Yesterday I attended a meeting with the Agriculture Collaborative of the Mid-Region Council of Governments, a local organization in the middle Rio Grande valley of New Mexico. The topic was global warming. On hand to present their data were some great scientists from our local community, including climate scientist Dave Gutzler of the University of New Mexico. As most folks who follow global warming are well aware, the news from the data and the models is not good at all.
As one of the speakers presented the results of the IPCC report, a CO2 ice core graph, very similar to the one on the left, was included in one of the slides. I couldn’t help but notice the eerie and not coincidental similarity to fossil fuel use and human population graphs charted over the same period.
An alarming map presented by Gutzler showed a Western United States rendered nearly uninhabitable due to prolonged droughty conditions; in essence, a transition to an extremely arid, desert climate throughout the Southwestern United States, and perhaps the West in general. The climate models predict a dire future, but are we modeling what our future socieites will look like under these conditions? Will there even be a future society in the face of massive climate disruption?
The signs of environmental toxicity are everywhere, from the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
These data raise the question: what is the true nature of this phenomenon? Has our humanity been reduced to plague status? Intelligent, with a real sense of beauty, but too voracious, too savage, to be fit for survival?
Nature is alive. This is one of the most stunning and irrefutable conclusions one arrives at through intimate contact, self-reflection, and observation. All of these reactions to our misguided petro-adventurism are with meaning and intent, from the concentration of plastic wastes in ocean gyres to the drastic and abrupt alteration of our once stable and habitable climate. Is the planet preparing for a Great Purging, or are these dramatic realities designed to force a shift in human consciousness?
3 responses to “The Gaia Response”
Nothing says intelligence is a successful long term evolutionary strategy.
Natural selection seems to always be seen through the lens of competition (insight into our own nature?) If one really looks though it seems that nature has always selected cooperative behavior as the most successful. The Ebola virus for example, burns through suitable habitat much to quickly, it kills its hosts too quickly to be transmitted at a large scale. Aids on the other hand waits a very long time before creating health impacting consequences. I think if left untreated though it would ravage humanity to a point that it had a hard time finding new hosts. Contrast this with mitochondria, lichens, or micorhizal fungi. Cooperative nature ensures that both parties always have a suitable environment. They’re in it for the long term.
Humans need to become cooperative organisms, both with each other and with the ecosystem at large. I think its somewhat critical that when these impacts start to occur, those of us cooperative in nature aren’t outcompeted by wealthy individualists that might use their savings to buy and protect vast tracks of land in places that might be favored by climate change.
Climate change is certainly the next catalyst for evolution. It will act on us the same as every other organism. I think which direction it steers us will ultimately decide whether we become a stable and ever present species in the world, or a species that flares up and burns its self out over and over.
The best, and most entertaining treatment of this troubling possibility: that intelligence is (or can be) an evolutionary dead end is given in Kurt Vonnegut’s “Galapagos”… 😉
Now, personally, I think intelligence is rarer than humans might think, for to analyze a set of data, evaluate it in its entirety (this may be beyond our skill) and then ACT on the outcome is not common to the average humans experience. Many of my peers, while judged intelligent in a general sense, do not analyze or even make themselves aware of events beyond their immediate geographical area, although the tools are available to the to do so, and further reduce the effectiveness of their “intelligence” by anticipating where events MIGHT be going – they simply don’t care, the performance of their sports team is of much greater interest,
I think we judge people to be intelligent based on good vocabularies and interests that align with our own, maybe these dull sods have it right and its all beyond our reach so t’hell with it.
But those of us compelled to analyze, predict, and dissect the present and future, and who feel compelled to act on those activities, while probably no happier…
May or may not be able to stave off the rather forbidding looking consequences that appear to be looming…
But as an optimist, I think those who commit to applying more technology to our personal environments can carve out an existence regardless of the changes to come. We may end up treating the earth as a hostile alien planet to be re-colonized, but at least those who thrive will be well suited to ANY future that may come.
The best, and most entertaining treatment of this troubling possibility: that intelligence is (or can be) an evolutionary dead end is given in Kurt Vonnegut’s “Galapagos”… 😉
Now, personally, I think intelligence is rarer than humans might think, for to analyze a set of data, evaluate it in its entirety (this may be beyond our skill) and then ACT on the outcome is not common to the average humans experience. Many of my peers, while judged intelligent in a general sense, do not analyze or even make themselves aware of events beyond their immediate geographical area, although the tools are available to the to do so, and further reduce the effectiveness of their “intelligence” by anticipating where events MIGHT be going – they simply don’t care, the performance of their sports team is of much greater interest,
I think we judge people to be intelligent based on good vocabularies and interests that align with our own, maybe these dull sods have it right and its all beyond our reach so t’hell with it.
But those of us compelled to analyze, predict, and dissect the present and future, and who feel compelled to act on those activities, while probably no happier…
May or may not be able to stave off the rather forbidding looking consequences that appear to be looming…
But as an optimist, I think those who commit to applying more technology to our personal environments can carve out an existence regardless of the changes to come. We may end up treating the earth as a hostile alien planet to be re-colonized, but at least those who thrive will be well suited to ANY future that may come.