Multi-Genre Research Paper Letter to Reader

Dear Reader,

This has been, without a doubt, a long and arduous process. After reading a book on math, I eventually settled on reading Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinctinon, a nonfiction book about the current wave of extinctions that could eventually qualify as a mass extinction. I chose geoengineering as my eventual topic over more structured, mathematical ideas, such as investigating the S = cAz or extinction rates over time. My reasoning for this lay in the fact that geoengineering is a complex topic that integrates both scientific and philosophical ideas, because it has so many ethical issues playing into its controversy. This made it interesting to write and think about for lengthy amounts of time, and made writing my creative pieces more than a contrived exercise, because I really didn’t want to write poetry about logarithms.

As you will see, the root of my project is the expository essay, which weighs the pros and cons of geoengineering and ends up settling on the qualification that geoengineering is too risky to be applied right now, but should be researched more as a “backup” for the future. In writing the essay, I focused on solar radiation management through silicates, creating reflective silicon dioxide, because this is by far the most viable and written about method of geoengineering.

My “golden thread” begins with structure. As I was writing the expository essay, I blanched at the fact that I had to waste so much of my limited space writing background on the issue and not dealing with the abstract nuances of weighing it, which are what I believe to make geoengineering such a cool controversy. In weighing the pros and cons, a ton of abstract ideas “speak” to one another, which informed the creative pieces I wrote. Therefore, my first 3 genres, entitled “Ideology,” “Complexity,” and “Pragmatism,” are inserted into the expository essay in spots that balance a break in the text, so as not to interrupt the flow of the essay, and parts that need some more clarification of these major topics. These are italicized to ensure that they aren’t confused with the essay. “Complexity” takes the form of a fictional speech. “Pragmatism” is a set of three haikus, economizing words and space well. “Ideology” is a characterization as inspired by Ruth Gendler’s Book of Qualities.

Because I wanted to refer to the connections between these abstract ideas, the trio of ideas are mentioned throughout each other’s features, trying to demonstrate how ideology is at odds with complexity and pragmatism, etc. To further this idea of the interconnected nature of the abstractions in relation to geoengineering, my final piece, a fictional article from The Economist, relates these three ideas in a more direct way to geoengineering.

If I’ve succeeded in this project, you should expect two things: to learn a little bit about geoengineering and to think about the abstract roots of the controversy.

Thanks,

Ben Foutty

Geoengineering: A Controversy

Coined “the anthropocene” for a reason, today’s environmental crises, between global warming, ocean acidification, and extinction, are unique in history in being caused and accelerated by human actions (Kolbert). In response, geoengineering, the deliberate adjustment of the Earth’s atmospheric or geological composition in order to control its climate, has emerged as an alternative to more traditional cap-and-trade and emission reduction proposals. Despite its potential to drastically change climate, geoengineering has ethical and technological drawbacks (Ibid.). Though climate change may force society’s hand eventually, these drawbacks are significant enough that more traditional options should be implemented before resorting to geoengineering.

The current state of climate change is characterized by inaction. Despite near consensus of scientists and doomsday predictions of passing arbitrary milestones (CITE), governmental and non-governmental actions to combat global warming remain small-scale, local affairs. As long as mitigation of emissions is the primary mechanism for combating global warming, this is unacceptable. Global climate change summits, between the Kyoto and Copenhagen conventions, failed to limit powerhouse industries, such as the U.S., China, and India. Organizations such as the IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, setting sights on up to 480 ppm CO2 by 2100, a conservative bar that could be over the 2oC growth that scientists have marked as a red line. Yet, even depending on mitigation to limit to that amount would require drastic decreases in the rate of CO2 emissions across all industries, including near-zero gigatons of emissions/year for industry and negative emissions for electricity (IPCC, 28). The fundamental flaw of mitigation is, from an economic perspective, simple. Emissions are an externality, because the costs of emitting CO2 affect the society, not the company that emits, it’s difficult to limit that company’s emissions. Sweeping plans such as carbon taxes and cap-and-trade fail time and time to gain traction beyond small portions of the western world. Mitigation conflicts with the economic goals of countries nationwide.

