Environmentally speaking, that is. After all, we know that the Earth is our collective Mother. But who is mom's counterpart in looking after our fundamental biological needs?
If you were to look for the answer in many very old native cultures around the world, you might decide that the answer is the sun. Whether it is the Egyptian Re, the Navajo Tsohanoai, the Hindu Surya, or numerous others, the Sun is often seen as a protector and patriarch.
Should we feel good about that? After all, the Sun only sticks around half the time at best, is terribly inconsistent from month to month in providing us with heat and light, and seems to pick favorites (just ask an Ecuadorean and Swede if they feel that "Dad" treats them equally). And to top it all off, we know that it's only a matter of time before he abandons us altogether.
Fortunately, those varied cultures, for all of their truly profound wisdom and insight into the workings of our world, got this one wrong. We know that thanks to the work of the authors Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod. They tell us that our environmental daddy is not some distant and unpredictable ball of gas, but rather a non-governmental organization right here in our midst known as Environmental Defense Fund.
OK, perhaps I am paraphrasing Crutchfield and McLeod, and perhaps I am reaching somewhat in my interpretation of their words in doing so. The may not equate Environmental Defense Fund to Mother Earth in sustaining life. But in their recent book Forces for Good, they identify and analyze the common practices of a dozen non-profit groups that they have assessed to be the most effective and to have the highest impact. Among those twelve is but a single environmental group, and that group is Environmental Defense Fund. In the words of Crutchfield and McLeod, "By daring to 'find the ways that work', Environmental Defense has influenced not only other green groups but also government policy and business practices." (p. 14; note that "Fund" has returned to the name of the organization since publication of the book)
So, as we wind down the 40th anniversary year of this exemplary organization, allow me to offer a completely heartfelt and, ahem, unbiased thank you to Environmental Defense Fund for all they have done over the past four decades to ensure clean air and water, protect species and ecosystems, and curb global climate change. Best of luck for another 40 years!
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Bad Idea
Back when it was funny, Saturday Night Live did a classic spoof commercial for "Bad Idea Jeans". A group of guys (including some comedic icons) were shooting the breeze while getting ready to play basketball. They spew out line after line of sheer idiocy (my favorite concludes, "...when am I going to make it back to Haiti?"), each followed by a black screen with only the words "bad idea" (btw, I couldn't find the clip on YouTube, but did find a commercial for what is apparently a real Swedish company that is actually called Bad Idea Jeans).
A re-make of this ad might include something along the lines of the plans of Planktos, a new company looking to get ahead of the game in the carbon market that will burst onto the scene when the U.S. eventually passes a carbon cap-and-trade bill. NYT environmental blogger Andy Revkin covers their plan in a recent post. The idea is basically to dump tons of iron into the sea to simulate natural settlement of dust containing iron that stimulates blooms of microscopic algae. The algae photosynthesize, which captures the carbon dioxide that is in our atmosphere in great excess and causes the greenhouse effect and all of its consequences.
The problem with this plan is that algal blooms are, by definition, episodic and even extreme events. They represent a temporary yet drastic change in the ecosystem that then subsides with a return to more normal conditions. Algal blooms are akin to the pulse of wildflower blooms that can color woodland meadows or coastal dunes for brief periods at the right time of year, but they likely cause much greater biological and chemical changes given the nature of photosynthetic activity. We know very little about the natural frequency, intensity or effects of algal blooms, and therefore cannot possibly predict the consequences of stimulating more of them.
Furthermore, we have no idea what other ecological impacts might take place. As noted in a previous post, we are only just beginning to catalog the microbial and planktonic communities of the marine realm, let alone understand how they are structured and function. This makes me think of another recent NYT article that really drives home our very limited understanding of the natural world and the need for humilty and prudence in managing our effects upon it. It was discovered recently that a decades long effort to protect the endangered greenback cutthroat trout in Colorado might have been focused on the wrong fish, which instead was the more common Colorado River cutthroat trout.
