Brains & Climate

Mention global warming at a social gathering and see what happens, now that skepticism and glib comebacks have turned into concern and sorrow. People will, of course, assume that you’re a pessimist about our prospects.
     “Not really,” I protest. That earns me a quizzical look.
     “Wait a minute,” she says. “If you’re an optimist, why do you look so worried?”
     Dramatic pause.
     “So you think it’s easy, being an optimist?”
Many scientists look worried these days. We’ve had a steady diet of bad news coming from climate scientists and biologists. To become even a guarded optimist, you have to think hard.
     First, I reflected, the history of science and medicine shows that, once you mechanistically understand what’s what, you can approach all sorts of seemingly unsolvable problems. I’m optimistic that we will learn how to stabilize climate.
     When pessimism tempts me, I usually remember the progress that I’ve seen. When I was born in 1939, antibiotics were just a rumor, there were few vaccines, and your chances of dying from an infection were three times higher than they are now.
     I’ve seen an enormous increase in our knowledge about how bodies work, from molecules to mind. The average lifespan has been extended by decades in many countries, just in the time that I’ve been personally observing the scene as a medical school professor. And in the first half of the 20th century, deaths from infections dropped by an order of magnitude even before antibiotics and vaccinations came to dominate the scene . Just the basic knowledge about how diseases spread was what did most of the job, not a needle. Once this new knowledge was incorporated into everyday practices, eight out of ten fatal infections were prevented. We’re used to thinking of science discoveries leading to technological innovation. But here you see how knowledge, pure knowledge, pays off all by itself.
     The reason I’m not so pessimistic about climate is that, once you understand what’s what, you can approach all sorts of seemingly unsolvable problems. It is reasonable to hope that we will learn how to intervene and stabilize things in the decades ahead, much as we earlier did in medicine. (To be continued.)

That’s the subtitle for my book, GLOBAL FEVER, out in February 2008 from U of Chicago Press. I’m more optimistic than most for the long run, say 2100, provided that science and technological creativity stays high and unincumbered. But we’ve got to manage the short run – to 2020 – on a more urgent basis to avoid inflicting catastrophes on today’s students, going with what we’ve got rather than pie in the sky.  Just to illustrate, here is a three-part solution using existing technology, mostly with known economics

1. Hybrids with a 33 mile daily range on electric – the average commute – could eliminate foreign oil imports which have grown to be 2/3 of our oil supply, for which we’ve fought two wars in the mideast.
2. We could clone the most modern nuclear reactors to reduce coal use. France gets 78% of its electricity from nuclear, NJ 52%. 
3. But developing countries will burn their own coal to modernize, so the developed world has to undercut that with subsidies, running low-loss power transmission lines across half a continent from one of the 31 countries that already has nuclear power. 

(more…)

Yes, I have neglected the blog — and for a six month period that has seen public opinion on fixing climate change evolve quite a lot in the U.S.

It’s a period when I’ve started giving climate talks to any civic group that will listen. What’s Happening for 15 minutes, What To Do for 15 minutes.  And between them, as time permits, 15 minute segments on Sea Level Rise and on Abrupt Climate Changes such as El Nino and droughts. I’ll be posting the powerpoint slides soon.

These illustrations from my book (out in early 2008 from University of Chicago Press)

                 GLOBAL FEVER: How to Treat Climate Change

may be freely copied with attribution. All have been remade in black-and-white to make handouts inexpensive.

William H. Calvin University of Washington