disease.
Birth rates for example naturally decline as nations become wealthier and healthier and women gain more power over their own lives, this has happened over and over again. The dire predictions concerning family size are overblown in my opinion.
“It is possible that all journals-of-record has conspired not to publish any nay-saying articles. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any.”
See, this is where your argument does not make sense. Journals don’t dictate what the scientists do. The evidence for climate change doesn’t come (mainly) from proclamatory articles written by “the experts.” It comes from thousands of scientists doing research all over the world, in eveything from ocean currents to endangered species, to glacial changes, and reporting their findings in tens of thousands of papers.
Each of these tens of thousands of papers, peer reviewed by others hoping to find flaws so that their own research gets a leg up, adds to the overall picture of climate change. It is NOT a lockstep process, and plenty of evidence is contradictory and counter-intuitive. So the next research is undertaken to sort out the questions raised by earlier studies.
This is how science works – by endless approximation it arrives at the best explanation for the events we see around us. It’s not perfect, but it has brought us most of what we take for granted in the modern world. And today, it tells us that we are changing the environment in a way that hasn’t happened for millions of years.
erb: “Journals don’t dictate what the scientists do.”
You are correct. They don’t dictate what scientists do. They dictate which articles they publish. Big difference.
That’s why there is a lot of scientific data out there to support both creationism and anti-man-made-global warming. You just have to look for it.
Brian,
I’m guessing that you’ve seen this. Looks like another painful read.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/05/13/the-ocean-of-life-and-the-sorrow-beneath-the-sea.html
JDM, you didn’t answer the question – What evidence would you need to convince you to reexamine your opinion?
PNElba, Here we go again! Forget it you cannot get blood from a stone!
erb: I thought the point was to remain open to the possibility of changing your opinion.
Can you answer the question directly? What evidence would make you change your opinion?
I can’t answer it. I have to keep reading and seeing if something does change my opinion. So far, nada.
Just to be fair, I’ll go first.
1. A drop in the rate of increase of C02 in the atmosphere.
2. A turnaround in the trend of ice-free Arctic summers.
3. A drop in sea levels.
4. Growth of glaciers on mountains worldwide. (Note: there are places where glaciers ARE growing, for example, in parts of Antarctica, but there are more shrinking than growing.)
5. A shortening growing season in the North Country.
I could go on.
I changed my opinion based on ice fishing now versus when I was a kid, BIG difference. (personal experience unfortunately will often trump data, regardless of what we may claim).
I wanted to address Knuckle’s comment earlier about market solutions. I agree, I didn’t mean an unregulated market solution. You are right I mean a company that sells oil or natural gas is not going to embrace anything that would lower it’s profits, why would they? However there are solutions that would let the market system work and be more efficient than simply regulating people and also provide stability.
The fact is some forms of energy ARE too cheap because not all of the costs of production are included in their price. If you can use my air or my water for free as a disposal system for your waste the price of the product is too low. However if we find a way to have people pay to use these resources as they should, the price of this energy would reflect that.
this is exactly right. and that’s all that cap and trade/carbon taxes are about. making everyone pay a fairer price to pollute.
“You are correct. They don’t dictate what scientists do. They dictate which articles they publish. Big difference.”
Again, this is reaching. The people who read the journals, who evaluate the science, have access to the same websites you read. If they were finding lots of food for thought at those sites, we’d probably be hearing about it.
In order to organize a conspiracy to stifle opposing science, you would need to persuade thousands of individual scientists to subvert their research to an unassailable ideology. This gets rather tricky when, as I mentioned above, results of research are often unpredictable and counter-intuitive. I mean, how would scientists know which way to slant their findings, if they don’t know for sure which results best support their a priori position?
jdm, what evidence do you have that there might be a conspiracy in the climate science journals? do you have anything at all? or is it just wild unfounded speculation, the sort of thing a crackpot would do?
Paul – actually I was addressing Kathy with my remarks on climate change and evolution. I understand that nothing will change JDM’s mind on his scientific beliefs.
