The following is a recording and then text of a talk I gave at the Lovelock Centenary event at the Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter 31st July 2019
Optimism is an essential component of any proposal for action. Action needs to be driven by hope. Sustainability transformations will not be powered by visions of tearing down what we have, but by dreams of building something better.
And despite some sobering data presented over these past three days: rising concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, rising global temperatures and rising sea levels, we have heard messages of hope. That hope is captured in the notion of Gaia 2.0. The emergence of ‘us’ has of course produced the challenges we face, but we can meet these challenges using intelligence, foresight, planning, and innovation. We will be smart. We will act. We will steer or guide Gaia such that she avoids the rocks.
I want to press my thumb on the other side of the scales, such that I provide a counter view to such hope. In doing so I’m not seeking to be destructively negative. Rather, I aim to arrive at a point of deeper understanding of environmental change and Gaia. To produce a more authentic hope that has a real opportunity of producing meaningful change. I will argue that Jim’s insights about Gaia are directly relevant to climate change and the other sustainability issues we face right now.
I begin by making three points.
First, we need to remind ourselves what Gaia is. Lynn Margulis’ important contributions to the development of Gaia, was biological insight and an emphasis on microbial ecology and evolution. On Monday, David Wilkinson pointed out that central features or aspects of Gaia are microbial. The majority of the mass of the biosphere is microbial after all. Bigger, more complex organisms are additions to this microbial realm.
Mass extinction events are seen as large disruptions to the Earth system. Examples where Gaian regulation has failed. But while there may be significant changes to the complex organisms that inhabit the biosphere the microbial realms and associated biogeochemical cycles continue, either effectively unchanged, or via a form of adaptation into new states and functioning.
Second, in terms of function and dynamics, Andy Watson highlighted the importance of recycling. The Earth is an effectively closed but not isolated system. It exchanges very little matter, but a tremendous flux of energy crosses it boundaries in the form of sunlight in and longer wavelength radiation out. Tyler Volk’s wonderful book Gaia’s Body tells the fascinating story of Gaia’s ability to continually recycle important limiting nutrients which has allowed the total size of the biosphere to increase significantly.
In that respect, recycling is as old as the biosphere, so today’s push for circular economies is nothing new. But recycling can apply not just to our products and waste, but the system that produces them. If we are unable to reduce our impacts, then Gaia will recycle our entire civilisation.
This leads onto my third point. Gaia is not for us. Gaia does not care about us. Mother Earth takes quite an ambivalent attitude to her more recent children. Currently this attitude cuts both ways. As we are equally ambivalent about Gaia. Our general attitude towards the Earth is that it provides resources for our consumption, and sinks for our waste. We value Gaia in terms of what it can do for us. What we can derive from it.
This worldview lays at the centre of our major sustainability theories and policies. And it is here that I want to explore Gaia’s contribution to social transformations.
The Sustainable Development Goals (the SDGs) are 17 key indicators of human progress and wellbeing. They seek to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. Sustainability comes first in this framework because it is recognised that you cannot establish a flourishing future for all of humanity at the same time as hacking away at the Earth system. But Development is the most important word in both its title and framing. Increasing the size of our collective civilisation is the route to increased human wellbeing. Perhaps that sounds obvious. But it’s worth acknowledging that the 17 goals are called the Sustainable Development Goals and not the Sustainable Redistribution Goals. It is possible that we already have sufficient resources to ensure many indicators are met. We certainly grow enough food to end all hunger, and have more than enough generation of wealth to ensure we could end all poverty. The issue is where such food and wealth is concentrated.
Often discussed alongside the SDG, is the concept of the Planetary Boundaries. Introduced in 2009, it has over the intervening years been developed and used beyond academia as a way of both visualising human impacts on earth, and as an important constraint on policy. It posits nine boundaries – of which climate change, biodiversity, and biogeochemical cycles are arguably the most important and then assesses the magnitude of human interactions and impacts on them. Taken collectively, the Planetary Boundaries are intended to sketch out a safe operating space for humanity.
If the message of the SDGs is that the vehicle of social sustainability transformation is development – the generation of energy and extraction of materials to produce stuff to make people’s lives better (building the fabric of the technosphere) – then the message of the Planetary Boundaries is that this flow of energy and matter needs to happen within an envelope of earth system functioning. Right now we are rapidly leaving this envelope. As Jan Zalasiewicz explained this morning, we are exiting the Holocene, the geological epoch characterised by a relatively stable climate that has provided the cradle for all human civilisations, and entering the Anthropocene, a new potentially much more turbulent world.
