Nature11

Our views of Nature reflect intellectual conflict that began with the efforts of the Sumerians and Egyptians to make some sense of human existence, and today focuses on whether Man is destroying the environment and if so what to do about it.

Medieval European scholastics tried to demonstrate the compatibility of reason and Christian faith, which St. Thomas Aquinas codified into a logical, convincing, and coherent whole, resolving problems that had dominated western thought for about 400 years. In this pre-scientific model, the four elements of air, fire, water, and earth in varying proportions formed all things. The striving of the elements to reach their true order (earth, water, fire, and air from lowest to highest) explained all phenomena. In humans, the elements expressed themselves as four “humors” (bile, blood, choler, and phlegm). The scholastics eschewed direct observation and conducted sophisticated criticism of Arab, Christian, Greek, Jewish, and Roman texts, gradually discovering and increasingly questioning the resulting theological contradictions. As the Church became aware of the threat, it began to fight back

Four men illustrate the course of the conflict. In 1543, the year Copernicus died and his Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres was published, it became a penal offense in Catholic states to print, sell, buy, or own any literature not sanctioned by the Inquisition.¹² Fifty-seven years later, the Catholic Church burned Giordano Bruno at the stake for advocating an infinite universe, an atomic basis for matter, the insignificance of man, and freedom of inquiry.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, new instruments with which to observe and measure combined with new mathematics completed the Newtonian revolution. Man was part of, not superior to Nature. The heavens followed the same laws as earth and probably were made of the same stuff. Hume argued against the need even for a creator. The universe became an eternal, infinite, self-moving machine. God lost not only his home in the heavens but his importance. Mathematics explained everything!

Romanticism was from one perspective a radical reaction to the extreme determinism of this “Clockwork Universe.” Edward Blake offered a toast, “to Newton’s health, and a curse on mathematics.” The twentieth century introduced relativity and quantum mechanics, and along with fearsome wars made life seem uncertain again.

The conflict between science and religion continued over evolution with Darwin in the role of Copernicus delaying publication of his book for fear of church reaction, and the American schoolteacher John Thomas Scopes in the role played by Galileo. Now, Christianity is weaker and more divided than ever but religion (not just Christianity) provides a check on scientific excess by raising ethical questions about advances such as stem cell research.

Today’s conflict concerning Nature is over global warming. There is abundant evidence of ongoing climate change—but just how much is due to Man is a matter of dispute. Four distinct strands underlie today’s environmental movements. The first, originating in transcendentalism, involves a radical rejection of industrialization and globalization.

The second strand focuses on environmental destruction. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) described how DDT upset the balance of nature, entered the food chain, accumulated in animal and human tissues, and caused genetic damage and cancer. The chemical industry reacted with indignation, attacking Carson’s integrity and sanity. It painted a picture of a return to the Dark Ages in which diseases and vermin would destroy humanity. In the face of the conflict, President Kennedy ordered an investigation that led to banning DDT. The burden of proof shifted to the proponents of pesticides. Silent Spring made the public aware that nature was vulnerable, and that technological progress entailed risk. Concern expanded from DDT to other forms of pollution, then to other forms of environmental damage.

The third strand focuses on consuming nonrenewable and destroying renewable resources. Schumacher’s (2010) proposed human-scale, decentralized and appropriate technologies as an alternative to Western capitalism. The book called for self-sufficiency. Schumacher maintained that man's current pursuit of profit and progress, which promotes giant organizations and increased specialization, has in fact resulted in gross economic inefficiency, environmental pollution, and inhumane working conditions. Schumacher challenged the doctrine of economic, technological, and scientific specialization and proposed a system for “Intermediate Technology,” based on smaller working units, cooperative ownership, and regional workplaces using local labor and resources.

A fourth strand originates with Lovelock’s (1979) idea that the earth is self-regulating:

…the physical and chemical condition of the surface of the Earth, of the atmosphere, and of the oceans has been and is actively made fit and comfortable by the presence of life itself.

Although Lovelock endorsed a mechanistic explanation, some interpreted his ideas teleologically to imply that the Earth was actively controlling the climate and was itself alive.¹³ This gave a spiritual or mystical dimension to environmentalism, leading some to propose “rights” for elements of nature such as earth, water, forests, and animals and pathologies that humans supposedly suffer because we live apart from nature (Lennox 1994).

Gore’s Earth in the Balance (1992) and his follow-up movie, An Inconvenient Truth, pulled these strands together around the claim that global warming constitutes a widely agreed, desperate environmental crisis due to industrialization and our “pathological isolation” from nature. Gore argues that solving this crisis must be the “central organizing principle for civilization.” He suggests a “Global Marshall Plan” controlled by international organizations, international summits, and spiritual values. He proposes a vast array of technological and regulatory fixes administered by government fiat.

Many critics focus on serious flaws in the economic (Lott 1994) and political (Hahn 1994) solutions proposed. Gore and his acolytes dismiss or seem un-aware of the unintended consequences (Chapter 9) of their proposals. Energy-efficient buildings tend to trap gases and breed bacteria that make them less healthy. Old-growth trees remove much less CO2 from the atmosphere than young ones. Global warming means longer growing seasons and less demand for heating fuel. Alternative approaches such as tax incentives and extending property rights can go a long way toward avoiding the “Tragedy of the Commons” (Chapter 10). Many environmentalists have little interest in considering the relative costs and benefits of their proposed solutions compared to alternatives suggested by Lomborg (2010).

More fundamentally, critics question the underlying science and the nature, if any of the problem (Ellsaesser 1994, Lindzen 1994, Lomborg 2001, Michaels & Ballings 2000). Some see global warming as attributable entirely to natural processes that have been going on as long as the earth has existed and having nothing to do with humans, as evidenced by apparent climate change on Mars as well as on Earth. Some find it difficult even to identify long-term changes reliably, given varied methods for obtaining climate data,¹⁴ the short period of about a century with reliable measurements and their scarcity in some regions, particularly in the southern hemisphere. Some accept the measurements but see too much fluctuation to identify a clear trend, find the computer models that interpret them unreliable, or even see a tendency to interpret the data to keep the grant money rolling in. As noted above (Chapter 1), replication and falsification is fundamental to good science, but Michael Mann has refused to disclose the algorithm behind his “hockey stick” graph showing a sudden upsurge in temperatures.

For every impact claimed for global warming, there is an equally plausible rebuttal. We are told that we are experiencing the “warmest decade in a millennium.” But, the well-documented “Medieval Warm Period” (1000–1400) almost certainly was warmer than anything we are experiencing now. Supposedly, CO2 is global warming “pollution” but environmental geochemist Veizer believes increases in CO2 follow so cannot cause temperature increases. Humans contribute three billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere each year, but that is trivial compared to natural emissions of 210 billion tons annually in an atmosphere containing 800 billion tons of CO2. Have human-caused climate changes increased hurricanes? National Hurricane Center director Mayfield attributes the increase to the North Atlantic oscillation and Natural Hazards editor and University of Oregon hurricane specialist Murty points out that “in the other six ocean basins where tropical cyclones occur, there is either a flat or a downward trend.” We frequently hear that the seas are rising due to global warming, but Virginia environmental science Professor Emeritus Singer argues this began at the end of the last Ice Age and has continued regardless of climate fluctuations. And so on. Of course, it is possible that the proponents of human-caused global warming are right and the critics wrong—we simply do not know who or which if either is right. Lord Melbourne’s aphorism at the head of the chapter applies. Thus, the conflict continues over the science and what actions to take if any.