Rational Philosophy

On the negative swing in the Democratic primary campaign, global warming, and deconstruction.

Campaigning in Pennsylvania today, Barack Obama had this to say about the increasingly negative tone of the push for votes: “if you get elbowed enough, eventually you start elbowing back.” He labels the cause — “elbowing” — and the effect — “elbowing back.” I like Barack Obama, from what I know of him, and his analysis of the cause and effect of retaliation has some emotionally appealing weight to it — generally we don’t like to be pushed around — but it makes me wonder about the psychology of retaliation in a presidential candidate.

As fears rise of dire consequences from global warming, so does the noise of debate about what each of us can and should do to respond. Michael Pollan argues that although personal choices to, for instance, walk instead of drive, eat less meat, plant our back yard, may seem to be ineffective ways to generate the desired effect, they form a critical part of the only response that can help save our ecology in the long term — a change in attitude.

And Stanley Fish, in a typically dogmatic piece, insists that deconstruction didn’t change anything. After outlining the tumult in academia and the careers of academics post-deconstruction, Fish blithely dismisses the effect as something disconnected from its cause: “these effects, good and bad, happy and unhappy, did not flow from deconstruction as a matter of right and property; they were effects of which deconstruction just happened to be the occasion.”

(Tangentially I wonder whether Fish’s pattern of defending a hypothesis rather than challenging and investigating it has an overall beneficial result — because his topics and positions provoke thought and response — or not — since by lending the air of authority to his unswerving style, the Times does an implicit injustice to the practice of sound thinking… Unfortunately, I think, the latter.)

Nothing ‘just happens’ to be the occasion for an effect. Or, to put it another way, every cause is inevitably the occasion for its effect.

Obama speaks emotively but not convincingly when he says that Clinton’s elbowing caused his elbowing. We all know that the response to an an elbow in the ribs can be for us to present our other ribs for more elbowing. To unpack Obama’s words, what he meant was: “wouldn’t you eventually do the same thing if someone was needling you?” And he’s counting on most people saying, “well, yes, I believe I would.”

It’s a clever and appealing piece of rhetoric, but not an honest one. Obama knows that it would have been possible to keep the higher ground, but he’s been advised that he needs to strike back, and perhaps he also feels that it’s right to strike back. I, for one, would dearly like to know whether Obama believes this or not. How deep and strong is his belief in doing the right thing? That’s the reason to want to vote for him.

Michael Pollan presents at a subtle and important insight into the cause and effect of global warming — if we don’t change our attitudes, we won’t change the outcome. In itself, his journalism acts as a cause of changing attitude, informing and swaying opinion. He arrived at his opinion through reading and reflection. His reading and reflection wouldn’t and couldn’t have happened without the work and reflection of scientists and educators who went before him… This chain of cause and effect leads us back to the evolution of human consciousness, which also leads us back to the cause of global warming. This is, all at once, ironic, comforting, and somewhat alarming. Ironic: Global warming and the hope for averting disaster have been caused by the evolution of human consciousness. Comforting: If we broke it, we can fix it. Alarming: If this can happen, what’s in store for us next?

Philosophically speaking, the phenomenon of cause and effect is central to our cohesive experience of existence. Given the same conditions, we expect the same outcomes. Manifestations of existence (physical objects, energy fields, etc.) in time and space operate predictably to the extent that we have sufficient information to make those predictions. Even quantum mechanics results in predictable behaviors that reflect the probability of different outcomes.

We take cause and effect for granted. We’re so accustomed to its operation that we find it hard to imagine the world working in any other way. Because of this, perhaps, I think that we devalue the all pervasive workings of causality. We allow ourselves to believe that a stand-in for a reasonable cause (elbowing) is good enough. And that a well defended opinion (a la those of Stanley Fish) is as good as a rigorous and skeptical exploration. But, fortunately, we also recognize the real thing when we see it.

For more rational, science-based explanations of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive.

The tricky balance between anxiety and indifference.

