Keeping with the star trek theme, in the days of the Federation, humans have learned the ability to control all aspects of earth’s weather. If paying attention to the subtle cues in each episode, they seemingly have eliminated catastrophic events like tornadoes, while still leaving a typical summer thunderstorm on the planet’s precipitation menu. San Francisco, home of star fleet, is never shown to be cloudy, foggy, or mildly cool. It’s a level of specificity and control in these global temperature obsessed times i tend to crave, almost more so than the food replicators and transporter machines. I kid, of course, food replicators trump all. 

Should it be an intention of human progress to control something as utterly chaotic and multi-faceted as the weather? The weather. Interactions of countless particles, bi-products of the environment living and changing. It’s a daunting challenge to the technical expertise of humanity. And since we have done such a great job with Economics, Science, the biosphere (sarcasm detectors on kill), should we even be consider mastering the mother of all chaos theory examples?

Eli Kintish of AAAS has written a Slate article that poses the scenario if a country choses to geo-engineer the planet, unilaterally. Although on the fringe, there are scientists dedicated to concocting doomsday solutions to the threat of global warming. DARPA, the pentagon’s far-out ideas division, has been reported (i believe by Kintish) to be designing plans and scenarios for human history altering events like meteor hits and extreme climate change. The article examines some scenarios that should give most people pause , and probably conjure images of Dr. Strangelove describing the days living in subway tunnels after a nuclear winter:  6 girls for every boy. 

Think about what this says about our prospects meeting the challenge of being better stewards to our home. I  recall an argument i had with a friend about how resigned she was to the idea that humanity’s subconscious goal is to fuck itself. For her, there was no way that we could convince enough people fast enough to consider how their daily routines (especially when it mirrors the routine of billions) could lead to the destruction of our civilization.

It’s a hard case to make to some, when modern industrialized living forces you to feel like an insignificant vestigial tail on the beast of the machine. Sometimes it’s just about surviving, and getting mine. I do understand these sentiments, but i don’t think it should cripple ones efforts to better understand how they are members of something larger. Viewing your daily life without blinders is something we should all strive for. Ultimately, my friend is right; the only behavior you truly can change is your own, but that in itself is a powerful force for wider change. It’s “Man in the mirror” time. 

Philosophically, for me, that is the worst part about the Geo-engineering plan. It assumes that we individually, and therefore collectively, will choose to not want to be connected more to the world around us. That it may be easier to tackle the massively complex operating system of the earth, than it is to convince people to make an effort to live greener lives.