The Future in Perspective

Being carefully turned in the candlelight, crystalline reflections were cast across the scroll strewn desk. Angular yet polished, shining yet black as the unlit night, the previously worthless anthracite was becoming the focus of one of the world’s greatest minds. A pair of well worn hands lightly followed the cleaved boundaries as the rock’s discovery was told by an immaculately turned out senator, his tunic golden in the dim illumination, aptly matching the fossilised amber hanging from the Emperor’s neck. Under the all too common canvas, the politician could feel the tangible weight of his superior’s intellect as the details of extraction and combustion were divulged, almost seeing the birth of industry dancing in those deep eyes; the visions of fully mechanised campaigns that would succeed success in Gaul, life for the populous of the Empire incomparably bettered through plenty and luxury, the spread of civilisation into the wild lands.

Had Marcus Aurelius discovered fossil fuels and thus stimulated an industrial revolution akin to ours, population numbers and moderation notwithstanding, the Earth would now be a very different place. A summer’s afternoon picnic would not blossom amongst the delicate flowers of an alpine meadow, but instead be hosted by a swathe of coarse hardy grass adjacent to some hulking shadow of former industrialised glory. Manufactured fungal protein would replace the sumptuous steak sandwiches, and there would be no orange, chocolate or coffee to amuse the palette. Satiated sunbathing wouldn’t be a temptation, the sky having been scorched by some overzealous geo-engineers a number of centuries ago; fruitless attempts to mitigate rising temperatures. Finally the children, instead of running barefoot through the woodland and gleefully shouting after the wildlife that issued from nearby hollows and boughs, would chatter quietly on the verge of the concreted vehicle bays, each with their virtual reality glasses on, taking the ‘Rainforest Experience’. On returning they ask their equally perplexed parents if they remembered what the forest smelt like.

In this parallel history, the short term decisions the Romans took to revel in a few hundred years of hard earned, high carbon opulence led to the eventual climatic collapse of various natural systems, bequeathing a forced synthetic future, characterised by grey squalor, to almost a millennia of their earthly descendents. If this parallel story was indeed ours, it is curious to think how history would remember the Romans.



If the international climate accord, activities and attitudes remain unchanged, the current cohort of powerful political leaders and subservient civilian voters may become bitterly viewed by the coming generations. The final outcome of the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen was a relatively inert agreement that was a last minute product of two weeks of negotiation; a fortnight dominated by self-service, short-sightedness and confusion. Although it was the first time that developing countries had found such a strong voice in the global arena, the resulting ‘Copenhagen Accord’ lacks any principled substance (such as global emissions targets and related timeframes) that could ensure an ambitious, fair and legally binding climate deal. It also is only “noted” by the UN, not actually adopted, so its function currently remains unclear. The USA, China, and Saudi Arabia are specific parties who have attracted significant criticism in the Copenhagen fallout, commonly being recognised for respectively ignoring their historic responsibilities, blocking the legal aspects of the negotiations, and making all possible moves to disrupt consensus amongst the parties. Rays of light in comparison to these inhibitory fossils were the nation of Tuvalu for strongly voicing the need for a comprehensive agreement, Brazil for volunteering significant finance when not obliged to, and (once again) the UN Secretary General for some remarkable diplomacy.

As a process, these are mere tips of the beautifully proverbial iceberg. There were many more relationships built and lost, hidden discussions, leaked documents and impasses than can possibly be described in a coherent text, and this complexity and inherent dysfunction is causing a number of parties to lose confidence in this entire practice, the faith ironically melting away with the diagnostic icebergs.

So what becomes of the world, particularly those whose ancestors have laboured to create the now drying Sub-Saharan Africa and the now sinking small ocean states, while all the talk continues? Given man’s significant exacerbation of the natural cosmic cycles that have dictated the Earth’s meteorology for billions of years, changes in our activities can genuinely change the climatic path of the world. We have two clear options. We can continue with business as usual, feeding insatiable consumer lifestyles, shying from political boldness and so condemning future humanity to a narrative of struggle in the spluttering world alluded to earlier. Alternatively the existing suite of world leaders, arguably the most powerful people who have ever lived, can use the insubstantial but not meaningless ‘accord’ as a basis for building a strong international treaty during the course of this year, swiftly incentivising all sectors to pursue holistic sustainability. Only with clear guidance within an accepted paradigm will developed society then consider forgoing their ‘rights’ to unlimited electricity, second cars, new shoes and beef Wellington, in so not jeopardising the longevity of folk capriciously born into less fortunate communities.

If we are able to transform our language from the dominating but narrow, short term economics to one that genuinely values natural and human assets, there is yet hope. This very possible alternative unfortunately won’t ensure the perpetual existence of the human race, though it would give foreseeable generations licence to exist more harmoniously amongst both natural and philosophically bright greenery.

