Innovation and the Great Global Warming Debate
This is a great article. I like the authors that counter an anticipated perspective based on their status; in his case, as a scientist. I agree with Botkin’s perspective here. Note that the author’s points do not counter any of my other social-intellectual points made earlier.
I too have as much concern for the exaggeration of our isolated focus as I do for my sense that humanity is a major instigator in the break-down of the earth’s eco-system. It reminds me of how humanity clings onto particular points rather than to perceive an ‘ecology’ of relationships. We then make decisions based on a mono-nucleic or single-pointed view, while somehow (unconsciously?) assuming that our choice has integrated all the problems within one neat little package. We are a society that reacts to the immediacy of singled-out emergencies that trigger a fear of our own death, rather than to be responsive to the very real intuitive callings within us, of which by the way actually emphasizes life rather than death. In the global warming case, humanity’s inner ‘call’ is signaling us to change the way we interact with the planet’s resources and life systems. Yet that calling has gotten pulled into an outdated learning methodology that encourages the selection of a certain part within the greater whole so that we can adjust it in order to ‘fix’ the whole, all while dropping the other parts in the process. Ironically, a relatively recent advancement of science through complexity theory; more specifically: the butterfly effect, suggests that we must take into effect sources of small changes too, as they are just as important as the big sources of system change. Thus, it’s the ecology of our science that seems to be lost or forgotten (or maybe still emerging?) right now. In part, I believe this is due to our (also outdated) economic model, which reinforces big payouts of fame and money going to those who come up with the best (so-called) right answer. This is a flaw in today’s human(e) management model and directly impacts scientific progress, even if science theory suggests otherwise. That is, the original science model is based in the separation of matter in order to see how it got put together and works. Although this process is important, I believe that it is valuable only when balanced with other scientific procedures that incorporate (w)holistic applications which seek to understand how a system works as a whole without separating it into parts.
All that said, can the global warming movement trigger an ecology of understanding that is sorely missing? In the name of generating deeper forms of innovation (rather than shallow), this is both my hope and my concern.
Vic
--------------
On 10/17/07 10:09 AM, From Dan J. who wrote:
Another point amongst the discourse on global climate change that leads me to ponder the (science+belief=action) model. So is Botkin one of the naysayer conspirators, of the believers but a concerned observer, or just misguided? What should we believe about the truth from this? He's reputable enough to get into the WSJ, but then that paper has a pro-business bias.
So having read this, what do you make of his factual points? What will you do with it within your social-intellectual construct of climate change?
Dan
--------------
Global Warming Delusions
10/17/2007 The Wall Street Journal
By Daniel B. Botkin
Mr. Botkin, president of the Center for the Study of the Environment and professor emeritus in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the author of ”Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty-First Century” (Replica Books, 2001).
Global warming doesn't matter except to the extent that it will affect life -- ours and that of all living things on Earth. And contrary to the latest news, the evidence that global warming will have serious effects on life is thin. Most evidence suggests the contrary.
Case in point: This year's United Nations report on climate change and other documents say that 20%-30% of plant and animal species will be threatened with extinction in this century due to global warming -- a truly terrifying thought. Yet, during the past 2.5 million years, a period that scientists now know experienced climatic changes as rapid and as warm as modern climatological models suggest will happen to us, almost none of the millions of species on Earth went extinct. The exceptions were about 20 species of large mammals (the famous megafauna of the last ice age -- saber-tooth tigers, hairy mammoths and the like), which went extinct about 10,000 to 5,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age, and many dominant trees and shrubs of northwestern Europe. But elsewhere, including North America, few plant species went extinct, and few mammals.
Continue reading "Innovation and the Great Global Warming Debate" »