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SUMMARY
- Inputs and outputs of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere are examined
using a systemic approach.
Geological inputs and outputs are long term,
with a time scale of billions of years, nonrecyclable,
and beyond the capacity of humans to control.
Biological inputs and outputs are short term,
with a time scale of years and decades,
generally recyclable, and subject to human intervention.
Two anthropogenic inputs, fossil-fuel combustion
and permanent indirect artificial combustion, are not recyclable;
therefore, they resemble geological inputs.
- The issue of global climate change is essentially one of time scale.
The human species is acting as an effective agent of geological change,
combusting amounts resembling those of the volcanoes of the past,
albeit within a comparatively short time span.
Climatic changes which would normally take place in millions of years
are instead being accelerated to hundreds of years.
In the geological past, carbon dioxide from volcanic eruptions produced sudden
global warming, and the biosphere counteracted slowly with global cooling.
Cooling has prevailed in the past 360 million years,
but warming has prevailed in the past 21000 years,
particularly in the past 200 years.
- Throughout the eons, the biosphere, with its continuous sequestering of carbon,
created the relatively cool climate conditions under which the human species evolved.
Through his reliance on nonrecyclable combustion,
the human species is now actively engaged in undoing this creation.
The evolution of {\em Homo sapiens}
took place while the carbon lied buried under the surface.
Returning substantial portions of this carbon
back to the atmosphere will bring about global climate change.
For the human species to adapt, the rate of anthropogenic combustion
would have to be reduced to the much smaller geological rates.
Given current emission rates, adaptation does not appear to be likely.
- Thus, we conclude that human societies must reassess
their current overreliance on fossil-fuel combustion to support development.
For development to become sustainable, it has to increasingly tap
renewable sources of energy.
Given the obvious global political, economic, and institutional constraints,
the implementation of a renewable energy strategy has to be accomplished gradually.
A fifty percent reduction in global fossil-fuel
combustion (from 1998 levels) by 2025 may be considered
reasonable or appropriate.
It will be up to the next generation to continue the replacement of
fossil fuels with renewable sources of energy.
In the meantime, the monitoring of global climate change should continue,
the aim being to eventually achieve a measure of stability
in the concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases.
Inaction on this issue effectively amounts to continuing
an experiment of global proportions, i.e., modeling with the quintessential prototype.
- Significantly, the other nonrecyclable combustion
is permanent indirect artificial combustion,
of rates and amounts which are more difficult to quantify than fossil-fuel combustion.
This type of combustion is largely responsible for development as we know it.
Thus, for development to become sustainable,
it must be redefined in such a way that it
minimizes permanent indirect artificial combustion.
- Such development may prove difficult to accomplish.
Mitigation and other creative ways of compensating
for the destruction or elimination of natural ecosystems may
be the only way out of this decidedly human predicament.
The challenge before humankind
is how to achieve economic development without overly relying
on fossil-fuel combustion while minimizing
permanent indirect artificial combustion.
The engineering of this enlightened type of development
is likely to tax the brightest minds of the future.
- To close, sustainable development may be unattainable unless
global society takes bold and effective steps to effectively reduce its
overreliance on nonrecyclable combustion.
The issue having global dimension, the question of environmental ethics arises.
Is it right to recognize the global climate change issue now,
and act in a concerted effort to resolve it?
Or, despite the apparently overwhelming evidence,
is it right to continue to ignore the problem
for the sake of short-term economic gain?
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