This morning I was walking uptown when police blocked off 54th Street in preparation for the passage of the president’s motorcade (he was on his way to acknowledge to the Economic Club of New York that the economy is going through a rough patch.) At first I was miffed to be held up at the barrier (not the one pictured to the left, which is from another day and another part of town). Inwardly I fretted about the delay, and bridled at the imposition (even though I understood, rationally, that the barricades made for an appropriate precaution). Around me, the mood of my fellow detainees ranged from bemused tolerance to indignant outrage. More than one pedestrian tried to argue their perspective with the cops who stood guard at the barriers. After I’d accepted that for a while I’d be stuck at the steel barricade, I was able to get over my short term anxiety and watch with curiosity as the police did their work and as the motorcade passed through.

Up to now, Bush has responded to the current round of economic crises with a detached kind of downhome objectivity. We’re familiar with his slow-draw approach to crises. It’s part of what’s made him so incredibly unpopular with so many. (Examples being his glacial response on September 11th, and his lack of action during and after hurricance Katrina.) His stance has been that the economy is generally sound and that this is a bumpy section of road — an analogy he used today.

On global warming, the Bush administration has taken many years to come around to accepting the science at face value, and is now entering a period of accepting the science of warming, while rejecting the facts of an effective solution. Bush would have us switch to switchgrass fuels before we think about restricting emissions. BBC News reports today that:

“One recent study investigated the impact of fertiliser on biofuel production. Using sugar cane, according to the research, does offer greenhouse gas savings of between 10% and 50%.

“But using rapeseed and corn for biofuel manufacture can actually produce between 50% and 70% more greenhouse gases than using fossil fuels.”

When Bush takes the long view one senses that it’s because he shrinks from the prospect of near term realities. But if we’re prone to short term anxiety, the long view can help us gain a more rational perspective on life by putting our short term fears into perspective.

It can be particularly hard to take the long term view. We are wired to care deeply about how we feel right now and what we anticipate will happen to us in the immediate future. Eliot Spitzer took the short term view when he acted on his desire for sexual gratification, and one can imagine that the long term view was, if not the furthest thing from his mind, then at least stuffed into a far corner, as he did.

When it comes to government, some European countries seem to be particularly good at planning for the long term. The Netherlands has for some time been planning grand but pragmatic schemes to ensure the safety of its land from the threat of flooding from rising water levels. Mentioned in the same BBC article, Sweden already has 1,000 biofuel filling stations. Ireland has effectively eradicated the use of plastic grocery bags.

For everyday life, we can use the long term perspective to help us take a more pragmatic view about things like the development of our children (worrying about how long, relatively speaking, it takes our child to walk or talk), investment woes (if we make a long term investment, the stock price only matters when buy and when we sell), relationship problems (what was that we fought about last week?), and many other things.

(Of course, if we never fret about the short term, we may be very calm but everyone around us will loath us and think us arrogant and indifferent. Not that we’ll care…)

In the long, long term (scientists have calculated about 7.59 billion years) the earth will get swallowed up by the dying sun. This puts practically everything into perspective. Even then, there’ll be hope for the human race if we’ve put the Dutch and the Swedes in charge of planning our exit strategy… Whereas, if it’s down to George Bush’s intellectual descendents, we’d better buy some margarita mix and settle back for the final descent.

 

For more rational, science-based explanations of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive.

On the philosophy of constraint: Solar power. Swearing bans. Street parking.

Attention has turned to solar power plants as an economically and environmentally promising source of electrical energy. Instead of using solar panels, a better-known device for capturing solar power, these plants use mirrors to focus the sun’s energy, generating heat, and steam, which then turns a turbine. As the article points out, these plants are no longer considered experimental. And as the economics of burning fossil fuels continues to make coal plants more costly, so solar power will become even more attractive.

The “no cussing” initiative of a fourteen year-old boy in South Pasedena has led to a town-wide ban on swearing. “My mom and dad always taught me good morals, good values, and not cussing was one of them,” he says.

And the New York City mayor’s office has discovered that it doesn’t have tight control over the 142,000 parking permits issued by the city. Not only has the city issued far more permits than the mayor’s office initially estimated when it first promised to reduce the number, but it doesn’t even know who has them all.