If anyone is interested in seeing the other side, consider reading this. I have followed this gentleman for about 15 years.
http://184.154.224.5/~creatio1/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5&Itemid=7
Bottom line is, if we aren’t willing to consider another perspective, and hit the disagree button even when facts are presented, ya’ll might as well enjoy your forum and just high five each other! : )
Kathy –
Rather than go through the claims of this ridiculous museum point by point using actual science, I’ll just send you to yet another “creationism” site that does the job for me.
http://www.answersincreation.org/rebuttal/cem/cem.htm
BTW, do you actually believe the earth is less than 6,000 years old and that man walked beside dinosaurs?
Ya’ll might also read the below article:
http://www.answersincreation.org/rebuttal/cem/cem.htm
Sorry, duplicate link. Correct link is below:
http://www.dallasobserver.com/1996-12-12/news/footprints-of-fantasy/
hermit thrush and erb: “jdm, what evidence do you have”. I used the example below to take away from the “crackpot” theory put forth.
Financial influence is mentioned as the driving force to skew data below. This is in the medical world. I can find 1,000s of examples, but I didn’t put it on you to do the leg work to make my point.
Scientists have to get published to get money to do their work. They want to be accepted in their communities. They don’t want to be the “odd man out” with their findings.
“One driving force is John P.A. Ioannidis, chief of the Stanford Prevention Research Center….. Ioannidis says financial influence is one of several factors that can, deliberately or unintentionally, skew study design and methodology and undermine the validity of published research findings. His extensive publications pointing out these problems are reverberating throughout the scientific community”
http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=53345
JDM, I thought you were going to simply refer to the respected Climatologists in England who actively spoke about covering up data that did no support climate change in their emails.
I do think there is a bias, however I also think climate change IS happening even with a bias the data is strong.
Mervel – you seem like an intelligent guy. Do you believe that tobacco executives lied to us about the physiological effects of smoking? The same people are doing this with climate science. Please consider reading “Merchants of Doubt”.
well i first have to say, all right jdm, this is more like it. an actual argument, and even a link! this is something we can talk about.
i don’t think any of it holds water, though.
first, you still haven’t given any evidence for a climate journal conspiracy. what are the examples of researchers claiming that they’re getting shut out of climate science journals? the kind of conspiracy you’re positing would involve hundreds of people. and the deliberate suppression of valid research would be a major breach of science ethics. are you seriously suggesting that every single one of them is keeping quiet? it’s not like it should be hard to find out about these things — if the right-wing media ever caught a whiff of anything along these lines, it’d be trumpeting it to the hills.
what you have done is to identify certain forces that are in play. unfortunately they militate against your viewpoint, not in favor of it.
you’re quite right to cite the distorting influence of money in research. the kicker here is that there’s way more money on the anti-climate change side. anyone doing legitimate research that undermines the case for anthropogenic climate change is going to have gas and oil companies falling over themselves to fund them.
you’re also just wrong about the incentives to “fit in.” yes, solid research that goes against the climate-change grain would be controversial, but that’s a feature, not a bug. blockbuster new results that confound expectations are really good for your career, not bad.
Working out a cap and trade system for the US is probably just “rearranging the deck chairs”. It doesn’t look like it is working where it has been in place for some time now:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124587942001349765.html
It is a good idea, but one that looks far to hard to execute in an efficient manner.
It sounds like one focus should simply must be on finding breakthrough technology that will be a game changer.
But we are starting to see some positive developments that could make a difference. Near me a power plant just shuttered itself since it is too expensive to make electricity burning coal vs. cheaper and cleaner alternatives. Don’t know how our school will survive without the tax payments but we will all be breathing cleaner air as we pack our bags!
This is Ioannidis’ landmark paper from 2005: “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False” http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
I’ve read his paper a few times – it concerns how to design better studies, how to guard against bias, how to evaluate the quality of a study. His finding that all research is influenced by bias, however, does not equate to research being falsified, nor to scientists and journals “conspiring” to suppress opposing findings.
As a matter of fact, he states clearly in his conclusion the point I have made several times today:
“Second, most research questions are addressed by many teams, and it is misleading to emphasize the statistically significant findings of any single team. What matters is the totality of the evidence. ”
The case for climate change rests on the totality of the evidence, and is not nullified by the unusual findings of “the odd man out.”
Kathy – there are millions of scientists in the world, A “scientific consensus” doesn’t mean that every last scientist agrees – it means that most of the scientists in that particular field are convinced by the data. Scientists by training are skeptical people and there will always be holdouts. There are scientists who are conservative Republicans. If you want to find a scientist supporting any particular wacky idea, you can probably find one. But when most agree on something you can probably take it to the bank.