Reluctant Reduction

They have an otherworldly appearance, the vigorous pulsing of lifeblood in their core visible through their transparent bodies. The slower metre of their flapping wings placates the scene somewhat, and as the dappled light reflects and refracts through the surface waters, more of their alien details are revealed. To the more youthful they appear as strange, macroscopic butterflies, to the urbanised they take the form of fluttering coffee beans, but the marine biologist discerns the grand significance of their true identify, holoplanktonic pteropods that nourish the very roots of the oceans. Their insubstantial physique renders them powerless against the currents and so they drift wilfully about the world, surrounded by the fathomless depth and splendour of the mighty seas, greeting passing fish and cetaceans with equal foreboding. They take refuge in their delicate multitude, reminiscent of the passenger pigeon’s fluttering billion that used to adorn the North American landscape. But these keystone kin of our garden snails are subject to a different menace, not the ignoble savagery of man but the invisible malevolence of ocean acidification. The incremental increases in surface water acidity, caused by elevated levels of carbon dioxide in the air, are leading to the dissolution of the paltry, translucent shells that the ‘sea butterflies’ use as meagre protection, gravely endangering their existence. Without these and other small calcareous-shelled organisms, there will be minimal meals for the sardines, fewer feeds for the tuna, and so lesser lunches for the sushi lovers amongst us.

This is just another complex ecological system which is being undermined by carbon dioxide emissions and whose health is now masked in uncertainty. The floral composition of the forests is also changing with an unmapped future, and more broadly the Earth itself is warming with suggested but unquantified consequences on the entire biosphere.

The exact scale of carbon dioxide/greenhouse gas reductions has been the main barrier to the progress of the negotiations in Denmark. These emissions always directly correlate with the wealth and comfort of nations, a legacy and existing hallmark of high-carbon development. As the final day of discussion unfolds in Copenhagen, the outlook is bleak. The scientists of the world have communally recommended a global greenhouse gas reduction of 25-40% to avoid dangerous climate change, while the current worldwide average sits at a 17% reduction. There remains a ‘gigatonnes gap’ between what is needed and what is on the table, and the newly mounted salvage operation by the relatively fresh-faced 120 heads of state has become snagged on legal affairs with less than 24 hours remaining. “With the world watching”, as was so often quoted during the opening of the so called High-Level Segment, these climate change negotiations are heading for a spectacularly ominous collapse.

The informed layman still asks “why won’t the governments commit to emissions reductions when the science, ethics and long-term economics are so clear?” The industry, energy, transport, agriculture and forestry sectors that contribute most to global emissions are all essentially driven by demand from people, and should the leadership take actions to limit their growth or welfare, they fear they will be faced with a weakened economy and a disgruntled populous. Democratic governments have thus omitted the erstwhile tradition of imposing big decisions from the top, abandoning the rationing of certain products or commodities for the benefit of all (an approach that was needed and tolerated by wartime civilians of almost all nations during the 1930s and 40s). Governance now seems to be tending towards appealing to the society, respecting our ‘rights’ by relying on individual moral fibre to spurn hard-earned luxuries thereby letting the market enact the green change. Howsoever driven, there is necessity for this green change, necessity gives rise to great invention, and invention is critical to address the coming climate crisis. We will see tomorrow whether this obligation, this necessity will come from our governments above, or we will need to generate it from within ourselves. Tomorrow we will see what tomorrows will hold.

Humane Equity

He scratches deeply into the dry earth with his chieftain’s stick, his exasperation nearing the surface, and crumbles a handful of desiccated soil into my own palm. His fingers trace the groove in the ground where only a decade ago he could have show me the moisture that would have seen his farming community through the dry season. We squat together under one of the few remaining Mahoganies in Eastern Uganda, upstanding more because of its function as a village courtroom than as a thing of magnificent beauty, and he recounts the changes he and the other Iteso people have been experiencing over the past years. The long rains that used to begin in March with the regularity of an automaton, now splutter into life in mid April, almost halving the length of the wet season and leading to food scarcity and water shortages. “Most of the villagers eat only once a day. They eat their cassava before they sleep because it means they have energy in the morning to go out and dig their farms”. He also tells me his wife spends most of her day collecting firewood for cooking, walking further and further afield as a consequence of the expanding sugarcane plantation that now borders the village, a village that was previously surrounded by a cool, dense forest. He knows things are changing but can’t quite explain why. He understands the injustice of the commercial land-grabbing by the plantation but doesn’t yet grasp the injustice of the changing climate. To explain that my own indiscriminate sugar purchasing, and my country’s historic insistence on burning fossil fuels, are both directly responsible (though not wholly responsible) for his children’s now pressing hunger was not a prospect to savour. Climate change, from the capital conference halls to the village courtrooms, makes for some awkward conversations.