These three diverse stories led me to think about the concept of constraint and how we think about constraint as both a positive and a negative force.

Until global warming entered the collective consciousness as a real and pressing concern, the possibility for generating power from the sun or the wind seemed quaintly academic and remotely whimsical. But was this the case? As the Times article points out, the viability of the kind of solar power plant now gaining popularity was proven back in the 1980s. In fact, economics not innovation constrained the emergence of solar power plants. In order to make collectively good decisions about things such as carbon taxes it’s important to understand such constraints.

Thinking solar power plants not viable, we would be more cautious to levy large carbon taxes. But the knowledge that solar power is viable and not much more expensive to generate than coal power, may inspire us to want to slap carbon taxes on coal power, forcing energy companies to accelerate the switch to solar power.

(As a dramatic case in point, an article only several months ago cast great doubt on the near term prospects of viable solar power from photovoltaic cells without even mentioning the upswing in using solar power to drive steam turbines.)

South Pasedena seeks to constrain people’s behavior by persuading them not to swear. The aim of this constraint is twofold — to improve the quality of life for those who find cussing offensive, and to reduce violent behavior that might accompany or be sparked by colorful language.

But a behavioral constraint can cut two ways. Is a constraint on cussing one step toward a constraint on vulgarity, either spoken or written? Does this take us a step toward a constraint on the kinds of books that it’s appropriate to stock on the shelves of the South Pasedana public library?

I’m not arguing for cussing, but arguing in favor of encouragement rather than stipulation. These distinctions are important. Constraint has a way of hardening into dogma.

Whereas, the proliferation of parking permits (enough to fill many city blocks with “official” vehicles) seems to call loudly and rightly for greater constraint. Here again, though, the concept of constraint can be looked at from two perspectives. If I were a city employee I would probably enjoy having a parking permit. And, if I felt I needed the permit in order to do a better job for the city, I might not like the idea that someone may deny me a permit. But, as a member of the public, I would like to believe that vehicles get issued with a permit for legitimate reasons. After all, I’m subject to parking regulations, tariffs and fines, why should a regular city employee not be?

Viewed from the public’s perspective, uncontrolled proliferation of permits puts a constraint on available parking spaces. Lax control on the perks of city employees leads to a culture of reduced respect for public service and reduced respect for the public.

For more rational, science-based explanations of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive.

 

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Exploring faith’s role in everyday life.

On Saturday, NPR’s “Speaking of Faith” repeated an interview with poet and philosopher John O’Donohue, who passed away earlier this year. I was struck by O’Donohue’s very pragmatic views on faith and belief. He shared his view of god as beauty, which struck me as a very profound perspective on the concept of god. As an atheist, I am interested in the concept of god as one way that we make sense of existence. The idea of beauty conveys a sense of intrinsic wonder and appreciation that fits with the concept of god. And, as O’Donohue pointed out, beauty needn’t be confined to that which is not difficult or painful to confront.

If we start from this idea of god as beauty we can draw a conclusion about the concept of faith: Faith corresponds to a commitment to beauty. Having determined our points of reference for god or beauty, commiting to that conception becomes an act of faith.

With temperatures dipping sharply recently in many parts of the world, resulting in such phenomena as snow in Baghdad and ice reforming with a vengeance in the Antarctic, global warming skeptics have stepped up their cry against the science of human impact on climate change. Pointing to the recent cold snaps, the skeptics argue that the science of global warming is bunk. Even some who accept the underlying global warming trend say that the cold snap teaches us that we can’t base our deductions and predictions on a few years of data. The global warming trend only reveals itself after averaging out more dramatic and temporary climate swings.

To some degree perhaps this question is one of faith, too. I realize that rationally I believe and many believe that the data supporting global warming is strong enough to take on logic, but it’s not strong enough for everyone. I have cast my commitment behind the idea that burning fossil fuels in vast quantities must eventually have a negative effect on the planets eco-systems. Global warming and the evidence for it fits with that commitment. The skeptics, not stupid people, have committed to the idea that the planet’s eco-systems are unaffected or negligibly affected by burning fossil fuels. This is their faith and they interpret the evidence accordingly.