The problem with conservatives is, along with being dumb, we tend to be eternally optimistic about the future despite the predictions!!
I just think that we will come up with a great new capture technology or some other things like finding ways to use nuclear power in a safer way.
Nuclear powered subs and cruising all over the ocean today and doing it on unlimited clean power and the crews would all be sleeping pretty soundly if they didn’t have so many missiles on-board!
Kathy, just because there are few atheists out there does that mean we should not go to church on Sunday?
PNE,. I am a fan of scientific research, I don’t understand a lot of it, but that has never stopped me from admiring something. But I also look at human nature and the fact is science is conducted by humans with human flaws so I do think biases can happen within the confined world of science, what is “in” what is “out” what is chosen to be studied in the first place, are all impacted sometimes not by the data but by opinions and personalities, and what topics will get published at all. Peer review can be come group think. So you see the scientists in England discussing how to slant the data to get the “correct” results. Academic fraud is not rare.
But even recognizing that, I think you have to look at the weight of the evidence and that supports climate change; I am not denying climate change at all.
Plus like I said for me I just look around, I have lived in cold climates all my life and it is NOT as cold as it was when I was younger, the thaw happens earlier and the ice is not as thick. More snow where I grew up means warmer temps.
PNElba: I read it.
There’s always another side. So, dismiss Carl Baugh and research it yourself if you want to know. I am pretty well versed in evolution. Are you in creationism?
Another link for another side:
http://www.allaboutcreation.org/evidence-for-creationism-faq.htm
Kathy –
What is there to be versed about in creationism. You can sum it with 5 words. A magik man done it.
And yes, I think I have a pretty good understanding of the “evidence” proposed by creationists. The eye is too complex to evolve on its own. A magik man must have done it.
Kathy –
I read your link. Indirect evidence…. ….any evidence against evolution is very good evidence for creationism. The direct evidence is the big bang theory? BBT has nothing to do with evolution.
…..the very best evidence for creationism is the claim by God Himself that He created light, the universe, the Earth and all life. Explain to me how that is scientific evidence.
Please tell me that’s not all you’ve got.
BTW, I didn’t dismiss “Dr” Baugh, one of your own creationism sites did.
Creationism is an untestable hypothesis, as is the “intelligent design” variant. Evolution is as close to proven science as you get. Its been observed in nature many many times. For example, spray a pesticide on crops long enough and there will be pesticide resistant variants showing up. Same thing with antibiotics. It doesn’t take very long with organisms with a short generation time and lots of off-spring.
And we understand the broad outlines of how that complex eye evolved without having to resort to paranormal explanations.
Peter Hahn: “For example, spray a pesticide on crops long enough and there will be pesticide resistant variants showing up.”
This illustrates a general point supporting anti-evolution. In this example, some genetic information is lost, not gained. A subset of the original survives.
What some think of evolution is simply a paring down of the whole that was created.
PNElba 9:58 am. Great post. I’d make a slight adjustment however. If a conservative politician accepted the evidence for say, global warming etc, they wouldn’t be voted out at election time. They wouldn’t even make it through a primary contest. You can be sure of that.
Kathy, you might want to read the Wikipedia article on Carl Baugh.
It will take me some time to further read the articles cited and research Carl Baugh. I can’t justify a quick glance at internet articles because we can pull up anything on anybody – I don’t believe everything I hear or read.
That said, the whole topic deserves more time than I can give it today. Be assured I will be researching!
For one thing, Baugh is a liar concerning his academic credentials.
Kathy, you never answered my question: do you believe the earth is 6,000 years old and do you believe man lived at the same time as dinosaurs.
You also haven’t given me a scientifically testable hypothesis concerning a creation experiment.
Fair enough, Kathy. Personally, I think that Wikipedia articles tend to be pretty well balanced, because articles get looked at by dozens of editors from a wide variety of points of view, and no one can simply impose their opinion: all material must be backed up with reliable sources. Interestingly, when there are disagreements, you can see the process by which the final form of the article has been reached by looking at the “Talk” tab for the article.
JDM writes: “This [pesticide resistant weed variants] illustrates a general point supporting anti-evolution. In this example, some genetic information is lost, not gained. A subset of the original survives.”
