Who Will Orchestrate the Repair of Ecosystems?
Martin Bartels
15 November 2021
For any fight in the general interest, leadership is needed to avoid failure. So, at this vital conjuncture who will take the helm? Such a question is unlikely to be frictionless as leadership on climate is almost certainly bound to move away from the liberal dogma of free markets being allowed to fix themselves. Politically, governments and leaders may also be reticent to move outside the status quo if they feel it might lose them elections.
However there are models of change from history that can help orient us. While they may stir sad collective memories, they can aid us moving forward.
Can the private sector lead?
Recently, the CEO of one of the big oil companies announced that his firm is ready to transition to non-fossil fuel based energy his firm is ready to transition to non-fossil fuel based energy. However this news is somewhat dampened by the subsequent declaration that his firm will continue to use oil and gas to finance the transition.
While his opinion as a citizen may be different, his contractual obligations to his company seem to bind him to a certain path of action.
Companies, though perhaps not all, can be convinced to strategically move away, gradually, from the carbon economy that has turned out to be a threat to us. Investors may also be inspired to allocate their capital to more ecologically sustainable projects while simultaneously starving out those companies that continue to harm the planet.
However, while there is certainly some good will, and clearly the change process has begun, does the rapidly worsening climate crisis and the pollution of the environment with materials made from oil mean we can rely on the private sector to take the lead when the transitions have already been so slow?
The need for the state
At such a conjuncture, one of huge social uncertainty and risk, scientists and engineers face massive pressure to deliver innovations. Yet historically, times of calamity have been times of creativity. The experts deliver.
In terms of the economy, we can be certain that the needed social rebalance will cause contraction in some industries but flourishing in others. Private consumption will also decline.
The classic arguments against state leadership: institutional slowness, less efficiency than the private sector and a lack of technical expertise, should not be easily dismissed. However, we also clearly see that the private sector, which has played a huge part in causing the current crisis and has failed to orchestrate itself efficiently to respond to it or raise the capital needed to mitigate it systemically, is not fit for purpose here.
In situations which threaten the whole country, it is the duty of nation states to take the lead and act. While there are valid doubts about the ability of states to act, these doubts cannot be allowed to prevail if there is no alternative.
Are governments determined to deliver?
Of course, there will be healthy competition between states and groupings of states. Some will organise themselves better than others. In doing so, they will lay the foundations for their economic development after the transition is complete. The sleepers (those states that neglect science and progressive industry) will be the losers.
Will the public sector take the lead?
First, we should try to visualise what national states should do in the short and long term.
Outline of a phased plan (example)
Below are some steps that governments are likely to begin with in order to start systematically dealing with the repair of ecosystems:
• Build a state administration system for rapid structural change of national economies.
• Engage and consult with scientists working in national and international research institutions on the most appropriate defensive strategies.
• Focus initially on immediate threats and prepare measures against them: protection of coastlines from flooding, high-performance drainage systems for heavy rainfall, expansion of the existing disaster protection organisations, emergency plans for different likely scenarios.
• Review and adapt various types of infrastructure to accommodate higher loads.
• Develop and impose restrictions and bans on harmful activities in both industry and private households.
• Develop and set incentives for private households to adjust their consumer behaviour.
• Require industrial companies to develop new and sustainable technology.
• Organise competition between providers based on speed, costs and, before all, suitability.
• Prosecute and punish those who cheat or endanger the process of transition.
• Soften the impact of transitions for citizens and businesses that face disadvantages owing to the transition.
• Form and maintain alliances with other governments to find balance between states with different levels of affectedness, technical equipment and expertise and natural and financial resources.
• Work towards societal consensus.
• Levy taxes and issue debt instruments to finance the rescue operations.
Historical contributions to the emergence of this crisis
In a nutshell: Governments need to analyse, plan, regulate, coordinate, negotiate, monitor, explain, finance, invest, enforce and impose discipline.
With increased support from scientists, governments will also be better informed on the nature of climate change and thus be able to implement more precise measures.
There is no other way to manage the process as efficiently as possible and without the interference of special interests.
It could happen that, owing to technological development, the direction of climate change mitigation could change. In a not too distant future, fusion energy could be an alternative to green energy, providing it could be developed with low externalities.
The war economy model
The scenario described above does not correspond to the model of a free market economy. The similarity with another system that is only vaguely present in the collective consciousness, namely the war economy, is striking.
Institute for Economics and Peace
However, there are essential differences to a war economy:
• In the case of the climate change crisis, the interest of all states is directed, even though not equally, towards the same goal, namely the repair of global ecosystems.