In another article we read about educators who have come to believe in the superior educational methodology of teaching in single-sex classrooms. Those who subscribe to the concept have committed to the idea and have faith in it. Those who don’t have faith in mixed-sex classrooms. Who is right? Reading the article, it’s not clear. I’m not even sure whether either side is necessarily right. If one accepts that boys and girls learn differently and respond differently to different environments and different stimuli, this still doesn’t tell you that single-sex classrooms will be superior to mixed-sex classrooms that acknowledge and respond to these differences.

Just one anecdote about an adherent to single-sex teaching styles was enough to make me very skeptical: “Sax credits Bender with helping focus a boy who was given a wrong diagnosis of attention-deficit disorder by telling him that his father, who had left the family, would be even less likely to return if all his mother had to report was the boy misbehaving in school.”

Yes, I imagine that would focus a child, but at what cost?

This brings us back to the core challenge of O’Donohue’s beautiful idea — that god is beauty. We can be deceived into thinking that we apprehend beauty when we simply apprehend our attraction to an idea. Without reflecting on the reason for our attraction, we can’t be sure that we’re committing to beauty or to folly.

It was Aristotle who said: “One swallow does not make a summer, neither does one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.”

Likewise, one appealing facet of an idea — be it single-sex classrooms, global warming or god — does not make it worthy of our full commitment.

For more rational, science-based explanations of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive.

On the impetus for reinvention.

Some of my shirts no longer fit me. Either my neck has grown or the collars have shrunk. I like my shirts, they’re familiar and worn-in, but sooner or later I know I have to let them go and get new shirts. As I sit here with my collar unbuttoned it occurs to me that life in general demands that we let go of things that no longer fit. Yesterday I wrote about Ireland’s move away from plastic shopping bags, catalyzed by the minister of the environment’s tax on shopping bags, but inspired by the conviction of the government, thoughtfully and firmly communicated to and adopted by society, that Ireland could do without plastic shopping bags.

This morning, as I dumped yesterday’s coffee grounds into a plastic garbage bag, I considered the plastic bag phenomenon from another angle: What if someone were to invent an alternative to plastic that was biodegradable and actually good for the environment? Surely that’s fanciful, I told myself. But if, several decades ago, we had factored in the future harm to the environment, perhaps we wouldn’t have been so quick to use plastic so widely and intensively. If environmental friendliness had been a key design criteria, plastic may never have got off the ground (or out of the test tube).

As society enters a post-industrial enlightenment we need new design criteria. Society needs to give scientists, inventors and corporations aspirations beyond the self-evident goals of cost-effectiveness and aesthetic appeal. With organic produce finding their way into mainstream supermarkets, WalMart’s commitment to selling more fluorescent light bulbs, hybrid cars becoming hip statements of eco-commitment, etc., we can see a new twist to the consumer economy. But it’s still a twist to the old rather than a wrench away toward the new. Companies, aware of consumer demand for products that satisfy the customer’s desire for environmental peace of mind, clamor to cater to a market niche. Whereas Ireland’s move away from plastic shopping bags represents a wholesale shift in consumer demand rather than a spotlight on a dedicated market segment.

And, as in Ireland, such wholesale shifts can only happen if supported by public policies and laws that embrace them and support them. On super-Tuesday it’s important to remember that we elect leaders and governments to represent our needs. And unless we are myopic, one of our preeminent needs as a society must be our own persistence and survival, not just for the next four years, but for many, many years to come. If we elect leaders who don’t care about issues of pollution, overflowing landfills, toxic waste, endangered species, destruction of natural habitats, global warming, and inhumane or dangerous farming techniques more than they care about reelection, then we’re voting for society’s demise.

The same appeal for reinvention can be made for government itself. We should see nothing sacrosanct in the form of government we already have. President Bush has interpreted his constitutional powers so broadly as to make a mockery of such interpretation and in doing so he’s set dangerous precedent. Those who drafted the constitution aimed for it to embody certain principles. Their drafting reflected desires of the forming nation. The challenges faced by America today are very different from those it faced back then. To move forward we need to be willing to look at where we are now — government rife with corruption, bullied along by special interests, arcane systems and institutions weighed down by habit and inertia. It’s great that the current election has generated such interest and excitement, but in many ways it’s politics as usual.

