Dear Readers,

Tomorrow we dock at Fremantle, Australia, and the day after that I fly to Los Angeles where crazy things await me. In late March/early April, I’ll make a brief side trip to Cambridge to pick up some stuff and then I’ll return to LA where crazy things await me.

I guess I’ll make just a few more posts before I close Danparktica forever... this here will be my last “serious” or “substantial” post containing some last thoughts on global warming. I’ll also clarify the relationship between what goes on this boat and the larger picture. And I promise I’m feeling a bit more optimistic today... Then later I’ll have one last post about a dream I had about a pod-robot named RSR-5. That one is a sad story... but sort of funny in a way too. Then that’s it, I promise! Sorry if this blog has gotten heavy or boring lately, but I guess it’s mostly what I’ve been thinking about these days. Can’t wait for some Starbucks.

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MY LAST SERIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC POST:
A few days ago, I had a conversation with my bunkmate Dave, who, just for the record, is a very intelligent and friendly dude with piercing blue eyes. Ladies, he is also an optimist. Anyway, our discussion looped around and around: we both agreed that overpopulation was probably a big part of the problem, and any proposed solutions were distant and difficult and brought up myriad other problems. But Dave brought up an interesting point: for all this talk about global warming, for all you hear about “saving the planet” or “preserving biodiversity”... in the end, that’s not what people care about. Short of blasting the thing to bits with bombs or whatever, the issue at hand is not about saving the Earth. It’s about humans... it’s about saving lives.

Some skeptics will speak about how the world has frequently gone through huge swings in climate and cite that as reason not to worry... they’re right in one sense: through the geological history of the earth, there have been even larger climate swings than anything we are seeing now. But to then conclude that there is no reason to worry is nonsense: for one, there is no clear evidence that mankind would survive a severe change in climate. The past 10 or 12,000 years have been the most stable time climatically in many millennia (relatively)... it is even possible that people could not have developed agriculture without having been granted this boon. Will agriculture still be possible in a changed earth? How many people will diminished food supplies be able to support?

The earth will continue to exist, and it will continue to have land, oceans, a fiery core, whatnot... that is almost assured. Many species of plants and animals may become extinct, and yes I think that stinks, but the Earth, were it conscious, would not care less. The biggest question facing us is: having done what we’ve done, will we even be able to survive? All signs point to an impending warming climate that may yet be tempered by human efforts. One thing you can conclude from the IPCC Working Group I Summary for Policy Makers is that the the intensity and rapidity of the coming change are still up in the air, as seen from the report’s use of several forecasting models for different possible economic states of the world.

Perhaps some of the most heartwarming things I’ve read have come from Ms. Brice’s 8th graders... if I may quote Ms. Brice:
“Many (about 70%) of my students are from immigrant families and have lived in countries with much less than what they have here. The point was readily taken that even though they enjoy the new luxuries, their old life was still a happy one. Most were willing to give up things to help the environment and the community. That is why I love teaching 8th grade, no matter how bad the news is, I walk into a classroom with adolescent 14 year olds and they always give me hope the world will be ok...

“The most insightful comment I heard all day was one student who said: ‘So Dr. Swift says the world is what we make of it, that means we can make it better too.’”

In earlier posts, I’d referred to Jim Swift’s summary of the problem, that in order to correct for overpopulation, social structures will have to become less ‘fair,’ or there will have to be drastic reductions to our ways of life. It may sound to older generations unthinkable to have to get rid of our 2nd or 3rd television set, to eat steak half as often, to commute to work on a bike or train... but an educated younger generation may find it easier to adapt to a changing world.

Back to my earlier conversation with Dave, some of the solutions we came with were birth control—but then you have religions and cultures that specifically deny this option—or huge energy-reduction mandates—but what politician would put this on his platform and still have a chance at winning?—or technological fixes—but all attempts at carbon sequestration and iron fertilization have yet to be proven cost-effective and even heat-efficient, and climate tampering has never before solved more problems than it has created... plus it’s merely a band-aid covering up a still-growing source of greenhouse gases—or the development of clean forms of energy—but it has been determined that solar and wind power simply cannot provide for all of the world’s energy needs as is, and hydrogen power has not proven efficient, nor do western nations seem ready to support cleaner nuclear power in places like Iran—or the continuation of the social structure of energy-rich and energy-poor—but as young idealists we don’t like the thought of there always being a huge gap in quality of life between people of the world... and so on.

The real answer probably lies in some combination of all the above at moderate degrees... some family planning controls, development of some technological solutions, construction of many windmills and solar panels, and social recommendations but not mandates: turn off the lights when you leave the room, switch incandescent bulbs to efficient spiral bulbs, take public transportation... and perhaps mankind’s chance at effecting such moderate but blanket change will require the extra efforts of a younger generation who better understands the world—because the world today is certainly not the world of 1970 or whenever it was that all those old people came from. It’s all about education.

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To be more specific, we need to improve quality of education by enabling more people to learn how to think logically. How many Americans really know what the scientific method is? Most people use it without even blinking; oh, the light’s out? Maybe the fuse is gone, or the bulb is out, or the switch is broken. Check the fuse, nope that’s fine. Replace the bulb, still out? Must be wiring or something else. Etc. Actually I don’t personally know what you’d do then other than call the electrical company, or Dad, but that’s still the basic logical process. Problem, hypothesis, experiment, observation, result.

But how many people approach academic problems with this sort of mindset? Research for a paper is conducted in the same fashion: have a prompt, think about several different methods to approach it, outline or try each out, okay you decide one is the best, continue and write. Or: what’s all this about global warming? Maybe I’ll just read a little bit about it, get some facts, start digesting those facts, decide which is best, then think about the consequences. Ok, so the consequences are scary: what can be done about it? Etc.

The problem is when you have people turning to the easy avenue for answers, such as getting opinions straight from the television... when the true thinker should initially be a skeptic. Even those scientists who support the conclusion that climate change is due to mankind’s influence should still be skeptics at heart; they’ve just been convinced by a preponderance of evidence in one direction. But every new piece of data must be carefully examined, and nothing should be taken for granted.

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On the Revelle, such activity has been going on at full speed for four solid weeks. Data has been gathered nonstop by rotating shifts of scientists and technicians, and has been regularly sent to the beach for examination and use in new models. Being in the field, I’ve come to appreciate this necessary effort—and it is a huge effort—in the context of developing and clarifying ocean and climate models.

The work on the Revelle does not directly have to do with making policy, but it is instead the first step in that process. Better data inform better models which in turn will forecast climate to the benefit of society. Not having this cruise would be akin to losing some pages of a book: reading it, you’d still get the bigger picture, but depending on what those pages were, the meaning of the book could be slightly altered or even greatly changed.

Anyway, it’s been fun, and you’ve just been the first of my outreach victims.