• There can be disputes over issues of solidarity and burden-sharing, but there will be little or no incentive for resource-exhausting warfare.
Conclusions
Only governments can hold the reins with the help of scientists and engineers from a variety of disciplines.
Scientists and engineers will develop and continuously update strategies for mitigation; plans may change as innovation occurs.
Despite the need for action, it does not appear that the repair process is imminent. Governments may be aware, but they have not yet “sold” the required new macroeconomic regime and the incisive burdens to the overwhelming majority of their citizens. Press reports and international conferences on climate change may lead the public to the conclusion that the fight against it is the first priority, but this is not yet true. Readiness seems only likely to come when new disasters do.
We need to feel more pain before we will swallow the toad. The communication of scientifically sound information is underway yet it is unlikely to be enough.
Those governments that perform weakly in the transition, for example by not listening to the experts, will set their countries back in international competition.
To set the stage
Lao Tzu’s words sum up a dramatic contemporary scenario: While in some parts of the world people are increasingly affected by water scarcity, others face the growing threat of too much water due to extremely heavy rainfall and rising sea levels.
While the poem captures the ambivalence of water perfectly, the words "soft and weak" also seem to describe the way modern civilisations have responded to it. Their foggy perception and sluggish action is just as dangerous as the threats themselves.
Why Water?
The focus of this essay is to use the prominent example of water to help identify concrete approaches for dealing rationally with the issue of climate change. Climate change affects us in many ways, including the expansion of deserts, forest fires, the salinisation of soils, landslides, extreme weather events, agricultural crop losses, loss of biodiversity, spread of disease and human and wildlife migration.
.
Scientists and engineers have laid the foundations for our prosperity. And only these elites can show us the way to overcome the harmful externalities of these very engines of our wealth. This article supports the thesis that we are technologically and organisationally in a position to successfully meet these challenges, step by step.
One obstacle to the mobilisation of existing resources lies in the fact that the general public has only a vague understanding of the issue. They do not realise that, unless we make controlled sacrifices, nature will impose uncontrollable sacrifices on us.
We urgently need to overcome the human tendency to trivialise and understand with our minds and hearts what will happen if we do not listen to the guidance of our scientists and engineers. However, while these experts hold the keys to the right strategies, they are only trained to communicate with other scientists. This leads to a situation of misunderstanding and therefore a lack of adequate action.
Blurred perception of facts
Every day, we are all exposed to an overdose of reports about minor and major disasters in all forms of media. We more or less defend ourselves against this by ignoring some news, i.e. reducing the strain on our nerves by filtering information. It is human nature to rely on the mostly correct assumption that unpleasant developments will eventually end and change for the better. In the case of climate change, however, looking away and hoping things resolve themselves doesn’t appear to be a winning strategy.
A wealth of scientific analyses on climate change is available to everyone, but these are mostly comprehensible only for other scientists.
We should openly acknowledge that most people in the northern hemisphere have a sense of empathy for people "in the south" who are plagued by overpowering rains, flooded lowlands, islands disappearing into the water, eroding coastlines or droughts. However, the geographical distance and lack of awareness of the frequency of such disasters dilute solidarity. Collective psychological repression can set in quickly.
Most people in the northern hemisphere do not consider an increase in average temperatures of a few degrees to be alarming. Many even express relief that the winter is often milder than in the past. Loud protests by campaigners are experienced and understood by most citizens as a disturbance or perhaps exaggerated fearmongering.
At the level of policy, scientifically informed decision-makers attend international conferences on climate change, where they negotiate with other decision-makers on action plans that have no teeth but are presented as hard-won progress. And they are increasingly supporting “green” sectors of the economy. However, they are often reluctant to share the full extent of their knowledge about the problem because they do not want to jeopardise their recognition by “rocking the boat”.
The factual impact level is decisive for citizens
There is controversy about the interplay of causes of climate warming (industrial emissions, volcanic activity, ocean currents, etc.). We don't want to debate that here. What is more relevant are the changes in global average temperatures and their trends, as determined by scientific methods.
Instantaneous interruption or reversal of a climatic process?
Changes to the climate are not new in human history, and certain events have triggered reductions in temperature. A striking example of a break in climatic developments is the eruption of an Icelandic volcano in the year 536 CE, whose dust made the atmosphere in the northern hemisphere so opaque to sunlight over a period of more than 20 years that temperatures fell drastically ("Little Ice Age").
Recently, it has been hypothesised that ice ages were triggered by asteroids.
It may be tempting to pin our hopes on the possibility of such events helping us to mitigate climate change, but while we cannot rule them out, events of this kind are rare and unpredictable, we must not include them in projections. It would be absurd to hope for random external causes that could interrupt or stop the progress of global warming. While hope is a human propensity, it is not suitable for contingency planning.
