Human intelligence created the climatic crisis, but it is also the solution
The scientific communicator Hank Green explains how the unique intelligence of our species led us to this climate disaster, and how it will help us solve it.
Hank Green on the discussion stage his book “An absolutely remarkable thing” in the City Council, September 2018 in New York City.
I spend a lot of time on the Internet; It has become my second home in the 20 years that I have communicated Science online. And I recently come with the act that had left: a cartoon of a sad and crying cover of cut trees that says: “No intelligent species would destroy its own environment.”
I think this cartoon and the ideas it represents are incorrect and destructive. I do not want my son, who is eight years old, believes that humans are dumb and evil, both because it is a great annoyance and because it is obviously false. But I often find myself quite lonely to have that perspective, and I wonder if, maybe, there are other people who feel the same as me.
Humans did not cause climate change because they were stupid; They caused him to be extremely intelligent. We begin to burn coal to solve problems. We did to cultivate more food, heat and turn on our houses, feed the refrigerators, connect the world in a way that made possible the last centuries of scientific advance. We are here precisely because of our intelligence, and yes, the greed and selfishness of people in the fossil fuel industry that have certainly delayed our transition away from fossil fuels.
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But we are problem solving machines, and we will also solve this problem.
Our intelligence is a survival. We want to provide a good life for ours and our children. The results have leg internships. In the United States, in 1895, a quarter of people died before the age of five. Today, it is less than 6 percent, and we will continue fighting until it reaches zero. Imagine the essays that Ben Franklin or Mark Twain would write about this level of progress. How would tears from their eyes keep what we have achieved?
Much of that achievement has been based on energy, and the fossil fuels that we have burned to generate it, whether coal, natural gas or oil. We have learned that this harms both the environment and people, and for our credit we are always bad to address this. Not long ago, London could be so obstructed with coal smoke that he had to clean it from the windows every day. When rivers are called, the United States changes their policies. When the rain becomes acidic, the world changes its policies. When the damage is done locally, we tend to be good to clean things.
But with climate change caused by carbon dioxide emissions, we face a much more difficult problem. That is for two reasons. First, at the psychological level, the effects of greenhouse gases in the weather are often invisible to us. The weather is always messy, and the weather works on such large and long scales that it is difficult to detect, communicate and respond to what is happening. And second, unlike sulfur and nitrogen pollution that caused acid rain, or chlorofluorocarbons that threatened to use a hole in the ozone layer, the product has no attempt at carbon dioxide; It is the objective of burning fossil fuels. If fossil fuels burns in the cleanest way possible, everything you get is carbon dioxide and water vapor. Responding to climate change means that we must reduce the amount of co2 That burning fossil fuels are created. It requires that we complete to reinvent how we feed our planet.
This is where I feel hope: we have already done this, and we know that it is possible. In the United Kingdom Co2 Emissions are now at their lowest levels since 1879 after a change from coal to renewable energy! This is possible; We can see what is being done. And it is the responsibility of the greatest pollutions, the countries like the United States that have benefited the most of the burning of fossil fuels, so that these changes happen.
And this is where I think we should feel shame in our species. Humans are greedy. Humans are myopic. Humans will tell stories to make them believe that the things they already want to do (such as delaying climatic action) are good Things to do. This is our nature, and I think we could have done a better job to overcome it. I am frustrated by the amount of time we have spent arguing instead of acting. I am frustrated by the extent that we will not accept any inconvenience or sacrifice in exchange for making the world more habitable for people in other parts of the world, and even for their own children.
It is worth recognizing that this amount of forecast is unique for humans. It requires a lot of intelligence and, frankly, it is remarkable for me that we can do it at all. We are not like trees, which caused their own mass extinction when they evolved on land; We know that our actions today threaten up to one million species worldwide. This is the accusation of our failure to act before, and a reason to believe that we can succeed if we dedicate our fight.
I do not want my son to grow up thinking that his species is somehow evil. I want you to think that humans are problem solving, and that solving problems always creates new ones. The strategies we take to solve global warming will also create more new problems. Renewable technologies such as solar panels and wind turbines, for example, use more land than coal power plants, contributing to their own environmental impact. They are the best solution in many places at this time, but perhaps in the future we will replace them with better ways of generating energy, such as advanced gotherminal, more nuclear fission or perhaps even nuclear fusion. The people of the future will get angry with us for the work with celebrities we did, just like we are a little angry with all the people who tried to make the world a better place burning a lot of coal. And that’s fine.
Humans are not evil. We solve problems, and when we do, we create new problems. And I think, ultimately, this is a fairly normal story for intelligent species. One day, if we ever get in touch with another species like ours, I bet that they will have many stories about how they did the same, and how they made their way.