I’m sorry, JDM, but this represents a total misunderstanding of evolution. Pesticide resistant variants arise through random mutations, some of which confer evolutionary advantage, in this case because they are less affected by the pesticide. Those mutations are passed on to the offspring.
You really should try to understand evolution before you try to attack it. Know thy enemy.
Walker: random, huh? mutations, huh?
Oh, I understand evolution very well.
Oh, I know where I was going with that.
Faith. It takes more faith to believe evolution than it does to believe in God.
That’s quite a theory. Random mutants are how things survive!??
Kathy from different posts:
“I am all for taking steps to be good stewards of our environment. I do not suggest complacency.
I do resist fanaticism when I see it and believe acknowledging God in this brings some balance.
Case in point: Hiroshima. Have you seen pictures of this thriving city 64 years later?
And the Gulf Oil spill? Doom and gloom proponents predicted catastrophic results. Were there consequences. Yes. Did we use our intelligence and resources to deal with the best way possible? Yes.”
Kathy, to me your idea that we should acknowledge God in this smacks of fanaticism. God didn’t make the mess, why should we expect he is going to help clean it up. He didn’t give Eve the heimlich and make her spit out the apple. He said, you did it now get out of my garden.
The Gulf oil spill? Wouldn’t it have been much better if there was no spill? Wouln’t it have been better to have used our intelligence and much fewer resources to have prevented it from happening?
Many people are put off by what they perceive as a bunch of Chicken Littles running around warning of dire events. But in this case the Chicken Littles have been right about a lot of things and half the people wont listen. They say “hey look! this is a problem that is small now and we can do small things to fix it but it will get much worse the longer we wait.”
Look at the car industry. Fuel efficiency standards were put in place in the 70’s and the American car makers said they couldn’t meet the standards. The Japanese said “no problem” and the Japanese took a huge share of the auto market. For another couple of decades the Big Three fought stricter standards while foreign makers took more share of the market. Finally, after having to be bailed out or nearly going under the American makers have accepted the fact that we need more fuel efficient cars and they are on board.
Instead of spending money on lobbyists and lawyers they could have spent their money on engineers and designers, better factories, and worker training to build a better product.
khl: I get stuck on the idea of proportion. If going from cars that got 10 mpg to ones that get 22mpg (on average) “fixes” the problem, then the problem isn’t very big.
Also, if the problem was “fixed” when the Big 3 got on board, why is the climate still changing?
In other words, will 33mpg on average solve the problem? How about 52mpg?
This “science” isn’t very well defined. I don’t think anyone knows what the answer is – except “more taxes”.
“That’s quite a theory. Random mutants are how things survive!??”
Yes, JDM, only it’s random mutations. It’s really not strange, if you take the time to try to understand it.
It is a “theory” that has survived challenge for more than 150 years. It has been accepted by tens of thousands of biologists who have devoted their lives to the study of biology. Nothing that has ever been proposed to challenge its explanation of the origin of species has ever stood up to experimental testing.
I’m sorry if you find that it doesn’t accord with what you know in your gut must be true. Maybe, just maybe, it is your gut that is wrong.
khl: Sure it would have been better if the oil spill didn’t happen in the first place. But we don’t live in a perfect world.
I believe that God has figured the messes we make into the equation.
Fanatical? I don’t think so. It seems more fanatical to resist the thought of God’s oversight of the world he created.
I think those are two different topics. Philosophy/faith/religion on the one hand, asking questions about why we exist, about what is existence itself; and on the other observable testable concepts such as biological evolution.
The fact is as Christians our central existence is based on something that we readily admit is scientifically impossible.
On this topic we must stick with science.
Anyway this is another really cool article about possible solutions in the New Yorker:’
“Geoengineering” actually refers to two distinct ideas about how to cool the planet. The first, solar-radiation management, focusses on reducing the impact of the sun. Whether by seeding clouds, spreading giant mirrors in the desert, or injecting sulfates into the stratosphere, most such plans seek to replicate the effects of eruptions like Mt. Pinatubo’s. The other approach is less risky, and involves removing carbon directly from the atmosphere and burying it in vast ocean storage beds or deep inside the earth. But without a significant technological advance such projects will be expensive and may take many years to have any significant effect.
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/05/14/120514fa_fact_specter#ixzz1v5QQ3cOB