Voices of reason ...

Today I was reading the June 29th issue of the New Yorker and came across an article by Elizabeth Kolbert entitled "The Catastrophist." In a nutshell, the article is about Jim Hansen, who has been spending the better part of the last 40 years understanding the changes in the earth's climate system, and half of that time trying to warn the world by dealing in the facts. Unfortunately, as compelling as they are, the facts continue to get drowned out in a chorus of loud, agenda-driven messaging about how climate change is not a problem, that it's really reversing, and it's all a big hoax anyway.

This was brought home to me clearly this morning when C-Span had a call-in program on the subject of climate change. The Waxman-Markey legislation to cap CO2 is about to go to the floor of the House for debate. Listeners were invited to call three numbers, one for Democrats, one for Republicans, and one for Independents. All the calls were against support for Waxman-Markey. Consistent carefully crafted messages abounded about how global warming was not a problem, and that Waxman-Markey would kill jobs. An email from a climate activist put it this way "I'm getting a ton of messages saying that we're getting killed on C-span this morning. We are trying to generate calls into C-Span while discussion is happening around the bill. Opponents have mobilized effectively to swamp all 3 party call lines. It's 100% against with same talking points."

In the movement to get climate change legislation enacted will mobilized talking-points win out over scientific facts?

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Coming Home (Part II)

Alignment of Ecology and Economy

If ecology and economy are aligned, what can ecology teach economy? How can ecology inform how to manage the global economic system? Does this mean we all have to live in mud huts, treehouses or caves? Is the implication of this a giant step backward for the quality of life of human beings?

When people start asking questions like that it is apparent that fear has crept into the discourse. “I don’t want to give up my SUV or second home, my steak dinner or trips to the South of France.” This is what they really seem to be saying. No one wants to change if they’ve got it pretty good. And we in the West have got it pretty good. But understanding that ecology informs economy is not about having it bad – it is not a call to privation and poverty. In fact it is the only way to insure sustainable prosperity and abundance for generations to come in the developed and developing worlds.

Having ecology inform economy is first and foremost about understanding systems. The earth’s biosphere is the system from which we all come. Humanity is not only the inheritor of the earth, we are its issue. Human beings are natural adaptive systems within the biosphere. Together we created another very powerful adaptive system called the global economy. Systems theory tells us that every sub-process and subsystem within an overall system must be aligned with the aim of the overall system, otherwise there will be sub-optimization, decay and the ultimate destruction of the system. The global economy as a sub-process within the biosphere must be aligned with the aim and workings of the biosphere. It is through ecology that we can understand how the biosphere works, and it is through economy that we can align with it to achieve sustainable human prosperity.

In that way, concern that ecology could undermine economy makes as much sense as concern that medical research could undermine human healthcare. The two are aligned as opposed to being in tension. An understanding of ecology – how the biosphere works – is a great enabler of a sustainable, prosperous economy.

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