Our reductionist, linear instinct is to find where the problem is and fix it. So if the problem is the departure from the Holocence, then the fix is to move the Earth system back into it. There is nothing wrong about reductionism or linear thinking, any more than there is something wrong with heuristics. But in this instance it represents not just a limitation of ways of looking at the challenges we face, but is a source of significant danger. And I have to say it is currently the way that some people are viewing Gaia 2.0.
Gaia 2.0 is a powerful imagining of our planet. The emergence of conscious, intelligent beings and the creation of a technological civilisation means that Gaia can now sense, model, plan, act. The classic steps of good old fashioned artificial intelligence. We can foresee impending dangerous climate change. We can model the impacts this will have. We can plan rapid mitigation policies that would reduce risks.
And we do not act. Global emissions continue to rise each year when we know that they must significantly decrease. But we can turn the handle again on sense, model, plan, act. And we can apply some reductionist linear thinking. If the problem is that there is too much carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere, then we just need a plan to remove it.
On Tuesday, Tim Flannery described potential Carbon Dioxide Reduction technologies such as ocean seaweed farming which could sequester millions of tons of carbon and so limit global warming. Discussions during his question and answer session raised the fears that if we are not careful such approaches could prove to be counter productive as they may effectively serve as fairy tales that allow the continuation of Business As Usual and our largely fossil fuelled development. But given our apparent inability to reduce emissions, what other routes are open to us?
It’s easy to say we need radical action. But this must be based on a worldview that makes sense and provides hope. I think that worldview can be based on Gaia.
The SDGs and Planetary Boundaries neatly fits within the view that planet earth is for humans. We care about the Holocene because that is the only state we think is compatible with all of humanity achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. We care about specific planetary boundaries because we appreciate that we can only drive the system so far before it responds in ways that will be bad for us.
As currently formulated, I argue the Planetary Boundaries will not work. Humans will attempt to stay within the limit of one boundary by applying pressure somewhere else. The final destination of that approach is what I call the Repugnant Conclusion which sees most of the biosphere liquidated to satisfy the growth of our civilisation.
This stems from how we value the Earth in terms of the things it does for us. Using the language of ecological economics, Gaia provides ecosystems services. As Stefan Harding pointed out on Monday, this posits the fellow travellers of Gaia – other species – as objects, when in fact they are also subjects. As we heard yesterday from Kate Rawles, looking into the eyes of a seal, is to look into the eyes of another being.
That revelation – and I use that word rather than realisation – extends to all other species, and in various degrees to all other aspects of the Earth system up to and including the entire planet.
Jim’s initial and I think still revolutionary insight was to see the Earth as a subject. As an entity with dynamics, behaviour, development. As a being. It was a flash of brilliance that we are now over 50 years later still working through. For example, by first attempting to have Gaia makes sense in the context of evolutionary biology, and more recently dragging evolutionary biology forward so that it makes sense within Gaia.
I know Bruno Latour is not a huge fan of the picture of the brain in the visulisation of Gaia 2.0. I must admit, I’m not fan either.
I would replace it with this a heart symbol. The symbol of love. Because it is through the emotion of love that we derive human meaning. It’s central to our development as individuals. It binds our communities and cultures together. Not so very long ago, it also connected us to the Earth as I think Lee Klinger began to describe just earlier.
It was wonderful spending time with Jim and Sandy Lovelock yesterday. It was wonderful watching his interview with Tim. He still has that insight. And pithy one liners. But I don’t believe everything he said. Because when he was asked to what extent Gaia has informed his sense of spirituality, he replied he was not a spiritual person.
I talked about this with Andy Jarvis and Sarah Cornell and I think we believe Jim is deeply spiritual. His rituals may be based on engineering and science, but they revolve around Gaia which is at heart a sacred concept. Sacred not in the sense that Gaia must not be interfered with – we, like all life, must interact and affect the Earth. But sacred as in deserving veneration and love. Put that in the centre of the Planetary Boundaries and we may, just, be able to successfully navigate towards a sustainable and flourishing future.
Knowing the physics of reflection, refraction and dispersion does not lessen the beauty of a rainbow. Similarly Earth System Science – Gaia Science – does not lessen the beauty of the Earth. Indeed, a deeper appreciation of Gaia’s 3.7 billion years of development should only increase our love for this cosmologically spectacular being that we are privileged to call our home.