Do we have the system of government we need in order for our society to evolve as we want it to evolve? That’s the question we need to ask ourselves. Not just today but tomorrow and constantly. Because shirt collars get tighter, and the world changes. We can only survive if we’re willing to let go of the old and adapt.

On the notions of free will and government influence in society.

In Ireland, back in 2002, the government imposed a hefty tax (33 cents) on plastic shopping bags. Supermarkets and stores resisted the change at first, anticipating that it would be unpopular with customers. But as the NY Times reports, avoiding the use of plastic bags has become not just an accepted fact of life but a mark of personal commitment to environmental change. “When my roommate brings one in the flat it annoys the hell out of me,” said one Dubliner.

Dominique Browning writes in an op-ed piece that she saw plenty of plastic bags and other refuse on her visit Patagonian glaciers. Dominique laments the self-absorption of many of her fellow eco-tourists. If we can’t check ourselves when faced with of the decline of such monumental beauty close up, Dominique’s piece asks, how can we check ourselves when global warming and environmental protection are simply abstract concepts?

In unveiling his proposed $3.1 trillion budget package, President Bush speaks of “the hard work of the American people and spending discipline in Washington.” His formula for achieving a balanced budget? “Simple: Create the conditions for economic growth, keep taxes low, and spend taxpayer dollars wisely or not at all.” Meanwhile, as White House budget documents reveal, the accumulated total of all federal borrowing will grow from $3.3 trillion in 2001, when President Bush took office, to $5.4 trillion this year and $5.9 trillion in 2009. Even if we’re giving Bush the benefit of the doubt, it’s clear that his economic policies haven’t met with great success.

Like many people, I tend to dislike any overt external influence on what I do. This applies just as well to my wife’s influence as it does to the government’s. When my wife told me I should be taking a canvas bag to the grocery store to cart our groceries, I bridled and ignored her. If the government told me I should be taking a canvas bag to pick up my groceries I would probably ignore it, too. I don’t like irrational parking regulations, or jay-walking laws, or prohibitions against buying alcohol on Sunday. But I was struck by the report of the sea-change against the use of plastic bags in Ireland that began with a very pointed and determined government initiative to raise people’s awareness.

The success of Ireland’s plastic bag tax shows us is that if a government attaches a societal cost to something, publicizes that cost, and acts on it (levies a charge to offset or avoid the cost,) the result can be an improved awareness of the right thing to do. As a result, the Irish don’t resent the tax, they resent those who don’t respect the underlying impetus for the tax.

It strikes me that this translates into something akin to a free will for society or societal free will. Armed with an awareness and a perspective on its behavior, society can choose to do things that don’t necessarily come naturally or easily.

Raising society’s awareness of global warming has been a major challenge in the United States since we’ve had a government that refused to acknowledge that global warming was really a problem related to society’s actions. When other forces began to raise US society’s awareness, though, even a recalcitrant government couldn’t prevent a change in society’s will to change.

But what does any of this have to do with Bush’s budget package? Implicit in Bush’s budget package and explicit in his statements is an argument for the free market, and for hands off government. But since inaction is another form of action, hands-off government isn’t really hands-off. What we don’t do can have just as much impact as what we do do. And when we think about the role that government can play in raising awareness of the populace and championing policies that foster and catalyze people to act in ways that help improve society and the world we live in we realize just what a flawed governing philosophy the free-market, hands-off mantra makes.

On economic expansion, the fear and actuality of recession, and global warming.

Top stories today dwell on the economy: “U.S. Markets Open With Steep Fall,” “Fed Cuts Rate 0.75% and Stocks Swing,” “Bank of America Profit Plummets.” The president’s confirmation last week that he would support a stimulus package didn’t seem to raise anyone’s level of optimism. All this fear of economic recession has me wondering about the much-touted virtue of economic expansion. As stocks tumble, losses post, and job markets shrink there’s an underlying presumption that growth is good, that higher economic value is good. But, if I understand this correctly, economic growth typically means higher consumption driving higher production. The exact mechanism of a stimulus package will be debated, but all seem to agree on a formula that supports economic growth by creating incentives for consumption and production.

