Comfortable?
- 10 Nov 06, 12:06 PM
As people we like to surround our selves with home comforts - How we seek comfort might be the key to turning climate change around.
I'm going to take you on a bit of a biological journey - bear with me. A while back I had the good fortune to spend a few days in the Kalahari Desert with eminent evolutionary biologist . We were making a programme about Meerkats, especially how these group loving little tikes maximised their reproductive success over a life time. Listen to the shows, they're fun - And you get an idea of how individual animals have to balance their interests of survival against generating off spring.
Amongst the bio's investigating animal behaviour a key assumption is made. That is: The behaviour of an individual will be acted upon by evolution such that across the life time of that individual it would have strived to leave as many surviving off spring as possible. The assumption is they (species/individuals) try to generate as many babies as possible. It's an important assumption because in studying behaviour provision isn't made for aesthetics that don't in some way contribute to the success of reproduction. This would be seen as a futile waste of time and energy.
So I asked Tim, what about people? Although he didn't enlarge in any way, he said something extraordinarily interesting. In the developed world (he was inferring) we don't go out of our way to generate as many children as possible, but we maximise ourchances of survival [contentment] by devoting resources to comforts around us. Comforts could be anything - houses, furniture, mod cons, cars....acquiring these conforts takes time and energy: Time and energy that could be spent making and rearing babies. So, the human condition in this respect is a major departure from the rest of the animal kingdom.
Can you look at your self and sense whether that makes sense to you? I don't think this is a studied phenomenon yet.
I sense now, that we ought to gain comfort by securing the future.
Our presenter, Gabrielle, in a lovely interview broadcast in the first programme talks to ice man Ola Johannessen whilst standing on the Greenland ice sheet. Gabrille says "....it's so comforting...And re-assuring....". True, Gabrielle saw an enormous sheet of ice that looked vast and stable. We're told it's melting at an alarming rate - And yet it looked comfortingly ok.
The average global temperature difference between the last ice age and now was a meagre 6 degrees cooler. When the events occurred (planetary events) to end the last ice age it's basic demise took just 50 years. In 50 years rivers started flowing, seas started filling, habitats were being created on the margins of water - And vast swathes of tundra were being lost. Thousands of years gripped by ice, 50 years to end it.
Across our series we're hearing that notion of 50 years an awful lot. 50 years and a 20% demise in species; a one metre rise in sea level; a 3 degree warming.....A massive loss of sea ice, perhaps none left at all. 10% of the Greenland ice sheet gone. Changes in ocean currents ...
If we are desiring smaller families and as a consequence of our developed life we seek comfort more than children around us perhaps we ought to choose those comforts carefully, so the future really is reassuring. The message is clear from some of our interviewee's - we have to be content with less and not seek the meaning of life through the acquisition of the trappings of wealth (quote from Clare Short - see an ealier blog). We have to re-connect with nature and recognise its value - not grab it as a free resource (see the blog on the Stern Review).
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We have to learn to appreciate nature more.
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As you state,the last ice age ended in a warming cycle that lasted only 50 years and ten degree temperature rise.What a sight that must have been all that water its a pity there weren't any cameras
This was nothing to do with human beings, in fact nobody knows or even has a reasonable scientific theory why it happened.
But now, at this time, according to the majority of people who write into your blog, they are absolutely certain that any change in the climate, hotter or colder,is due to human influence ?
I contend it is unlikely we are the cause of any particular climate change, because it has happened many times before.
This appears to be just good old planet god worship, every human civilisation has worshipped the gods of the planet, its now our turn! We have the high priests (climate scientists),the loyal followers of the faith (Friends of the Earth etc.) the corrupt rulers (politicians) and now it is us (the peasants) who are being asked to make the sacrifice.
The only problem is, how will the planet find out we have made sacrifice, it doesn't know and it doesn't care.
6 billion of us must have an effect upon the planet, we cannot avoid this, but if every human being disappeared to-morrow, it would not make a jot of difference to the planets climate.
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We MAY not be to blame for Global Warming. There again we might.
Either way we could contribute to or mitigate it's effects.
I'm afraid to say that we do not appear to be trying as a species.
If we are wrong and humans have no control, then we will have spent some money to no effect.
If we, in fact, have control or at least minimal effect, and still do nothing, then future generations, if any, will wonder at our stupidity and think of as as the western world thinks of the Nazi regime in Germany.
I'd rather err on the side of caution in this for my Grandchildren and their Grandchildren's sake.
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成人快手 thanks for this programme, now let鈥檚 get grappling with the research and development needed in advance of the lifestyle changes that will really help climate change. Your next step could be to make this happen.
It is as though we have been in an adolescent period and are hearing a wakeup call to take a stand as adults. As adults we must take up responsibility for living productively, not in the financial sense but in the environmental sense by accepting our responsibilities towards the world we have been give dominion over. We need to look at things as they really are rather than only saying things others want to hear or saying things to get a shocked reaction.
I propose a panel of experts is gathered together on a TV documentary/reality TV series to work out and describe what the current best model is for living in a way that doesn鈥檛 just do less damage but actually benefits the environment. It would show a way to live by which we can meet our human needs without harming the environment. Volunteers would try it out for a while. This would highlight the gulf there is between the options we currently have for ecologically beneficial living and our current aspirations. It would highlight the areas where development is needed so as to allow this lifestyle change to begin. It would begin to prepare us for the big changes ahead. It would highlight the gap we have in necessary information to make ecologically good decisions and the lack of opportunities we have to actually give back to the environment. Above all this could put the cogs in motion for the so called developed world to step into adulthood and develop technology for meeting our environmental responsibilities rather than serving to meet only our juvenile consumerist aims.
We have the marketing skills to sell to our men cars that exceed the speed limit and our women 20 different hand bags so put to the task we must be able to engineer and sell a feel good life style that actually benefits the environment.
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It seems improbable that humans are the cause of global warming - just look at the emissions of a single volcanic eruption. But it is certainly happening, and we should be devoting our resources to understanding how it is happening, what the sequence and timescale of events might be, and how we can live with it. The major problems will be flooding of (relatively) low-lying areas and disruption of available food. Unless we manage these two factors millions will die unnecessarily.
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