Adaptation

It seems I've been watching a lot of Tony Robinson on TV. Over the last few weeks, I've been watching his Man On Earth series about how climate change over the history of Man's time on the planet has affected his existence. The basic message is, environmental change, even dramatic change, is nothing new. Man has survived it, and in some cases thrived because of it. The other central message is that where Man tried to either ignore the change, or else to prevent it, he failed; where Man adapted to it, he survived, and often prospered. In fact, as he demonstrated, in his last programme of the series, in South America, it was the decision to establish elaborate hydraulic and water management systems that allowed some, not only to survive, but to build an impressive Empire, on the basis of the advantages it gave, over others, when drought came. The idea is not new. Marx and Engels, amongst others, wrote about the role of such systems in creating the role of the bureaucratic state in the Asiatic Mode of Production. Although that Mode of Production ultimately became a fetter on productive development, compared with the potential of Capitalism, upon it arose fantastic civilisations, in India and China, that lasted for thousands of years, at a time when Northern Europeans were still living in caves and running around in animal skins.

In contrast, as Engels describes, one of the reasons that the North American Indians remained at the level of hunter-gatherers was the fact that they had access to adequate food supplies, and in the main temperate climates. Only a few progressed to the stage of animal husbandry. The relation between climate and development cannot be seen as a simple one. The first civilisations that arose in Mesopotamia and in the Nile Valley, were able to do so, largely because the favourable climate, and fertile soils, enabled Man to cater for his basic needs with little expenditure of labour-time, leaving time free to investigate the world around him, to gaze at the stars etc, and to spend time building pyramids. It is probably the fertile soils, which enable agriculture to begin, which explains why Man settled down here, but did not in North America.

There was an interesting programme on Discovery Knowledge, a few days ago, on a similar subject, on locating the Garden of Eden. It too pointed out that the Bible account of the Creation dates approximately to the time that Man actually began to settle down, and civilisation begins. The account places the Garden in Mesopotamia, and according to the programme the actual location appears to be on the Iraqi/Turkish border.

But, returning to the environment, the other thing I was watching last week was the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, which, this year, was looking at the 300 million year battle between plants and animals. It too, looked at the role of changing climate in that battle. Again the message, as with Man on Earth, was that climate change is nothing new in Man's, and the Earth's, history, and those species have done well, which adapted to that change.

In a sense, this ought to give us pause for thought, in all the current debates about climate change, and what to do about it. It may well be the case that Man is a big contributor to climate change, but, on the other, it could just be that we are so egocentric, as a species, that we cannot comprehend that the planet might be changing for reasons outside our control. If that is the case, the danger of ignoring that possibility is far greater than the danger of ignoring the fact that Man might be responsible. For example, the main reason that Earth is not a dead planet, like Mars, is the fact that we have a magnetic core, which acts to shield the Earth from the cosmic rays, which burnt off the atmosphere of Mars. Scientists believe that the Earth's magnetism could be about to disappear. Some place the date for that as being 1200 years away, some much sooner. But, that is just one catastrophic change. There are many normal features of the Earth, as a living planet, for example in relation to the Long-term carbon cycle, and the effects on volcanoes etc. that could at a stroke put far more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than Man is responsible for.

If the Earth's climate does what it has done in the past, and simply changes irrespective of what Man does or does not do to try to change it, then those societies will survive and prosper that prepared for such change and adapted to it. As Tony Robinson pointed out, the societies that are most likely to be able to do that are those which are already developed, which have the resources, and the technological know-how to adapt and respond. After all, if we look at those advanced countries, they are already the ones that have cleaned up the mess produced by the Industrial Revolution in their own countries, they are the ones that have installed the more efficient and less polluting energy systems. It is the very poorest of societies that cannot afford to do so, that are led to over use the land, to burn dung on their fires etc, and all of the consequences of that.

As Bjorn Lomborg points out, if we really want to clean up the environment then the most effective means of doing so is to enable all of these societies to develop as rapidly as possible so that they too can share all the benefits that the already developed economies have, in being able to afford to introduce environmental measures, to invest in more efficient energy systems and so on.

After all, even were all the measures agreed at Kyoto, to be fully implemented, it would only delay the rise in global temperatures by just 6 years!!! Spending, all of the billions of dollars required under current projects - most of which, as with all State capitalist interventions, will simply disappear into some bureaucratic black-hole of lucrative salaries and contracts for the already rich - on developing these economies would speed up the day, in which they could both invest in cleaning up their environments, and would enable them to adapt to environmental changes, which might in any case be inevitable.