The nagging question this raises for me is whether we should be thinking about economic growth in isolation from other important factors, such as global warming. I understand that at the most fundamental level a sharp recession means unemployment with associated misery and suffering; it seems entirely rational and appropriate to ward of an extended economic depression. What I’m curious about is whether economic growth is intrinsically good for the world.

People work for money and use that money to buy goods and services. In large part these these goods and services consume natural resources such as raw materials, power and water. If the economy grows, therefore, we’re consuming more natural resources.

(Even the so-called “virtuous circle” of macroeconomic expansion by which an innovation leads to reduced costs and a corresponding increase in consumption, demands increased consumption of natural resources, unless the innovation reduces consumption of natural resources without generating a higher level of product consumption. A great counter-example of this is the length of time it’s taken to bring more efficient, longer lasting light bulbs to market. A great innovation from a natural resource perspective, but until recently, lousy from an economic perspective — the higher cost and lower profits inhibited the innovation from taking hold for a very long time.)

This is all incredibly obvious, and of course global warming has brought focus to the consumption of natural resources, particularly as the economies of third world countries grow and they become more industrialized, but what about economic growth in general? What about the seeming inevitable equation between growth and consumption? Can we really think about them separately?

I realize that I’m raising questions that are to some extent naive. Consumers consume what they want to consume. So, as with more efficient light-bulbs, influencing production should really begin with an influence on consumers. This is why raising awareness of global warming, disappearing species, and environmental protection plays such an important part in determining the future of the planet. But it strikes me that there can also be important governmental and economic influences on production and consumption, too.

This leaves me with two questions:

1. Is there a good balance between the size and health of the economy and the welfare of the planet?

2. At this time of threatened recession, and in general, does the government have an opportunity to stimulate “green” growth rather than “gray” growth?

In contemplating an answer to the first question, I’m thinking of something quite controversial: When considering the welfare of the planet we live on and feed off, consumption beyond that required for our health, sustenance and shelter is superfluous. If we use resources to make our lives easier or more comfortable we should be prepared to anwer for the consequences of such excess consumption. The size and health of the economy and the welfare of the planet already exist in an imbalance (in developed areas). Shouldn’t we be constantly measuring the degree of that imbalance and trying to keep it steady or falling? Isn’t a “green index” an essential economic measure?

This leads to an answer to the second question: If we were to develop a measure or index for our overconsumption, it would push us to develop strategies for stimulating the economy in ways that helped keep the index steady or falling. Why stimulate the economy indiscriminately? Why not disproportionately stimulate “green” sections of the economy?

If the government is good for anything, let it be good for good things, things that help society and the world.

On a cautionary note, if governments don’t do it, corporations will, and not always to the benefit of society. Is it beneficial to the world that Microsoft has pledged cash for technology training in the developing world? On the face of it, the investment seems noble enough. But Microsoft of course will be training the developing world to use Microsoft systems. Bill Gates is not one of the wealthiest individuals in the world for no reason. And despite Gates’ incredible focus on philanthropy, does his generosity and selfless distribution of a good part of his wealth justify retrospectively the profits that Microsoft has reaped from the unbridled growth in computer systems (much of which has been completely unnecessary — if Windows 95 had been a better quality operating system we wouldn’t have needed Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows XP, and Windows Vista…)

 

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On nature’s mysteries; the difficulties of environmental protection, IVF, and global warming.

A NY Times article today reports on an odd ecological phenomenon; protected trees that ail and die. The trees suffer, apparently, because cordoning them off disrupts a delicate balance of mutualism between species. The acacias house ants, the ants repel giraffes and elephants, thereby protecting the thorn nectar they feed on. But, when cordoned off from large herbivores, the trees become less ingratiating to the ants, who in turn become less well-disposed to protecting the trees, allowing deadly attack by wood-boring beetles…

In England, a member of the House of Lords (David Alton) has used the spectre of twins separated at birth who later married, not knowing they were brother and sister, to argue against maintaining the anonymity of the biological father for children born by in vitro fertilization. The twins in question were born normally. But Alton argues that withholding the name of the biological father for those born of IVF would make such cases more common. Alton’s choice to disclose information about the case during debate seems distressingly melodramatic and I suspect that he has other reasons to dislike the proposed law change. But it also made me wonder whether and how many people stop to think just why we have laws against siblings marrying.

