Dark green (Starring Gaia as Medea)

Boston Globe ^ | January 11, 2009 | Drake Bennett

[decimon]

WHEN WE LOOK at nature, it has become commonplace to see a fastidiously self-regulating system at work: wildebeest trim the savannah grasses, lions cull the wildebeest herds, and vultures clean the bones of both. Forests take in the carbon dioxide we exhale, use it to grow, and replace it with oxygen. The planet even has a thermostat, the carbon cycle, which relies on the interplay of volcanoes, rain, sunlight, plants, and plankton to keep the earth's temperature in a range congenial to life.

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According to the paleontologist Peter Ward, however, nothing could be further from the truth.

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[decimon]

Ping.

[Woebama]

I read somewhere that the American Indians managed the forests by controlled burns and other measures to make them better for the game they hunted and the plants they needed.

[Smokin' Joe]

Ward himself believes that the only help for the planet over the long run is management by human beings - whether that means actively adjusting the chemical composition of the atmosphere or using giant satellites to modify the amount of sunlight that reaches us. As Ward sees it, the planet doesn't need our help destroying itself. It will do that automatically. It needs us to save it.

Hoo Boy! Why not just invade other planets and save ourselves? Let the 'catastrophes' fall where they may...

This crap just opens the door to more control over human endeavour, not less.

[decimon]

I read somewhere that the American Indians managed the forests by controlled burns and other measures to make them better for the game they hunted and the plants they needed.

I believe that was true in at least some places. Telling them they were killing the planet would gotten you relegated to the looney tent.

[decimon]

This crap just opens the door to more control over human endeavour, not less.

If this becomes the prevailing political belief then it could indeed bring us to the same level of control as other hard beliefs. At this time, however, it's good to see a counter to what's called the Gaia hypothesis.

[Conservateacher]

I was told by a forestry employee in Eastern Washington that the best managed forest is on the Colville Indian reservation north of Spokane. They don’t have environmental constraints and have practices by which they can avoid or at least mitigate some fire issues.

[steelyourfaith]

Thanx !

From the link:

"At the very least, Ward hopes to shape the image of the earth in the public imagination, and by extension in public policy. Beneath much environmental regulation lies the basically Gaian belief that, when faced with a brewing global problem like climate change, our best response should be to try as much as possible to take ourselves out of the equation, to reduce our carbon emissions to the point where we're no longer a factor in the feedback loops. Trying instead to manage something as hopelessly complex as the climate is seen as an act of Frankensteinian hubris.

Ward, however, argues that this way of seeing things only makes sense if one assumes that the earth will, once righted, inevitably return to the set of conditions most suitable for our continued survival. History, he argues, suggests it very well may not. Faced with a planet where life is almost guaranteed to wipe itself out - and take us with it - he is urging us to be active, and occasionally intrusive, guardians.

To combat climate change, Ward sees that role including engineering projects on a previously unimaginable scale, like cooling the atmosphere by seeding it with sulfuric acid or installing giant shields in space to deflect away sunlight. As the scientific consensus around climate change has spread and hardened, these so-called "geoengineering" projects have received more of a hearing, but most climate and earth scientists remain skeptical because of the enormous uncertainties about what their full effects would be.

Ironically, Lovelock himself has also, in the last few years, become an advocate for a geoengineering fix for climate change - specifically, an armada of vertical pipes placed in the oceans to bring colder, nutrient-rich water to the surface to absorb more carbon out of the air. But while Lovelock has described his proposal as an "emergency treatment" for a critically ill planet, Ward believes such schemes are going to have to become business as usual if we and our descendants are going to survive."

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[decimon]

I’m somewhat in agreement with Ward. Eventually we’ll have to counter what natural processes bring, if we want to endure. But we don’t yet know nearly enough to know what’s coming much less what we might do.

[steelyourfaith]

I’m thinking we don’t have the ability to counter natural processes of a global scale nor can we create them. When the next natural ice age occurs the best we can do is pack our bags and head toward the equator.

[decimon]

I’m thinking we don’t have the ability to counter natural processes of a global scale nor can we create them.

We don't yet have the ability. Before we can hope to have the ability we must first have the knowledge. I like the research but not the political prescriptions some draw from the research.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks decimon. Ward's a hack, has been shilling for AGW for a while now.

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[decimon]

Ward's a hack, has been shilling for AGW for a while now.

Are you sure? This article makes it seem otherwise.

[SunkenCiv]

:') "Pretty darn"...

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Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past, and What They Can Tell Us About Our Future by Peter D. Ward

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