The August 2005 issue of Popular Science, the wonderful rag that celebrates good old-fashioned American know-how, has, as its cover story, a survey of 6 proposals to counteract global warming. These proposals were presented at a round table discussion called “Response Options to Rapid or Severe Climate Change,” an event sponsored by George W’s Climate Change Technology Program.
The article begins with a factual error, stating “[w]hile administration officials were insisting in public that there was no firm proof that the planet was warming …. ” No one—not even George W—denies the evidence: the planet is getting warmer. What George W & Co. deny (the reason he refuses to ratify the Kyoto Protocol) is that carbon dioxide emissions from industrialized countries is the cause of global warming. Causation is the issue. And, oddly, I find George W’s objection compelling (though, as we shall see, not particularly helpful).
George W is an empiricist in the manner of David Hume. He probably has never thought of himself as such, but that is the intellectual tradition that serves as the source for George W’s objection. I doubt George W has ever read David Hume. I wonder if any of his advisers have. Presumably at least one has or his objection would not have occurred to him.
Hume examined causes and effects and found that they were distinct events with no necessary connection. There was nothing a priori about the transition from cause to effect. One must observe the transition, catch it in the act of causing the effect, before one can say that event A caused event B.
But 20th century physics and philosophy pretty much buried this rigorous demand. Heisenberg showed that such an observation was impossible. At the same time, statistical mathematics presented a new methodology for making the claim that event A caused event B. This methodology is modern scientific method. It is a high-falutin justification for inference-drawing: If two events, A and B, are observed in succession, and this succession occurs with sufficient frequency under similar conditions, then we are justified in drawing an inference that A causes B.
Yes, as compelling as David Hume’s empiricism seems, it is nevertheless demonstrably impossible, and has been superseded by more pragmatic techniques for making claims about causal relationships. Why, then, does George W rely upon ideas published 250 years ago? Because the ideas justify his position, of course. Without these ideas, he would be nothing more than a spoiled child insisting on having his way at all costs. Instead, the thoughts of a venerable philosopher lend to him an aura of dignity.
I have in mind the story of Pandora’s Box, or perhaps the boy with his finger in the dike. The Kyoto Protocol is premised on the view that we change our habits, reduce those activities which, through a statistical method of induction, have been shown to harm the global climate. In response, George W seeks ways to fix the global climate and continue to engage in these activities (presumably for the short-term benefit of the world’s largest economy). Here is a summary of the fingers in George W’s dike:
1. Store carbon dioxide underground.
2. Use giant filters to snatch it from the air.
3. Seed the oceans with iron to promote the growth of plankton which consume the carbon dioxide naturally.
4. Transform it into limestone.
5. Use unmanned boats to churn up salt spray to produce heat-reflecting clouds.
6. Deflect sunlight with giant mirrors in space.
The problem is that, although intentionally designed to impact upon the globe, each proposal’s impact is not wholly predictable. Each technology may give rise to a whole new set of problems which, in turn, demand new solutions, and so on. Hence the image of Pandora’s Box or the boy with his finger in the dike.
The history of technological innovation has consistently demonstrated that the simplest and most elegant solution is also the best solution. In this case, the simplest and most elegant solution is to acknowledge that our activities are harmful, and then to curtail them.