I point this out not to mock those involved with the effort. Biological taxonomy is neither simple nor straightforward. Defining and identifying species is fraught with difficulty and uncertainty. I once asked a leading ichthyologist for the best guide book to help me distinguish the longfin damselfish from the dusky damselfish in preparation for a field study. His response was that there was no such book because every book got them wrong (so don't put much stock in the info provided in the links). And these are two of the most common fishes on clear, shallow and well studied Caribbean reefs. Similarly, the greenback trout misidentification happened with a large vertebrate in a system that is relatively easy to observe and study (i.e., a stream, compared with the ocean) and surrounded by biologists, fishery managers and anglers who all know fish and know them well. If we are prone to make these very basic errors, then we should be very wary of the potential to make far more profound errors in systems for which we have much, much less basic understanding. But it is one thing to call a fish by the wrong name, and another to disrupt the fundamental chemistry of an entire ecosystem.
Curbing global climate change is clearly one of our greatest challenges, not simply among environmental issues but among all public policy issues. However, we should first strive to make headway on energy efficiency, development of renewable sources, and less risky carbon-capture approaches (e.g., planting trees stimulates photosynthesis and carbon dioxide uptake in a much better understood way). Dumping iron into the sea is the environmental equivalent of standing over a beaker containing a pile of unknown solid white cubes with a beaker of water. If you pour the water in and the cubes are tofu, you've got miso soup. But if they're pure sodium, the resulting explosion will make you lose your eyebrows if you're lucky and more likely go blind. Bad idea.
A re-make of this ad might include something along the lines of the plans of Planktos, a new company looking to get ahead of the game in the carbon market that will burst onto the scene when the U.S. eventually passes a carbon cap-and-trade bill. NYT environmental blogger Andy Revkin covers their plan in a recent post. The idea is basically to dump tons of iron into the sea to simulate natural settlement of dust containing iron that stimulates blooms of microscopic algae. The algae photosynthesize, which captures the carbon dioxide that is in our atmosphere in great excess and causes the greenhouse effect and all of its consequences.
The problem with this plan is that algal blooms are, by definition, episodic and even extreme events. They represent a temporary yet drastic change in the ecosystem that then subsides with a return to more normal conditions. Algal blooms are akin to the pulse of wildflower blooms that can color woodland meadows or coastal dunes for brief periods at the right time of year, but they likely cause much greater biological and chemical changes given the nature of photosynthetic activity. We know very little about the natural frequency, intensity or effects of algal blooms, and therefore cannot possibly predict the consequences of stimulating more of them.
Furthermore, we have no idea what other ecological impacts might take place. As noted in a previous post, we are only just beginning to catalog the microbial and planktonic communities of the marine realm, let alone understand how they are structured and function. This makes me think of another recent NYT article that really drives home our very limited understanding of the natural world and the need for humilty and prudence in managing our effects upon it. It was discovered recently that a decades long effort to protect the endangered greenback cutthroat trout in Colorado might have been focused on the wrong fish, which instead was the more common Colorado River cutthroat trout.
I point this out not to mock those involved with the effort. Biological taxonomy is neither simple nor straightforward. Defining and identifying species is fraught with difficulty and uncertainty. I once asked a leading ichthyologist for the best guide book to help me distinguish the longfin damselfish from the dusky damselfish in preparation for a field study. His response was that there was no such book because every book got them wrong (so don't put much stock in the info provided in the links). And these are two of the most common fishes on clear, shallow and well studied Caribbean reefs. Similarly, the greenback trout misidentification happened with a large vertebrate in a system that is relatively easy to observe and study (i.e., a stream, compared with the ocean) and surrounded by biologists, fishery managers and anglers who all know fish and know them well. If we are prone to make these very basic errors, then we should be very wary of the potential to make far more profound errors in systems for which we have much, much less basic understanding. But it is one thing to call a fish by the wrong name, and another to disrupt the fundamental chemistry of an entire ecosystem.
Curbing global climate change is clearly one of our greatest challenges, not simply among environmental issues but among all public policy issues. However, we should first strive to make headway on energy efficiency, development of renewable sources, and less risky carbon-capture approaches (e.g., planting trees stimulates photosynthesis and carbon dioxide uptake in a much better understood way). Dumping iron into the sea is the environmental equivalent of standing over a beaker containing a pile of unknown solid white cubes with a beaker of water. If you pour the water in and the cubes are tofu, you've got miso soup. But if they're pure sodium, the resulting explosion will make you lose your eyebrows if you're lucky and more likely go blind. Bad idea.
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