Unless I’m mistaken, the prohibition (religious, moral, and legal) against marrying close family members derives from the increased likelihood of destructive genetic mutation; society has codified nature’s preference for mixing dissimilar gene pools. It is normal now in the US that prospective parents with a high likelihood of passing on a genetic health problem to their children get genetic counseling, along with testing for the fetus to determine whether the mutations in question have been passed on. Would it be natural then or unnatural to suggest that another approach to resolving Alton’s concern would be to recommend genetic counseling and testing for specific mutations to those born of IVF so that they can be better prepared before beginning a family? (Not to determine familial ties to their spouse, but simply to watch out for shared mutations.)

And lastly to global warming. It appears that glaciers were formed during a so-called “super greenhouse” period about 91 million years ago. Even as surface ocean temperatures at the equator rose several degrees higher than they are today, sheets of ice appeared in Antarctica. Hmmm. Throw that one into your current climate model.

Evidence shows we’ve messed with the earth’s natural climate by burning large quantities of fossil fuels and cutting down trees, causing global warming. And now we have to live with the consequences. Logic seems to indicate that we should try to slow down global warming. Wishful thinking would indicate that we would like to fix things and return the planet to a more natural equilibirium. (Some scientists have covered large swaths of glacial ice with aluminum foil in the hopes of preventing the ice from melting. Which seems pragmatic, touching and utterly futile.)

But, when the relatively innocuous seeming act of cordoning off trees to protect them leads to their death, how can we hope to know what is natural when dealing with things on a much vaster scale? After making so many terrible mistakes by ignoring the consequences to the planet we live on, our philosophy in living as modern human beings, it seems, should be to do as little as possible to mess with nature, and to stop doing things that we know are invasive.

Where does this leave us with IVF? Well – and I hesitate long and hard before writing this, since it seems heretical to me as a self-professed liberal, and insensitive to those who seek to have children but can’t — since IVF isn’t natural, and since messing with nature tends to have unforseen and undesired consequences, shouldn’t we consider this before we consider IVF?

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(24 little hours…)

Kevin Rudd, just sworn in as Australia’s new prime minister, wasted no time in further isolating the United States position on global warming and the Kyoto agreement, reversing in the space of one day twelve years of steadfast opposition to Kyoto by his conservative predecessor John Howard.

Yesterday a National Intelligence Estimate (who coined that marvellous name?) tentatively declared that Iran’s nuclear weapons program (if it had one) was brought to a halt in 2003, immediately creating a new set of political parameters for the election year.  The looming hawk of military action against Iran seemed to have been suddenly caught in a downdraft.

Apart from being good news for the world in general, I’m not yet sure who this favors politically. The Democrats seem to be the winners initially, by being able to point to the administration’s overzealousness. But in the longer run, it may favor the Repulblican candidates since they won’t get drawn in to making unpopular commitments to counter the threat in Iran with force as we did in Iraq.

And the vote that upset Hugo Chavez’s plans for a socialist Venezuela led by himself for an indefinite period of time (the Castro-model) surely shifted Venezuela’s political and social course in ways almost too dramatic to imagine. The referendum was, officially at least, quite close — 49% for, 51% against. If the numbers had come out just a little more in favor, the course toward a socialist dictatorship would have been set.

With such large scale political shifts the world itself becomes a different place from one day to the next. But if we think about our own lives, we too can experience dramatic shifts from one day to the next.

My wife commented recently that the concept that everyone else has a life and experience as rich as one’s own, as important to them as our own life is to us, is a continuously amazing thought. (We were on our way for a sonogram, a check up on the progress of our baby (21 weeks). What more fitting example of a life-changing event? One day you’re not pregnant, the next day you are, and your life will never be the same again.)