Geoengineering provides all the pace and realistic solutions that mitigation can’t. Though not powerful enough alone to turn the clock back on climate change, it could be used in conjunction with mild, more reasonable levels of mitigation to halt global warming. Though there are varying ideas to geoengineer the Earth, from as small as planting massive amounts of trees or dumping limestone into the ocean to as large as erecting mirrors in the sky. However, for brevity, I will focus on the most viable geoengineering scheme from perspectives of timeliness and effectiveness, which is putting aerosols into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight. These aerosols, sulfates, react in the atmosphere to create sulfur dioxide, which reflects some incoming sunlight. In essence, it’s the anti-greenhouse effect. It’s estimated that “one kilogram of well placed sulfur in the stratosphere would roughly offset the warming effect of several hundred thousand kilograms of carbon dioxide” (Victor et. al.). This kind of plan could begin to change temperatures within the decade and provide a far (economically speaking) cheaper option than mitigation. From a practicality perspective, it wins over mitigation, the status quo, on most counts.

Pragmatism: A Set of Haikus

Pragmatism guides

Allowing to weigh data

To make decisions

Unlike ideologues

Pragmatics balance, simple

And complexity

Yet, it’s not perfect.

Factors of an unknown type,

Can’t be accounted.

The arguments against this style of geoengineering are twofold, between logistical and ethical issues. Logistically, because geoengineering is a unique, novel enterprise, there is no infrastructure in place for it to begin. Who would have control of such an ordeal? Further, determining the precise amounts of sulfates necessary would be difficult, because the atmosphere is finicky beyond belief. Even our most powerful supercomputers are forced to approximate solutions; there is a wide variety in the output of climate simulations. Erring too far one way or another could have disastrous results for the climate. Other environmental problems could also arise. It would be good to keep global temperatures from rising, but if sulfates caused extreme amounts of acid rain or upset weather patterns, that would be far worse.

Complexity: A Speech

We live in the era of big data and analytics, the era in which a number is placed on everything. Models and numbers dictate every step of every day, from the traffic lights that tell us when to move about to the manner in which manufacture the goods we handle to the credit card scanner you have to use to buy a coffee. These models, this ability to represent and forecast the real world with data, are part of the reason that society today is more productive, in most senses of the word, than it has ever been before. This has been done through grasping huge amounts of data coming from all sorts of streams, and analyzing.

Despite all of this progress, there are still limits to what we as humans can evaluate and understand. Some of these are intrinsic to the form of the world; quantum mechanics dictates that there’s never going to be a way to project exactly what happens to every molecule at any point in time. Yet, in many more ways, it’s complexity that hinders us from understanding. The brain, to a large extent is still a mystery to us; the weather will never be able to be predicted perfectly because it is far too chaotic. Only recently have people started to .

In my mind, big data should’ve gotten us to understand complexity that much sooner. The only way we are able to even begin to make sense of complex ideas, from traffic to the atmosphere to evolution, is through applying “big data” ideas. Even these can’t get us to the “right answer.” And yet, as I’ve sat through science and math classes, the “one right answer” to every problem is a consistent feature. People who love numbers get frustrated in English class where there may be complexities to grapple with at a much higher rate than in their math or science classes. “Yes or no” questions are preferred to the ones that require explanation.

I guess what I’m getting at is to implore you to embrace the complexities, the flaws in any solution you see. Don’t accept the simple solutions you’re fed without questioning where the flaws are, the incongruities, the little details that couldn’t be accounted for. What are the ethical consequences, the side effects ignored, the extra cases? Thinking about these things are the way that boundaries of human knowledge are pushed, not through accepting the output of some model or other as the truth, or near-truth. Use numbers as a mean to begin to understand complexity, not to simplify or try and provide quick and easy solutions.

Geoengineering is often met with blind criticism. A scoffing remark about how large the hubris of humanity must be to alter our own atmosphere is normal in response to hearing about such a plan. However, the deeper ethical issues are rooted in the questions of who gets to determine the climate that affects the daily lives of each and every person on the planet. Minute adjustments by whoever in control would affect the weather felt by the entire world, a large proportion of which still depends on agriculture, a weather-dependent field, as a means of sustenance and stability. Giving any one person this much control, without democratic means in which everyone could have a say, is bound to cause issues (McLaren).