Our real bottleneck
What is preventing us from taking appropriate action to minimise and reverse the rise in average temperatures?
Citizen perception of the nature and dimension of the threat is inevitably blurred, because the daily reports from the media are mostly unstructured and not comprehensible to non-scientists. The reports do not allow us to recognise the essentials.
Citizens need an overview that is communicated in an honest, understandable and clearly structured way. Only when citizens have realised the nature and scale of the problem will decision-makers have the courage to take action with determination. In essence, it is about legitimising protection strategies that are considered unpopular today.
Given that citizens do not have access to graspable knowledge, we have a transformation problem. And this can be overcome if science presents the overall scenario from a certain distance. Figuratively speaking: It is not about describing every pixel point of an image, but about showing the image as a whole. The holistic representation deviates from the usual approach of scientists, because each of them is professionally held to focus on "pixel points" in their respective area of specialisation. This is the only way science makes progress, but that's not what is needed here.
The contours of the hologram can be communicated in an understandable way using e.g. the key points mentioned above:
If the effect of a detail is not legible, the presentation of the measurement can be improved. In particular, the exponential impact of very small changes in average temperatures in the atmosphere goes very much against human intuition. We can compensate for this disadvantage in perspective: Instead of referring to changes in temperature in degrees Celsius, we should consistently communicate changes in basis points, i.e. in hundredths of a degree Celsius. For example, labelling a temperature rise as "32 basis points" would be correct and would make the difference easier to comprehend than "0.32 °C". This method is a common practice in the financial industry. There, too, this method of representation is helpful in raising awareness that a small change can have massive implications.
Comparing our planet with human bodies helps us to comprehend the effect of changes in temperature: If your body temperature rises by 1° Celsius, you have a fever and are not feeling well. If the temperature rises by 1.5 or even 2° Celsius, you are very ill and hardly able to work. It is similar with our planet: If it experiences increases in average temperatures of this magnitude, it shows the symptoms of a "serious illness". However, this "fever" does not go away after a few days.Truthful and comprehensible holographic description will work like a call to action as sensible citizens will refuse to accept the idea that their lives, that of their children or that of their grandchildren, will be exposed to significant and unparalleled danger.
Here is a simple example of a call to action: It is true that the onset of toothache does not necessarily trigger a reaction in us straight away. We are perhaps still hoping that it will go away on its own. But at some point we turn to the dentist for help. We may later find the dentist's bill stressful, but the relief of finding a solution to the problem outweighs this. It is necessary that we anticipate, that we sense the expected greater pain, in order to take the initiative.
Governments will only act vigorously when informed citizens demand it vigorously. There has been pressure from sections of the population for a long time, but its direction has always been vague and therefore not sufficiently effective.
And like a dentist, a government cannot act for free, but will send bills to taxpayers. The later the comprehensive strategy is implemented, the higher the bill.
Defensive and offensive measures
The necessary government action plans are not the subject of this article. It should only be mentioned that defensive measures are necessary first, e.g., improved meteorological warning systems, raising and strengthening of dams and dykes on the sea coast and rivers, preparation for the abandonment of non-defensible areas. In addition, measures are needed to halt the dangerous trend and then slowly reverse it. These essentially consist of avoiding emissions and removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
Desperate measures?
The keyword for desperate actions is "geoengineering". This could imply approaches such as making either the atmosphere or our oceans absorb less sunlight or bind more CO2. While these approaches sound exciting, they are not fully developed and run the risk of causing irreversible damage. As such it is unlikely they will be used.
Sabotage of the communication of scientific work
There are two groups working against open and fair communication between science and the citizens.
Refuseniks who are not interested in facts work against this. They are used to believing their own feelings and those of their friends from social networks. There should be no discussion with them, because deviations from their assumptions act as fuel for them. Science will not lead them out of their dream worlds.
Then there are the sceptics, who may have expert knowledge but only select those parts of it for their thinking and communication that seem to support their rejection of action. This is a dangerous species, because “expert” sceptics can claim some credibility and can disrupt societal communication successfully. The only way to weaken these people is to persistently ask them for better and well-founded alternatives. Then they have to provide verifiable answers or quietly hoist the white flag.
Acknowledgements:
My heartfelt thanks go to Professor Reinhard Gast. As a practising geologist and experienced researcher, he has helped me to grasp the exponential impact of seemingly minimal changes in the temperature of our atmosphere, similar to our own bodies, and the uniqueness of the current situation.
Authorship disclosure:
Fully human generated