Our perception of the world around us, if we choose to think of it like this, creates that world. So, as a thought or impulse becomes action, we change the world. Some actions produce unremarkable results, others have a profound and lasting impact.

There is a connection here between the personal and the public, what matters to us and what matters globally. If Rudd as a person didn’t act to sign on to the Kyoto agreement, the Australia would remain a non-signatory. If Chavez’s opposers in Venezuela didn’t personally go to the polling booths to vote, his referendum wouldn’t have been defeated.

And if the Iranian leadership had acted differently, or if the members of the 16 U.S. intelligence organizations that reviewed the intelligence had assessed it differently, the NIE issued yesterday may have been less optimistic about the past and future impact of international pressure and sanctions on Iran’s nuclear capability. The current administration and a possible future Republican administration may have been headed toward another invasion like the invasion of Iraq, an invasion orchestrated by individuals with the leverage of another NIE, and with the cummulative support of fearful and fight-happy citizens across the country.

The importance of hindsight, of course, is to use it to avoid making the same mistake again. But first one has to acknowledge that one made a mistake. And we all know who that one is…

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I toyed with the idea of posting this piece under the title “Global Warming.” But I expect that it will be far from my last post related to global warming, so I ended up with a more specific subject.

The New York Times Science Section today reports on the retreat of sea ice. The link I’ve posted takes you to an interactive page with a sobering depiction of just how rapid and unprecedented the retreat has been. In 2006, for the first time since records began in 1979, Arctic sea ice coverage has shrunk so much that areas consistently iced over year-in year-out for those 28 years of measurement are now sea.

Thankfully, even though some myopic politicians and public figures still choose to ignore and even take steps to suppress or downplay the evidence of global warming, the balance of the collective consciousness seems to have tipped. We are now beginning to act. Everything these days, it seems, is a shade of green.

Ironically, and with curious appropriateness, the signs that we’ve reached a tipping point (even though maybe we’ve reached it too late) are showing themselves through the lens of consumerism. When I ride the subway in New York City, I see ConEdison ads focused on energy-saving (for an energy company to be agree or be forced into this position is wonderfully telling). And today Walmart stores, following through on a strategy committed to earlier in the years, touts the sale of 100 million energy efficient light bulbs.

Here are a couple of statistics to round out the picture: The energy contained in the sunlight that falls on the earth in one day equals the energy consumed by human beings in one year. And the energy consumed by the US is half the total energy consumed by human beings in one year.

To borrow a phrase from that esteemed philosopher Donald Rumsfeld: “It’s the things that we don’t know that we don’t know that most concern us.”

With the advent of the industrial revolution and in the decades that followed, the effects of fossil fuel consumption seemed local rather than global. We knew that burning wood and coal and oil produced smoke and smog and dirt, and consumed limited natural resources, but very little attention was paid to whether there would be long lasting adverse consequences, such as global warming. Those who tried to stem the tide of modernization or industrialization were simply swept away.

Human beings are natural innovators. Our ability to manipulate concepts means that we have the ability to reframe problems and challenges. But that skill is usually aimed at removing the immediate obstacle, without giving too much attention to future problems or challenges. We are not so far removed from the unindustrialized man felling a tree to cross a stream — the immediate goal is to cross the stream.

And, unfortunately, since society doesn’t do so well with applying reasoned analysis, even when there is hard scientific evidence that tells us we’re on a dangerous path, we tend to ignore it if we can’t see the signs for ourselves. If parts of the United States were underwater now, you can bet we would have paid attention to global warming much sooner.

The same conceptual problems exist with the use of nuclear energy. There really is no good solution to rid us of radioactive waste. What kinds of problems are we creating for ourselves there? And even looking beyond the immediate problems of global warming, how will we sustain the worlds energy needs without turning away from the use of fossil fuels?

If society is to act more rationally, it needs to create systems whereby planning and forethought can become part of our governing process, and separated from ideology and politics. Logically, it makes no sense that a political administration appointed for a term of four years should be determining policy that affects our future ten fifty or one hundred years from now. Such policy should logically be determined differently, with the much more significant involvement of the scientific community.

 

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