TomDispatch, Grist and many other blogs are carrying an essay by Michael T. Klare, a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, that offers a counterpoint to Bill McKibben’s account of a planet so marred by human affairs that it requires a distorted name, “Eaarth.” (The video above reflects this notion because it is less “natural” than it appears.)
Klare’s view — strongly echoing the ideas of James Lovelock (who explored climate, nuclear power and other issues with me in a 2006 video interview) — is that the environmental challenges confronting humans these days, particularly the aftermath of the great quake and tsunami in Japan, are somewhat akin to the immune response of an invaded organism. Our home planet, he writes, is “an avenger, rather than simply victim”:
It’s not enough to think of Eaarth as an impotent casualty of humanity’s predations. It is also a complex organic system with many potent defenses against alien intervention — defenses it is already wielding to devastating effect when it comes to human societies. And keep this in mind: we are only at the beginning of this process.
Humans, the assailant, Earth the avenger?
I see another explanation of this turbulent moment.
We are a young species with a short memory and only slowly-dawning awareness of three vital pieces of the challenge of meshing our aspirations with life on Earth: the planet’s dynamics, our capacity to jog the system and — perhaps most importantly — the distorting mix of rational, emotional and instinctual processes in our brains that shape our perceptions and actions.
So far, as I’ve written before, we’ve been in a full-tilt teen-style binge. But now we face the tough question: What do we want to be when we grow up?
Addendum | Vaclav Smil, an essential touchstone on risk, resources and technology, has weighed in afresh in American Scientist with an overview of Japan’s challenges in the wake of its multifaceted, and still unfolding, calamity and a must-read critique of “the latest infatuations” related to the global energy challenge.
Just in case you missed it a while back, I was lucky enough to be able to spend an hour with Smil on a stage at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Canada, in 2009, exploring the simple question, “9 Billion People + 1 Planet = ?” Here’s the video (seat belts required!):
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