Hi David, Hi all,
I'd appreciate some feedback on this draft text, aimed primarily at
general readers but potentially also scientists or policymakers from
across disciplines:
Suggestions for academic references would be particularly helpful.
TITLE:
"Geonurturing - a tentative definition and classification"
ABSRACT:
James Lovelock has talked about the earth having a fever. By analogy
with a sick patient, a classification of "geonurturing" is defined.
ARTICLE:
The term Geonurturing was first coined, to the best of my knowledge,
by David Schnare. My own working definition is "taking steps to
protect, restore and replenish a planet, its bio-geochemical and its
physical systems and to protect its biodiversity, including human
beings". (OK with you, David?)
THE BACKGROUND:
I will assume that the climate situation is beyond critical, as
suggested by James Lovelock in this Guardian article:
www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange
Lovelock suggests that a rapid decrease in petrochemicals use,
especially diesel, could be dangerous because while carbon remains in
the atmosphere, particulate levels emitted alongside CO2 by diesel
engines may also decrease rapidly, reducing global dimming. Global
dimming is the effect of these particulates from diesel engines and
forest fires and general pollution. By reducing the amount of the
sun's light reaching the surface of the planet, these particles have
shielded us from the full force of greenhouse warming. A sudden
reduction in these particulates could lead to very rapid warming. He
also believes that many of the earth's biogeochemical systems are now
in positive feedback, meaning that it is too late to prevent rapid and
dangerous warming by emissions reductions alone.
THE ANALOGY - A CHILD WITH FEVER
This definition of geonurturing assumes that the earth's bio-
geochemical systems are in positive feedback, and that we can usefully
draw an analogy with a human child who has a high and rising fever:
A fever can be caused by different bacteria and viruses. The ideal
intervention is early killing of the bacteria / viruses by the child's
own immune system. If this is delayed for any reason, the patient's
fever rises. If the fever rises too high, the child can start to have
fits which can cause permanent brain damage. Treatment with
antibiotics at a late stage (i.e. treating the cause) may cause a
temporary acceleration in the fever as virus / bacteria / immune
particles are released into the bloodstream. For this reason, and in
order to prevent fits / brain damage, it makes sense to treat the
symptom ie. reduce the fever by other means than treating the cause.
This can be done with (eg) paracetamol. If fits and brain damage are
prevented in this way, it is termed secondary prevention. (Primary
prevention is preventing the infection in the first place. Secondary
prevention is essentially preventing new damage arising from the
original pathology.)
So, like the child with fever:
- the temperature of the planet is already rising
- if we treat the cause too aggressively, we may accelerate the
temperature rise and cause abrupt climate change
- if we do nothing, the temperature may rise to a level where there is
major permanent damage
In terms of care/treatment/nurture:
(1) there may be things we can do to gently bring down the temperature
(2) we may be able to replenish some essential natural resources eg
water
(3) we should treat the cause carefully
(4) we need to stop doing the things that weakened the planet in the
first place and ensure balanced, sustainable living
(5) we need to remember the illness and recovery is a part of life and
that both children and planets pass through different phases
(6) while doing all this nurturing we shouldn't forget to prevent
external threats
>From the above we can derive a 6-part classification of geonurturing:
GEONURTURING (1) - PLANETARY FIRST AID AND SECONDARY PREVENTION
Slow down and stop temperature increase by the most gentle means
possible eg:
- increase albedo (reflectivity) of urban areas and roads
- restore natural cloud-making forests and wetlands in the tropics
- augment cloud cover over oceans (Salter / Latham proposal)
- consider other options if needed (except sulphate to increase
dimming and other radical strategies)
- urgent emissions reductions, including a separate agreement on
HFC23
- capture and use or capture and store the most potent greenhouse
gases
GEONURTURING (2) - PROTECT AND REPLENISH NATURAL RESOURCES
Support those parts of the ecosystem that have a key role in
temperature and biogeochemical regulation:
- stop tropical deforestation and draining of wetlands
- restore degraded tropical forests, wetlands etc
- in agriculture and forestry, imitate natural ecosystems
as far as possible (Agro-forestry, permaculture etc)
- ensure that marine ecosystems with important roles
in climate regulation are not compromised by pollution
GEONURTURING (3) TREATING THE CAUSE(S):
Reverse full range of underlying causes:
- greenhouse gas emissions reductions
- land use change with land-atmosphere impact
- population growth
- air capture of CO2 and steps to prevent and reverse ocean
acidification
GEONURTURING (4) - SHIFTING TO BALANCED, SUSTAINABLE LIVING
In the longer term, approaches like Permaculture, localised food
production and low-carbon transport systems along with intelligent
technology choices will be needed to sustain a population of perhaps 7
billion humans, and conscious strategies to gradually reduce
population to perhaps 2 billion would be helpful.
GEONURTURING (5) - LEARNIUNG TO ACCEPT CLIMATE CYCLES
In the very long term, we will need to get used to the idea that the
earth passes through warm periods and periods of glaciation. Even in
the most severe ice ages, there is not complete ice cover - the
tropics remains suitable for human habitation.
Two web pages explaining extremely low risk of whole earth glaciation:
www.snowballearth.org/could.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth
While we might be able to prevent an ice age using geoengineering,
we'd be forgetting that advancing ice sheets perform valuable roles
such as restoring minerals to the landscape. This raises the prospect
that at some point in the future we may need to voluntarily reduce our
population and shift the human population entirely to the tropics.
GEONURTURING (6) - PREVENTING EXTERNAL THREATS
Another much more sudden change in climate could be caused by a comet
impact or a super-volcano. We do not yet have public global
contingency plans to deal with these kinds of climate emergency.
A really good immune system includes intelligent avoidance of hazards
and reduction of risk.
Ray Taylor
Land-Atmosphere Resilience Initiative
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