anxiety and global warming

There is global warming, climate change and the plethora of interesting and complex studies involved in those areas and there is anxiety about the effects of global warming. This anxiety – observable in children as young as 10 and 11- having been exposed to simplified science- might be a good thing, I suppose, if its result was to save the planet from frying and turning into the next Venus. If its result is to simply make people feel powerless and unhappy then it is not a good thing.

Global warming anxiety is based on the belief- which is observable in models and some closed systems that rising C02 levels trap more heat which results in more CO2 being released (from the earth and the sea) which results in more heat until the oceans boil away and you end up with 470 degree surface temperatures. No wonder my nephew couldn’t sleep at night.

But this positive feedback cycle is far from simple- if it was there wouldn’t be any work for climate scientists to do. Not many disagree that the world is getting warmer. Not many disagree that increased C02 levels result in warmer temperatures. But NO ONE agrees on the exact mechanisms by which CO2 is released and taken up by the earth and the sea. These mechanisms- and the lags involved- for example a thousand years for the sea to give up C02 is not considered an unusual figure, means that the details of any positive feedback system remain obscure.

The detail of these mechanisms (processes might be a better word) by which CO2 is absorbed and given out are highly important. With the Biosphere 2 project people lived in a closed environment- under glass- for periods of up to two years. Oxygen levels plummeted from 20% to 14% and C02 levels fluctuated widely- from 1000ppm in summer to 4500 ppm in winter. But though they fluctuated, C02 levels didn’t rise overall- and this was considered a great mystery. Until it was discovered that C02 reacted with the concrete of the building to become calcium carbonate- effectively absorbing C02 from the Biosphere 2 atmosphere. This is illustrative rather than conclusive- but the suggestion is plausible- in a closed system such as the Biosphere 2 the mechanisms of C02 absorption were complex. And that is mirrored and multiplied a 1000 times in the mass of theory and data surrounding the mechanisms of C02 absorption by Biosphere 1- this planet. Until the processes of C02 absorption are fully understood, feeling anxious about the potential heat death of this planet is simple folly. That we might be ‘running out of time’ is true. But that is still no reason to be anything other than carefree and happy in one’s everyday life. Carefree and happy scientists do far better work than anxious ones. As the great Victorian polymath Richard Burton put it, “We dance along death’s icy brink but is the dance less full of fun?”

Actually the anxiety is hardly surprising- we become anxious when we are in doubt. If you know something for certain you adapt to it using all your available resources. You don’t panic- you act. When I know I have a certain medical problem – for sure- I am far less anxious than when I am surfing the web and discovering I have all the symptoms for every kind of terminal disease. I know from facing real problems such as being lost in the desert, bear attacks, and being caught in a riot that panic is your worst enemy. And the parent of panic is anxiety.

That the media thrives on anxiety is well established- what remains unquestioned is the blurring of interest and concern with anxiety. To be hysterical is taken to be the first step towards changing the world for the better. But we all know anxious people are not in the right frame of mind to do anything- they are anxious precisely BECAUSE they feel powerless. So the moment something as important as the future of the planet produces anxiety – that is the moment you need to pull back.

As it is, the current anxieties are the result of simplifying vast amounts of complex science. A friend’s son was told the other day at school that the Sun would swallow the earth in 3.7 billion years. He was anxious about it and sought reassurance that it wouldn’t happen. Well it will- but the assertion is also utterly meaningless – on any level that need concern us as human beings.