Ideology

Ideology has his daily routine down pat. Every day, he awakes to the same alarm and dresses in the same blue hue of his pristine, ironed sweatsuit. He walks to the grocery, cane extended in front of him as usual (Ideology is blind, after all) to buy a bowl of Cheerios, without milk, as Ideology likes to keep things as simple as possible. After sifting through the tiny o’s, he wanders back home, strolling lazily down sidewalks and holding up traffic. Any annoyed comments directed at him were met by the snark of a guilt trip. Ideology is a loner, a maverick, even though deep down he craves the agreement of others. To pass the time, Ideology sits up in his tower-like attic, turning his head towards the window. With NPR buzzing in the background, Judgement, his sole friend, sitting at his side, he imagines his neighbors scurrying about below. He paused only to make the occasional call in to NPR, giving everybody a piece of his mind.

One day, though, Ideology had had enough of NPR. All he ever heard was of people who had fallen below his lofty expectations. So, after his daily walk to the grocery, he went past his house, guided by his cane to the edge of a bluff. Ideology stood on his soapbox and yelled out across the valley at the world. Yet, after an hour of rant, Pragmatism came behind him and put a hand on his shoulder, quieting him. Wasting little more time, Pragmatism shoved Ideology off the edge. Ideology perished.

Despite geoengineering’s promises of a relatively quick and easy solution to our warming globe, it still has great logistical uncertainties and ethical problems. By all means, it must be investigated further as a possible solution, and possible side effects should be studied. At some point in the future, if climate change has worsened and mitigation is even less viablce then it is today, then the pace and promise of geoengineering will almost surely outweigh the benefits. However, as of present day, when the pathway of mitigation is still open, despite barriers, the environmental and ethical risks of geoengineered should remain in laboratory study, and not in practice.

Sulfates in atmosphere causes unwanted side effects - March 11, 2067

Two decades ago, we began to inject sulfates into the upper levels of the atmosphere in a concerted, global efforts to control rampant global warming. This paper covered the story closely, as well as the well-documented fears of terrorism and accountability for possible errors. Alas, the latter fears were unnecessary, as there has been no threat or major errors in climate stability. The mean global temperatures have fallen almost precisely as predicted and sea levels have begun to recede, opening swathes of low-lying areas for repopulation. Given the goals that the IPCC team who led this project set out for themselves, they would surely call this a victory.

And yet, we have begun to see numerous problems, most unforeseen, arise from this geoengineering. Numerous studies have cited higher incidence of breathing-related diseases, and they tend to point to sulfur dioxide’s status as an air pollutant as a leading reason. Ozene depletion, a 20th century problem that was solved for the most part, has gained traction as an environmental catastrophe, and skin cancer rates have risen.Acid rain has become far more common, hurting everything from small buildings and infrastructure to human treasures, such as the Great Pyramid. Perhaps worst of all, weather patterns have been upset to a far greater extreme than predicted. Droughts and flooding are on the uptick, with some regions, such as Southeast Asia, an agrarian society still, going nearly devoid of water. CO2 mitigation attempts have failed since the geoengineering scheme, as they are now viewed as pointless. All the while, the oceans have continued to acidify, and some leading climate scientists are saying that huge areas of the ocean, from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific, are on the brink of environmental disaster.

This newspaper admits vocal support to the plan while it was proposed and executed. We ran story after story praising the actions of the IPCC team, while criticizing the ideologues who insisted that continuing to alter the Earth’s atmosphere, albeit with more purpose than before. Yet, in retrospect, we erred in our pragmatic approach to the issue, just as the team of scientists did. We placed too much weight on what we did know, and far too little on the unknowns. Failing to grasp the full scale of the complexities of the atmosphere, we failed to take the latter into account. We implore the IPCC to investigate alternative, generally safer options going forward.

Works Cited

IPCC. "Climate Change 2014 Synthesis Report Summary for Policymakers." (2014): n. pag. IPCC, 2014. Web. 20 May 2015.

Kolbert, Elizabeth. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

McLaren, Duncan. "Where’s the Justice in Geoengineering?" The Guardian. N.p., 14 Mar. 2015. Web. 20 May 2015.

David G. Victor, M. Granger Morgan, Jay Apt, John Steinbruner, and Katharine Ricke (March–April 2009). "The Geoengineering Option:A Last Resort Against Global Warming?". Geoengineering. Council on Foreign Affairs. Retrieved August 19,2009.