This awkwardness and its consequences are radiating from the minimalist meeting rooms in Copenhagen. The current reluctance of industrialised countries to provide sufficient funds to help the emerging world cope with unavoidable loss and damage from climate change is one such example that is generating distrust, which in turn is breeding dysfunction. The principle obligation that the more powerful countries have to broker a fair deal with those less fortunate (and more affected) is not contentious, while their actual unwillingness remains anathematic to the Africa Group, the Association Of Southern Island States and the Least Developed Countries. Numerous analysts furiously speculate on their keyboards that the developed nations are obstinate in their dominance; it seems they won’t have the control wrested from their capable hands by the emerging powers of China and India. The devaluing of this responsibility is epitomised by the potentially clairvoyant omission of the Maldives from the enormous white globe in the centre’s main atrium. The industrial politicians and the globe-makers appear to be in agreement as to the importance of equitable treatment.

If we humans, the most ingenious and creative, cannot cope with the changing environment or treat each other with inherent worth, then what is the prognosis for our fellow characters in the natural drama surrounding us? If some of our most idyllic lands can slip quietly beneath the ocean while we also facilitate the starvation of our own species, then how much more will the animal and plant life be forgotten? If we rely on flawed governance to guide us then I fear we are very likely to be party to (and maybe part of) the 6th mass extinction the Earth has experienced. And yet there is always hope. Despite the iniquities, imperfections and apparent inhumanity of some of the world’s decision makers, the people are not without power. We make our own decisions about lifestyle. We’ve also seen sizeable demonstrations across the globe this week, and although the global consultation that this problem really requires has yet to happen, civil society has enacted unprecedented change in the past. We must let our past inform and ensure our common future, and I’m sure Messieurs Wilberforce, Ghandi and Luther-King are waiting in eager angelic anticipation.

The Forest Breath

In the still darkness the heavy perfume of pine lingers in the air and a lone lark gives a sleepy chirrup from the eternal canopy above. The rest of his kind ruffle their chilled feathers and indignantly ignore the greying eastern sky, while in the growing half-light the blackness begins to show some form; lines pointing heavenwards. A small dark form moves silently over the soft aromatic needles nearby, the martin all the slower from a fine nights foraging and halting at times to sniff, discerning whether danger lies in wait shrouded by the rich scent that envelopes the woods. As he furtively disappears into the dim void, the horizon begins to glow, the celestial fire driving the obscurity from neighbouring lands and lifting the hearts of the daylight creatures. The ethereal chorus of the dawn flows like a spring tide into the forest, arriving to accompany the first shaft of light as it baptises the crown of the greatest Douglas fir. The rays gradually ease down the fingerprint detail of the bark, the growing illumination harmonising the growing choir; trills, warbles, chatters, pips, screeches and hoots all creating a pleasing dissonance amongst the pillars of nature’s cathedral. But the deeper song is more deeply hidden. As the trees draw their mighty daily breath, some say it is possible to feel this soundless bass melody.

Plants and trees have played and continue to play an integral role in our world: they provided our ape-like ancestors with an arboreal home before we took to the savannas; they first colonised the land and, by taking in carbon dioxide and pumping out oxygen, trees radically changed the atmospheric balance into one sympathetic to animal life. Now they not only continue maintaining this delicate carbon balance but also provide humanity with a plethora of other services. These ‘ecosystem services’ include the creation of clean water, the prevention of flooding, the hosting of plant and animal biodiversity (the source of most pharmaceuticals), the provision of harvestable forest produce for indigenous people, and many other aesthetic, spiritual and educational benefits.

In short, forests are essential for the existence of human beings. Whereas this fundamental paradigm is one that has been seemingly overlooked during the growth of economies and populations, it is a centrepiece of the current UN negotiations on climate change in Copenhagen. Deforestation of pristine woodlands continues at a global rate of over 130,000km2 per year, an area roughly the size of England, and makes up about one fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions. As a reference, over the next five years the emissions from deforestation will contribute more to atmospheric pollution than the entire history of air travel since the Wright brothers invented the aeroplane. Tree felling occurs primarily to clear land for agriculture and plantations, while also feeding the international timber trade. The tropical and sub-tropical rainforests, predominantly found in developing countries, are the current front line for deforestation, and the UN parties are at this moment shaping a mechanism by which the affluent developed countries can pay emerging countries to conserve their forests, a mechanism called REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation). It is one of the few elements to these negotiations that many people expect to be successful, though without accompanying agreements on emissions reductions and finance, this colourful proposal for global forest preservation is likely to fade.

Nature's Waterloo?

