Wow, we’re starting to see the mad scientist ideas coming out of the woodwork. Let’s build huge artificial volcanos to spew dust into the atmosphere to cool the earth. The idea is to create a temporary slowdown of warming so we have more time to get our act together. Every couple of years they’d shoot more stuff into the sky. Am I crazy or does this seem like a pretty bad idea?

Shades of Professor Frink…

These pictures from a NASA satellite graphically show the degree of ice loss in one year- its frightening how fast this open water is appearing. Even more troubling is the feedback effect: Open water absorbs heat unlike ice which reflects it. This will speed up the melt even more.
Please note, this ice loss is perennial ice, ice that normally appears every year and will no longer do so.

…I felt that I was trying to describe an unthinkable present and I actually feel that science fiction’s best use today is the exploration of contemporary reality rather than any attempt to predict where we are going… The best thing you can do with science today is use it to explore the present. Earth is the alien planet now. –from an interview with Willam Gibson on CNN, August 26, 1997.

You may have noted that I have links and references to science fiction on this site. One of the reasons I started Burner Trouble is that I wrote a novel (unpublished) of the same title in which I tried to portray what my life might be like in the not too distant future if climate change really accelerated. The novel wasn’t really satisfying because real events are moving so fast that they are, in many cases, outpacing speculation. So I thought I’d write about my reality, in real time, hence this blog.
I recently saw a TV show on CNN where three ‘prominent’ futurists were talking about where they thought things were headed. For those who may not be aware of this career category, futurists are people hired by companies with more money than they know what to do with, to predict the future. They do this by playing a game called scenario planning where they create a potential scenario and play out all the outcomes. It’s a job I’d love to get paid for. It also happens to be the exact decription what sci-fi or speculative fiction writers do.
These futurists were unimpressive to say the least. They talked about gadgets and connectivity. Meanwhile the scifi writers tend to focus on social changes and long term consequences. My experience tells me their accuracy is higher. I recently reread William Gibson’s 1984 novel Neuromancer, a pioneering near future speculative masterpiece, to see how his predictions held up 22 years later. It is striking how spot on he was in some ways. I recommend it (link in the Recommended Reading list to the left).
Interestingly, Gibson has abandoned speculative fiction for stories set in the present because he feels things are moving so fast now that just capturing our current milieu is challenge enough.

In this article, UK writer Gerard Baker offers up an interesting philosophical take on whether you should be sceptical about climate change. He notes how 17th century French philosopher Blaise Pascal dealt with an interesting dilemma: if you believe in God and live life as though you will go to heaven based on your actions and God doesn’t prove to exist then you are a fool compared to those who don’t believe and live a more dissolute (though potentially more fun) life. On the other hand, if God does exist then those who laughed it off have an entirely different problem. Pascal came to the conclusion that you should live as though God and heaven are real, just in case they are. The payoff long term is much greater.
Baker says that, following Pascal’s reasoning, even if you don’t believe warming is happening or that we’re causing it, you might as well act as though it is. That way, if it is you’ll have worked to alleviate it. If it’s not happening, the worst thing we’ll have is a cleaner planet and less reliance on fossil fuels.
Philosophy- gotta love it!