Blog Post #2

I finished Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction as impressed as I was with the first few chapters. Though she ended up covering a few subjects that I was already familiar with (end of megafauna, discovery of neanderthal and other hominid remains, etc.) she managed to continue to engage and offer new perspectives. My plan for this post is to offer a few different options of focus, in a bulleted form, and suggest some pluses and minuses to each (I hope this is kosher with you Romano).

• Investigating the roots of the # of species vs. area relationship. In essence, in ecology, there’s a generalizable rule that the # of species found is proportional to the area tested to some power (i.e., a log-log plot would linearize the data). There are some interesting theories out there, some with regard to thermodynamics, other more ecological accounts, that could make for an interesting expository. Further, explaining where the constants of the proportionalities come from, or what causes them to change in different situations, would be an interesting perspective.
• Symmetry between what’s going on today and the previous 5 “big extinctions.” Though the scientific establishment isn’t sure what caused each of the “Big 5,” we do have some inkling. In many cases causes were similar to the current causes of extinction.
• The compounding nature of our current ecological disaster and the feedback loops that make it worse. Global warming, ocean acidification, loss of biodiversity, habitat loss, and the threat of invasive species are all major factors, and it would be cool to see how they play off of one another.
• What makes our current situation a “mass extinction?” This would require investigating “background extinction rates” and data from the early 21st century on extinction in order to come up with evidence that leads most people to think of this as the “Sixth Extinction”
• Kolbert speaks to it tangentially, but there are a few factors about our current predicament that make it unique, due to human presence, and that would be an interesting subject. At no other point in Earth’s history has there been an organism that can effect change to the extent that humans can. Yes, it has caused most of our problems, giving this era the name “anthropocene,” but some of the potential solutions, from geoengineering to plans to combat survival are worth talking about. There are also some interesting human perspectives on these said issues.
• My final idea is that I could write about the changing perspectives that humanity has taken over time on the possibilities of extinction and our own ability to change the landscape we live in. The history of science over the last 3 centuries, at which point extinction wasn’t even believed to be possible, to date, when we are knowingly on the verge of a mass extinction, is littered with interesting figures and perspectives that Kolbert’s book only had time to mention.

That’s pretty much what I’ve got right now. I’m going to be mulling these and doing some preliminary research on each over the next two days to make a decision by Wednesday, and then (hopefully) write the expository piece over Thursday.

Blog Post #1

My independent reading book for the quarter is The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert. As to my progress, I am not especially far along; just a few chapters in. Up until a few hours ago, I was going to go with a very different book, a much denser read about pure math. However, I changed my mind for reasons that I will get into.

The Sixth Extinction is a nonfiction book that reads, so far, with far more flair that would be expected. Kolbert writes about the possibility that we are on the verge of a sixth “mass extinction” that could rival the “big five” extinctions that geologists and evolutionary biologists have been able to track through the fossil record so far, the last bringing the end of the dinosaurs. Upon my early reading, one idea that Kolbert touched on was enticing. She writes of how surprising it is that we are currently witnessing a truly rare moment in natural history. There’s a level of introspective appreciation in her view that is inspiring, and she claims that her goal in writing the book is not to condemn or describe objectively, but rather communicate this awe at the scope and improbability of the current wave of extinctions. While I’m not sure if this is a topic that warrants a “discovery” or mulit-genre paper, I definitely want to allude to it in whatever I’m doing, because it’s a cool idea.

There are a number of more “nitty-gritty” details in The Sixth Extinction that could be possible roots of my eventual project. For one thing, the biological and ecological roots of the extinction is a topic that I would like to learn a bit more about; I’m sure I will find something “scientific” over the course of the book that will drive me to ask questions. For instance, in discussing a bacteria (I’ll refer to it as Bd rather than using the lengthier name), Kolbert mentions that Bd prevents frogs from absorbing necessary proteins through their skin, and those has driven species to extinction. Well, how does this prevention actually work? Why and how do frogs absorb proteins through their skin? Why now but never before? These are all questions I could do research on. Further, Kolbert spends some time, beyond natural history, to a kind of “history of natural history,” chronicling the discoveries and people that got us to our current state of natural history and extinction. With a bit of digging, I’m sure I could focus on some aspect of history in writing about this current ecological topic, whether profiling a person or the history of an idea like extinction or species.

That’s pretty much where I am so far. I’m planning on finishing my book in the next day or two in the midst of AP testing, and I’ll have much more information and focus once that happens.