The silence is profound but strangely incomplete, as the quiet thickness of the water carries the soft scraping of grazing creatures to your ears. The weightlessness is soothing but not quite total, the lethargic grouper gently bobbing with his mass, mirroring your own breath-induced undulations. The vivid vibrancy of the vital colours harks back to the delicate grandeur of the finest botanical gardens, though these winding paths, raised beds, fragile trellises and inviting bowers have been shaped by their own design, surpassing the wonder and finery of the most skilful hands with the simple passage of aquatic time. The minute coral heads stretch longingly into the passing waters. A group of young box fish pilot their yellow cuboid forms amongst some red-hued tentacles, clumsily foraging. The dark eyes of a spotted moray eel leer out from his calcified castle, matching his markings and giving him an even more mythological flavour. The magnificent but terrible form of a white-tip reef shark cruises above as an ominous silhouette, a shadow reminding you that down in this realm it is not man that rules.

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With more sound but in the same manner, the elephant rule the plains. Journeying to the ends of their earth, they track the meandering rains and browse the life-giving greenery, their sonorous sub-sonic calls falling on all ears and announcing their lordly satisfaction. Carrying across the waters, their deep resonance prickles the senses of kindred kings, the big bears that rule their own wooded slopes. They consider everything to be both friend and food, and make stealth and oafishness their trade in equal measure. Relaying this message of majesty, their husky roars break out from the forest and rise up into the clouded kingdom of the warm mountains, the eerie elfin woodlands found rarely in this world. The calls drift around the dwarf trees, slowly moving through the mists and moss, looking in vain for a mighty sovereign. As it becomes almost a dying whisper, it is echoed from up on a deep green leaf, a short, shrill trill from a bright blue tree frog, a humble ruler more by default than by domination.

Such sights, smells and sounds are all food for the soul, boundless reflections of purity that offer the beholder more than just visual splendour. Their untold philosophical worth to our busy, troubled humanity is really without peer, while their role in the functioning of our still natural world has value greater than the greatest of all economies. The richest of ironies is the apparent neglect of this indescribable significance. Without being checked, our penchant for burning things will dangerously exacerbate any natural climatic trends through the greenhouse effect, and leave the reefs bleached and lifeless, the elephant diminished and wandering, the bears more confused and the cloudforests but a memory. The calls of nature’s kingship which carry the story of life itself will be resigned to sadly verbose descriptions in the books of our children. This brings us to the current tale, where the judgement of both ourselves and our environment lies in the hands of the political few, currently congregating in the Danish city of Copenhagen.

The sea chose to cloak the coastal city in haunting mystery during the opening hours of the UN climate change conference. Both the neo-gothic buildings and the rotating blades of the wind turbines periodically disappeared into the fog as we approached the Bella Centre on the unmanned electric metro, our charge presumably being powered by the spinning offshore sentinels. Taking stock as the freezing air drew away our morning vagueness, the homogenously well-shod characters in the registration queue revealed their true international identity, musical accents and strange dialects not heeding the hats, scarves and gloves that they hid behind. Steaming cups of fairtrade coffee were being shared by elaborately dressed activists while a few low budget climate sceptics waved printed handouts at the uninterested line of NGO members, at that point more interested in shelter than in dialog. Still, there remained an undeniable electricity in the air, an uncertainty that was quiet but not calm, the changeable tone of the voices revealing the magnitude of the occasion. Being admitted with our tattered nomination letters and filing past the courteous but edgy security guards, we were met with both an ecologically sensible temperature rise and a marvellously random drama: while a group of South American tribesman beat their drums and blew the horns of their forefathers, a pretty blond girl cycled leisurely past selling organic apples from a basket, a few suited and serious delegates were solving problems over some creamed caffeine, and the bright eyes of all the world were hurrying past to various side events, overflowing with the newfound hope and excitement that has been growing in the past weeks as momentum has built.

Some whispers say that this is the most important international meeting since WWII, while the more zealous insist it’s the most significant in the history of mankind. Whichever way, the negotiations between the plethora of countries that grace Bella’s halls will decide how the industrial world compensates the emerging countries for the climatic damage they’ve inflicted, what the flow of finances will look like to help the poorer countries conserve and adapt, and how these emissions cuts and responsibilities will be shared out. However, at present it, is looking relatively unlikely to draw together a proper, international, legally binding ‘Copenhagen Protocol’; we’ll probably see a ‘framework’ created, with the details filled in later next year. The preparatory discussions have primarily become mired around the responsibilities of the ‘North’ and ‘South’, the negotiations at times more closely resembling an unsuccessful children’s tea party than a progressive climate summit. This is where the magnificent power of true altruism, the selflessness that we witness at battle lines, in the family, and on the pavements, is entirely necessary to resolve this most challenging of problems. Greater harm to both humanity and the nature in which we reside will only be prevented by some level of self-sacrifice. These next two weeks will tell indeed.