Looking Beyond the Climate Dashboard
Few people are as agile with the English language as Dougald Hine, and it was a complete pleasure to prowl around with him in this territory I refer to as the living climate. I gained some fresh concepts, one of which is the notion that the CO2-only, model-derived narrative of Earth’s climate has created a kind of dashboard thinking, by which with the turning of a few nobs we can “fix” our climate problem. But as with all living things, it’s far more complicated, and interesting than that. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.
The “Embracing Nature’s Complexity” conference has concluded and my head is full of information and impressions that I’ll be unpacking here in a few days. My main impression? We are skating on thinner ice than I realized, testing ecological/climatic thresholds we entirely underappreciate. At the same time, I’m astonished anew at Earth’s capacity for renewal when given some room to breath and a helping hand, as I discovered in a presentation on “Rainforestation” in an area of southwest China called Xishaungbanna. There were surprises as well. Who would think that a scientific conference would return again and again to the theme of, well, love?
More to come soon.
I thoroughly enjoyed your conversation with Dougald. I kept thinking about Jean Giono‘s book. “The man who planted trees,” and real-life examples of arid landscapes restored to lush beauty using permaculture principles. There are people who know how to do this, and who are doing it, which gives me great hope. Is it enough? Not yet, but trees are being planted and landscapes restored, and others can follow their example. Your remarks about trees reinforces my misgivings about the current sustainability craze in my field of mass timber buildings. Sure, they’re less carbon intensive than either concrete or steel, but trees are a carbon sink standing in a forest, not only in a highrise. Plus all the other countless “ecosystem services” (another kind of functionalist dashboarding) that a forest provides.
Looking forward to hearing more. I’m a big fan of this planet!!
A Canadian Grandma