Gaia is a Complex System

When it comes to Climate Change, many of the topics are interconnected.    After WW II, the great acceleration brought tremendous profits to the carbon industry, which they reinvested in politics,  propaganda and censorship, which affected the  narrative, and the legislative decisions, which affected the amount of CO2 released, which affected the temperatures, which affected the weather, which affected agriculture, which affects food prices, which affects hunger and starvation, which affects wars and migrations which floods Europe with poor refugees, which affects crime rates, which affects people’s personal lives, which affects politics, and how much energy we consume.    There are numerous such interactions in complex systems.  And some of those interactions are positive feedback loops. It gets warmer, the arctic ice melts, more dark sea is exposed to the sun, more energy is absorbed, the arctic heats up and more ice melts.

But there  are also strong negative feedback loops.   More Ice melts, the arctic heats up more than the rest of the world, the temperature difference between the equator and the arctic decreases, the pressure difference decreases, the winds decrease, the polar vortex gets weaker (as does the AMOC), the climate becomes less stable, Europe experiences record heat and drought and cold,  people became aware of the problems with climate change, politicians listened,  the European Union set a target of reducing energy consumption by 55% by 2030.  And they are developing this course to educate the students, who will then educate their friends and families, who will then fly less, drive less, consume less, work less bicycle more, be healthier, spend more time having fun,  and getting more involved with nature. Planting water and trees, practicing regenerative agriculture and permaculture, and growing their own food.  

In complex systems we need to be mindful of unintended consequences.  Import cheaper goods from abroad: shipping generated lots of CO2.  People abroad then get  richer:  now they are cutting down forests to grow meat.    Cut down part of the Amazon, now there is less rain for the rest of the Amazon.   Forest fires get worse.  When the air is bad, people cannot breathe, they cannot walk to work, they drive more.  We want to replace gasoline infrastructure with electric.  In the short run that generates vast quantities of CO2.    The demand for Lithium goes up.    And then there are coups in countries that export Lithium.  There are droughts, farms drill deeper for water.  Now the home owners wells run dry.   And some are considering geoengineering.  God only knows what will happen with that.

This is a difficult course to teach.  The science teacher might focus on the physics of global warming and weather.  The Biology teacher might focus on how the ocean and land ecosystems are being affected.  The historian might focus on how empires were affected in the past when the climate changed.  The social science teacher might focus on the political dynamics of transitioning to a sustainable economy.  The economists, farmers and industrial engineers might be more interested in what the new economy might look like.   The data scientist might want to analyze what is actually happening.  And the anthropologist might be interested in how it affects the indigenous tribes in the Amazon.   The psychologist might be interested in what it is like to be born into a world facing the multiple problems in front of us.  And of course the investors and entrepreneurs are looking for the new business opportunities.



Sadly we live in interesting times.  The good news is that we know what the solutions are to these problems.   And we are educating a generation of students to implement these solutions.