Under A White Sky - Summary

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 Topic Forty One

Summary

Under A White Sky: The Nature Of The Future by Elizabeth Kolbert is an important book for anyone. It is a book which should be required reading in all U.S. high schools. The book gives specific examples of how climate change is affecting the planet and what actions can be taken to mitigate the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere contributing to the warming.

A couple of further themes of the book are the dependence of many aspects of Mother Nature on the activities of homo sapiens. Rather than Mother Nature dominating homo sapiens, in the last few centuries, this relationship has been flipped with Mother Nature becoming more dependent on homo sapiens. Further, the attempts to intervene in natural processes by homo sapiens often have unintended negative consequences such that the solution has become a problem requiring another solution which could beget further problems. Recognizing these patterns encourages homo sapiens to think more systemically and ecologically instead of reductively, linearly, and specifically.

The strength of this book is Kolbert’s ability to tell stories about specific situations and technologies embedded in more universal themes named in the paragraph above.

The book lends itself to small group discussions and classroom pedagogic activities. Best wishes for worthwhile reading, reflection, and discussion.

Under A White Sky - We are no longer just members of a nation. We are global citizens.

 Topic Forty

We are no longer just members of a nation. We are global citizens.

“The idea that somehow research on solar geoengineering is going to open Pandora’s box, I think that’s just unbelievably naïve,” Schrag said. “Do you really believe that the U.S. military or the Chinese military haven’t thought about this? Come on! They’ve done cloud-seeding for rain. This is not a new idea, and it’s not a secret. 

“People have to get their heads away from thinking about whether they like solar geoengineering or not, whether they think it should be done or not. They have to understand that we don’t get to decide. The United States doesn’t get to decide. You’re a world leader and there’s a technology that could take the pain and suffering away, or take some of it away. You’ve got to be really tempted. I’m not saying they’ll do it tomorrow. I feel like we might have thirty years. The highest priority for scientists is to figure out all the different ways this could go wrong.”

Kolbert, Elizabeth. Under a White Sky (p. 185). Crown. Kindle Edition. 

Shrag seems to be saying that whether homo sapiens uses geoengineering or not to manage climate change is a question which is naive and ignorant. We already are. The question is which type of geoengineering are we going to use and how will we make decisions about how to control it.?

The additional idea is that geoengineering is not a national problem it is a global one. One country alone doesn’t get to decide. Homos sapiens is way past the point where we can limit our thinking to nationalism. We all are part of a global community whether we recognize it or not, whether we like it or not.

Under A White Sky - Concerns about geoengineering

 Topic Thirty Nine

Concerns about geoengineering

Alan Robock is a climate scientist at Rutgers and one of the leaders of the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project, or GeoMIP. Robock maintains a list of concerns about geoengineering; the latest version has more than two dozen entries. Number 1 is the possibility that it could disrupt rainfall patterns, causing “drought in Africa and Asia.” Number 9 is “less solar electricity generation,” and number 17 is “whiter skies.” Number 24 is “conflicts between countries.” Number 28 is “do humans have the right to do this?”

Kolbert, Elizabeth. Under a White Sky (p. 181). Crown. Kindle Edition. 

In human judgment some geoengineering activities may be more desirable than others. How can comparisons and distinctions be made? What would be the criteria to make these judgments? Are human beings wise enough to consider all the consequences, positive and negative of employing various activities and technologies? Which geoengineering activities seem best to you? Worst?

Perspective and guidance - Polarization and human well being

 Topic One

Political polarization has significant consequences for human well being.

And while the claim might sound extreme, we may in fact be putting our human survival at risk. We confront multiple dangers today that could well be the end of us. The top five on my list (in no particular order): the risk of nuclear annihilation, climate change and its consequences, how the growing gap between the world’s haves and have-nots risks global economic destabilization, misuse of emerging technologies, and the growing potential for widespread disease. It is clear that effectively confronting any of the first four will require that we get beyond seeing the world in polarized, us-versus-them terms. I had not previously framed addressing the risks of worldwide disease in this way, but the 2020 pandemic has made it obvious that there, too, failing to bring more encompassing perspective to bear could be our undoing.

Johnston, Charles . Perspective and Guidance for a Time of Deep Discord: Why We See Such Extreme Social and Political Polarization—and What We Can Do About It (p. xii). ICD Press. 

While Johnston lists his top five risks of survival for homo sapiens, Michael Lewis does a similar thing in this book, The Fifth Risk, and lists a couple of items not on Johnston’s list such as  the shut down of the electrical grid and the fifth risk being the failure of competent management which we have seen manifested in the Trump Administration.

Beyond the values polarization we are experiencing right now in our society, it is managerial incompetence which can be most threatening as we have seen with the Trump Administration’s mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic contributing to millions of unnecessary infections and hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths.

Differences of values, opinions, and beliefs are one thing, but when they contribute to unnecessary harm, the people in our society are at risk for extinction. The polarization of values, opinions, and beliefs has significant consequences if they are not handled in a competent manner to minimize the risk they pose for the population subjected to and engaged with them.

The first step in problem solving is collecting accurate information about the factors contributing to the problem. The second step is naming the problem in a valid and reliable way so that all the stakeholders can agree on what to call it. The third step is working together across systems on collaborative strategies to mitigate if not eliminate the problem. The fourth step is identifying and adopting prosocial values that contribute to positive evolutionary development for our species and the planet.

Second Book discussed in March, 2022 is Perspective and Guidance For A Time of Deep Discord by Charles M. Johnston

  Perspective and Guidance For A Time of Deep Discord by Charles M. Johnston in March, 2022. It is a handbook of sorts which describes who we can manage the topics the are so divisive in our society in the U.S.

Geoengineering and the desire to lower CO2 emissions

 Topic Thirty Eight

How will geoengineering technology lowering CO2 in the air affect people’s desire to mitigate CO2 emissions themselves?

I asked Keith about what is sometimes called the “moral hazard” problem. If people think geoengineering is going to avert the worst effects of climate change, won’t that reduce their motivation to cut emissions? He agreed this was a worry. But he said the opposite was also possible: “opening up the range of options” could inspire greater action.

Kolbert, Elizabeth. Under a White Sky (p. 178). Crown. Kindle Edition. 

What do you think? Will the geoengineering technologies contribute to a lower desire to stop emitting CO2 or will having greater hope in lowering CO2 with geoengineering encourage people to work harder to lower emissions?

The best way forward is to do everything.

Topic Thirty Seven
The best way forward is to do everything.

Keith believes that the world will eventually cut its carbon emissions if not all the way down to zero, then close to it. He also believes carbon-removal technologies can eventually be scaled up to take care of the rest. But all this—quite possibly—will not be enough. During the period of “overshoot,” a great many people will suffer and changes that are, for all intents and purposes, irreversible may occur, like the demise of the Great Barrier Reef. 

The best way forward, he argues, is to do everything: cut emissions, work on carbon removal, and look a lot more seriously at geoengineering. On the basis of computer modeling, he’s proposed that the safest option would be to put up enough aerosols to cut warming in half, rather than to counteract it entirely—what might be called “semi-engineering.”

Kolbert, Elizabeth. Under a White Sky (p. 177). Crown. Kindle Edition. 

There are so many ways to decrease the CO2 in the atmosphere and ameliorate the other negative consequences of climate change. People seem to focus on the magic wand, the silver bullet, the magic key, and, alas, there is no one thing. The situation is multidimensional. So David Keith,  professor of applied physics at Harvard, says that we must do everything. Can we chew gum and dance at the same time?