4 A synthesis of geoengineering and permaculture – ‘geonurturing’
In the following discussion I assume that the climate situation is beyond critical, as suggested by James Lovelock in this Guardian article, ‘Enjoy life while you can’ (March 2008).
Lovelock suggests that a rapid decrease in petrochemicals use, especially diesel, could be dangerous because particulate levels emitted alongside CO2 by diesel engines may also decrease rapidly, reducing global dimming. Global dimming is the effect of particulates from diesel engines, forest fires and general pollution. These particulates reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the planet and have therefore shielded the earth from the full force of greenhouse warming. Lovelock 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.
If we believe that the bio-geochemical systems are in positive feedback, we can 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 or 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; i.e. reduce the fever by other means than treating the cause. This can be done, for example, with paracetamol and a lukewarm bath. This is called secondary prevention: by treating the symptom you prevent the brain damage that could be caused if the fever escalates and causes fits.
So, like the child with fever:
the temperature of the planet is already rising
if we treat the cause too abruptly, we may accelerate the temperature rise
if we do nothing, the temperature may rise to a level where there is major permanent damage
there may be things we can do to gently bring down the temperature, while gradually treating the cause.
Steps in caring for a child with a rising fever could include:
giving any necessary first aid plus secondary prevention (i.e. treating the fever)
making sure the child has sufficient water and good nutrition
identifying and treating the cause(s) appropriately
looking at why the child became ill and considering changes to prevent it happening again (good nutrition, healthy living, balance, etc.)
building resilience and acknowledging that passing through states of illness and recovery is in itself a healthy process.
From this analogy we can derive a classification of geonurturing.
Planetary first aid and secondary prevention
Slow down and stop temperature increase by the most gentle means possible. Examples include:
increase albedo (reflectivity) of urban areas and roads
restore natural cloud-making forests and wetlands in the tropics
augment cloud cover over oceans
consider other options if needed
urgent emissions reductions, including a separate agreement on HFC23
capture and use or capture and store the most potent greenhouse gases
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
Treat the cause
Reverse full range of underlying causes:
greenhouse gas emissions reductions
land use change with land-atmosphere impact
population growth
Shift 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 seven billion humans.
Learn 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 remain suitable for human habitation. 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 by voluntary fertility restraint and shift the human population entirely to the tropics.
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.
Activity 8
Reflect on the following questions:
Is it possible that we're getting too worked up over climate change as a risk/hazard and not paying sufficient attention to other more devastating hazards?
Is it too easy to imagine a whole range of conceivable catastrophes, which can distract us from one that is already real and underway?
3 The Transition Movement and the Post Carbon Institute