A 1.5 degree Course Change?

 In his short story Typhoon, Joseph Conrad, the early 20th century author famous for his tales of the sea,  describes the story of a steam ship and its Captain, who  “having just enough imagination to carry him through the day, and no more“, ignores the conventional wisdom to avoid early signs of bad weather and steams straight into a vicious storm. A fight for survival ensues.

“I don’t believe you can make a man like that understand anything“ despairs Jukes, the first mate, when the Captain misunderstands his indignation that, rather than sail under his native red ensign, the ship sets sail under a foreign flag.

“What’s the matter with the flag“ says Captain Mac Whirr “it looks alright to me“.

Conrad sums up the Captain’s mundane character thus -“The sea itself…..had never put itself out to startle the silent man, who seldom looked up, who wandered innocently over the waters with the only visible purpose of getting food, raiment and house-room for his family ashore…..Captain MacWhirr had sailed over the surface of the oceans as some men go skimming over the years of existence to sink gently into a placid grave, ignorant of life to the last….. Had he been informed by an indisputable authority that the end of the world was to be finally accomplished by a catastrophic disturbance of the atmosphere, he would have assimilated the information under the simple idea of dirty weather, and no other, because he had no experience of cataclysm, and belief does not necessarily imply comprehension.”

Jukes tries to respectfully warn of the approaching Typhoon by telling the Captain “what ever there might be about, we are heading straight into it”.

At the suggestion of a change of course the Captain explodes “To Eastward? You want me to haul a full powered steamship four points to eastward just to make the Chinamen comfortable?….What put it into your head that I would start to tack a steamer as if she were a sailing ship? …..suppose I went swinging off my course and came in two days late and they ask me ‘where have you been all that time?’ ‘Went around to dodge bad weather‘ I would say. ’Must have been dam’ bad weather ‘ they would say. ‘Don‘t know‘ I would have to say ‘I dodged clear of it.’”

So its full ahead into the storm. The ship, crew and passengers take a battering, only just survive  and arrive in port looking like a wreck. After Conrad’s wonderful descriptive prose he ends the story concluding that the skipper “ got out of it very well for such a stupid man“.


I’m struck by the relevance of this short story, from over a century ago, to our modern world. 

Are we  not being warned by scientists of approaching bad weather and all the disruptive effects of human induced climate change? Are we not full steam ahead in our high tech world, detached from nature, ploughing on at full throttle into a  massive storm of our own making?. Like captain MacWhirr, do we not lack the imagination and sense to take avoiding action, but by putting our faith in new inventions. think that we will be able to ride out the rough seas and make it to better times ahead?

We will shortly exceed 1.5 degrees C of human induced global warming and temperatures will keep rising beyond that. A few decades ago, our governments set targets. but then did nothing of any consequence. We were warned what was coming, but like Captain MacWhirr, lacked the imagination to see it. We now think we can adapt or invent a technological solution and delude ourselves we are detached from nature, like a steamer independent of the wind.  We are still unable to accept why it is vital that we lose our addiction to fossil fuels as it is not urgent, but very important. And how can we explain at a future date why we changed, if no disasters occurred? Similarly, as Conrad highlights. we cannot comprehend the approaching cataclysm, as we have no experience of it. But  change we must, because the difference between Conrad’s story and ours is, the coming storm will not pass, it will be permanent

How stupid are we?

But It’s never too late to change course. As Captain MacWhirr says "She ain't lost yet".
 

The use of the world is ultimately a personal matter

" What happens under the rule of specialization [of labour] is that, though society becomes more and more intricate, it has less and less structure. It becomes more and more organised, but less and less orderly. The community disintegrates because it loses the necessary understandings, forms, and enactments of the relations among materials and processes, principles and actions, ideals and realities, past and present, present and future, men and women, body and spirit, city and country, civilization and wilderness, growth and decay, life and death - just as the individual character loses the sense of responsible involvement in these relationships.

The only possible guarantee of the future is responsible behaviour in the present. When supposed future needs are used to justify misbehaviour in the present [or equally, supposed present needs used to ignore the future], as is the tendency with us, then we are both perverting the present and diminishing the future…..

Although responsible use may be defined, advocated, and to some extent required by organisations, it cannot be implemented or enacted by them. The use of the world is finally a personal matter, and the world can be preserved in health only by the forbearance and care of a multitude of persons."

- THE UNSETTLING OF AMERICA by Wendell Berry 1987

The words above resonate with me, so I repeat them here for you. Does not the first paragraph describe the modern world, the second our current denial of our responsibilities, and the third the fact that we can't rely on Governments, Companies or Institutions to resolve the problem of man made pollution of the air, sea and land?

 

Human behaviour Explained

The writer of a letter published in the New Scientist magazine declares that fathoming human behaviour is hard. However, if we condense the point of a humans life to be, firstly survive by the easiest means, then climb the social status ladder as high as possible so we can  reproduce with the best genes possible,  followed by bring up the kids and grand kids, and finally run out of energy and die - then perhaps things become clearer. 

From this premise it is easy to see that we crave approval and status within our social groups, (as this makes survival and reproduction alot easier) so we will usually follow group behaviour, even when it is not the morally right or intelligent thing to do. Our infrequent but continued use of war and violence is explained as a short cut for low status individuals to gain wealth & status thus becoming more attractive to the opposite sex.. Our reluctance to reduce CO2 emissions, even though we know they are damaging our planet, can be explained as to do so, means changing our high consuming, high status, oil based life styles, that demonstrates what  great genes we have and how successful offspring will be, if they are mixed with yours.

 Evidence – I’ve just told my partner I will never fly again and was threatened with the end of our 14 year relationship!!! I suppose it all boils down to sex in the end. 

Or will intelligence finally over ride our selfish genes?