Dicing with global life
A. F. Gaudi
LABORATORY EARTH: THE PLANETARY GAMBLE WE CAN'T AFFORD TO LOSE by Stephen H. Schneider Weidenfeld, £11.99, pp. 184 Environmental issues and problems are not new. In classical times writers recorded what happened when the forests were cleared from steep limestone slopes in the Mediterranean lands of the Old World. Erosion ensued. Likewise, in 18th-century Europe, observers tried to link deforesta- tion in the Alps with floods and torrents in distant, low-lying areas. However, such issues were operative at a local or regional scale and they only become apparent after the damage had been done. It is Stephen H. Schneider's contention that: The 21st-century environmental problems are unique because the scale is truly global rather than simply local to regional. Even more serious, potentially long-lasting, even irreversible effects are quite possible, thus it is no longer acceptable simply to learn by doing. When the laboratory is the Earth, we need to anticipate the outcome of our global- scale experiments before we perform them. His rationale is to defend this contention and to ask a series of questions about global change: how long did it take for the climate and life to evolve this far; how does the Earth work as a coupled set of subsystems that include living and non- living parts; how are people disturbing the Earth system; what have we learned from the workings of the natural system that can help us forecast how human disturbances might affect it; what are some of the trade- offs between environmental protection and economic development; and how can both sets of these seemingly conflicting interests be reconciled?
It is in a sense extraordinary that Schnei- der feels that it is necessary to explain for the lay person what the study of global change — Earth Systems Science as it is grandly called — involves, but the fact is that in the last few years the environmental gurus of the 1980s have found that their views and their reputations have begun to be questioned. Eurosceptics have their counterparts in Envirosceptics. Scepticism or downright opposition comes from a vari- ety of sources: the fossil fuel lobby; those who believe in private property rather than common property rights; the agricultural sector; those who dislike legislative inter- ference in their lives; a number of ambi- tious science journalists who find that green-bashing generates 'news'; and a group of, for the most part perfectly gen- uine academic doubters, be they scientists or economists.
`Some scepticism is undoubtedly justified, for some environmental gurus and their issues have been over-sold, and 'wolf' has been called too often. Some of the projec- tions made in the 1970s about what the world's environment might be like in the 1990s have not come to pass. Likewise there has been great progress in dealing with some environmental issues: lead has been removed from petrol; sulphate emissions have declined in Britain; ozone- depleting substances have been banned; and the forested area has expanded in North America. Enviroscepticism is also nurtured by uncertainty: most good scien- tists know that there are few certainties in our predictions about the world of the future, but some sceptics take it as a cue to plead the need for inaction.
Uncertainty works both ways, however, and Schneider's subtitle, 'The Planetary Gamble We Can't Afford to Lose', recog- nises this. Given our level of ignorance, which is profound in the face of such com- plex and interconnecting systems, we need to be cautious in our great laboratory experiment. There could be undreamt-of trouble in store. We need to debate whether we should go for economic growth or environmental prudence and whether we should leave a legacy of environmental problems to later generations who cannot participate in the decisions we are making now.
Schneider's book, which is almost too slight for such a massive subject, makes a restrained rather than overly polemical contribution to the debate, and provides a clear exposition of some of the key features of Earth Systems Science.
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