Luck and Global Climate Change

Even if I weren't studying luck this year, I would have found it a strange coincidence that I read Kurt Vonnegut's Hocus Pocus and Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes from a Catastrophe during the same week. I didn't think the 1990 Vonnegut novel (not one of his best; Cat's Cradle is just too excellent, but very good none-the-less) and the 2006 journalistic account of climate change had anything in common when I picked them up in our book room. In fact, I picked up the Vonnegut just because it had so little in common with Field Notes*. Then BAM! Both books are chopped full a quotes and luck and life and we are responsible for the state of the environment and WHAT IN THE WORLD AM I GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

Of course, I haven't figured out the latter yet. Much as I like to think that being a biology professor can help, I read the finals from last week, and if the global responsibility message stuck as well as the content facts I presented, well, I'm an abject failure. And I'm taking off for a long distance drive across the country tomorrow. So I'll ask you to help me figure out what I can do about it and what you are doing as well. We must do something. Of course China must also do something, but it is irresponsible, if not outright wrong, to do nothing to solve a problem just because others are making it worse. In the meantime, I leave you these quotes.

The 2 prime movers in the Universe are Time and Luck. (H.P. p. 21)

So what indeed! The lesson I myself learned over and over again when teaching at the college and then the prison was the uselessness of information to most people except as entertainment. If facts weren't funny or scary, or couldn't make you rich, the heck with them. (H.P. p. 67)

She said, moreover, that perpetual motion was possible, if only scientists would work harder on it. (H.P. p. 130)

Bergeron's epitaph for the planet, I remember, which he said should be carved in big letters in a wall of the Grand Canyon for the flying-saucer people to find, was this: WE COULD HAVE SAVED IT BUT WE WERE TOO DOGGONE CHEAP. (H.P. p. 143)

The earth is a twitchy system. It's clear from the record that it does things that we don't fully understand. And we're not going to understand them in the time period we have to make these decisions. We just know they're there. We may say, 'We just don't want to do this to ourselves.' If it's a problem like that, then asking where it's practical or not is really not going to help very much. Whether it's practical depends on how much we give a damn. (Robert Socolow in F.N. p. 143-144).

Q. "How worried should we be? " A. "How lucky do you feel?" (The New Scientist as reported in F.N. p. 187).

Luck and resourcefulness, are of, course, essential human qualities. (F.N. p 187).

We're going to need both to keep this mess from being a horribly bigger mess than its already going to become. And yes, I know it snowed in New Orleans this week. That does not mean that this is not a problem.

*I've read surprisingly few books about global warming. I'd like to believe it's because I've seen the evidence. With a clear cause, a demonstrated mechanism, and clear results, I've not doubted that CO2 emissions can lead to a change in global temperature. But really, it's that the bad ones offend me and the good ones depress me.

Graphs from Davies, a forestry company's website. They are based on ice core data from antarctica.