Global warming, HIV epidemic, Credit crunch - Can mankind ever prevent a crisis?

If an asteroid were hurtling toward the earth, what will it take to successfully respond to it? We must find out ahead of time about the asteroid. We must convince the right people that it is indeed on collision course to Earth. Our world leaders must craft an appropriate plan. We must then execute the plan to perfection because we don't get a second chance. Can this sequence happen? Sure, it can. We have equipment sophisticated enough to peer far into outer space. And extinction of humanity is reason enough for us to unite in responding to it. Now, if only all crises were to be this easy! Consider these,

What if the asteroid were to have a 40% chance of hitting Earth? How does that change our response?

What if the only way to destroy the asteroid is a nuclear missile which will also result in radioactive fallout on the side of the Earth facing the asteroid at the time of impact?

What if the asteroid is small enough to not destroy the entire planet and is estimated to hit South America? And the continent needs to be evacuated before hand.

Clearly, even a mankind unifying crisis can have way too many variables to quickly result into inaction.

Take global warming for example.Interesting links on this topic first (Oceans absorbing more CO2, 3 km squared wind mills can run US cars, What's the worst that could happen?). Here are some statistics,

• Since the mid 1970s, the average surface temperature has warmed about 1°F.
• The Earth’s surface is currently warming at a rate of about 0.32ºF/decade or 3.2°F/century.
• The eight warmest years on record (since 1850) have all occurred since 1998, with the warmest year being 2005.

Per this data, clearly there isn't yet a call to action. No one cares. No one believes there will be a noticeable change during their lifetime. But at the same time burning fossil fuels powers our cars, gets us from place A to place B, runs our trains and businesses. Clearly, we trade off a much higher impact future problem for fixing closer and currently more impacting problems (such as driving cars from point A to B, building tanks and missiles, running huge data centers most of which index porn anyway etc.). Now hold on to this thought (I'll bring this up later).

Why do we do this? Is this the tragedy of the commons at work?

If I don't drive a car to work everyday, someone else will, right? If I get one car off the highway, it shouldn't matter, right? If I don't vote in the presidential election, nothing should turn out different, right? After all how many elections were decided with a 1 vote margin? If my country were to heavily tax oil usage for manufacturing (in order to take greener alternatives), we will be left behind by newly industrialized nations, right?

Now consider for one second, that the world had exactly 4 people (and substantially scale up the impact each of our actions has on the environment for arguments sake). How will they react? Getting one car off the roads will be 25% lower carbon emission. Huge, huge improvement! Getting one car off the roads is noticed by 75% of the population and you feel great! Hold on to this thought (I'll bring this up later).

Take the HIV epidemic as a second example. I won't go into the credit crisis as we all know what happened there. Why is HIV an epidemic, while other serious viruses like small pox, Ebola have been kept under control? At least 2 reasons why. Firstly, HIV takes a long time to take effect on an infected person. Secondly, the act of infection has no visible impact. Draw a parallel with global warming? Effect of our action takes a long time to manifest as symptoms. And each individual action causes no visible impact. Mankind cares greatly about a deadly disease like small pox that makes hideous boils and kills you in a little time. Not so much about HIV.

Where is all this chatter going? It's how our collective mind seems to operate.

We are faced everyday by a variation of the innovator's dilemma. Do we forego that quick car ride from home to office in order that we save the Earth in the long run? Or will that quick car ride give us much more value at present and we just go do it.

We succumb to the tragedy of the commons everyday. Will we not fire up that grill assuming that my neighbors will at some time stop doing so as well? Or do we just fire it up anyway, because we know Mr. Smith next door will do so anyway. This problem is even worse when you have 6 billion Mr. Smith's potentially wanting to fire up the grill.

We don't see a real threat until we start seeing symptoms. That fisherman will need to see his catch decrease every year. That beach house owner needs to see high tide creep closer and closer. And as long as these changes take incredibly long to happen, but at the same time leaving irreversible damage on the way, will we ever see? Similarly, the good fisherman who drives a Prius must be able to see how much longer his catch will sustain.

Leave you thinking with an idea. What if we created a web application for people to log their public transport commuting hours and other such environmentally good actions. And translate that into a bold statement "Earth's life span increased by 2 hours thanks to last week's commuting". Or "2 more dolphin babies able to live an entire lifetime due to decreases in use of charcoal". Now, how this can be done is a good problem to be solved. But it begins to help all three of the above issues.

Comments

[Param]

Have you thought abt it - Human beings are the only creatures in the evolutionary chain which want to make sure that everything is preserved abt the way we live ?

We want to stop the earth from changing (evolving) so that we can have everything we currently have while slowing down the evolution turbine..

Q: What if an asteroid hits earth or Global warming makes the earth un-inhabitable by human beings ?

A: Natural or man-made changes will cause the evolution to continue, wiping out what is already there and make another fitter creature evolve and survive (may be more intelligent than us).

[Chris Devaraj]

That is true, Param. And I do think the survival instinct is alike in all species. The instinct could be stronger, quicker in some species than another. And some species can actually do something when their survival is threatened in a global way. Human beings happen to be one of those. Definitely good point about evolution. One thing to add there is evolution is not a conscious decision. But survival is :)

[Ajay]

Um...where is the incentive to do good in the web application idea? If you tie it in to something like Microsoft's commute incentive program, maybe. But otherwise implied incentives (carpool lanes or special faster lanes for buses, bus passes, expensive gas) work better. Websites telling you how much good you are doing can get sanctimonious and tiring quite quickly, no?

[Chris Devaraj]

Hey Ajay, that makes sense. There has to be personal value prior to network value. I'm thinking how can we leverage social media to change the world/environment. You have ideas?

In addition, that is the crux of the problem. There has to be economic incentive even when our very lives are at stake. That's where green jobs come in I suppose. Once you have an industry that is flourishing while being green, a bunch of good things start to happen. There is marketing for that industry. There are people whose livelihood depends on the industry doing well. They start to be more environmentally conscious or at least use their own products.

But as long as there is more money to be made when being ungreen than when being green - what we gonna do? :)

[Ajay]

I don't know, really. One way I can think of is catch 'em young. Entrenched attitudes may take a generation to change. e.g. if you go to India in Diwali now, firecrackers aren't used much in cities anymore. Most schools teach how bad their sound and air pollution is, and children are refusing to buy these. Children influence buying decisions at home significantly.

Effective campaigning may help - smoking is definitely socially unacceptable now and probably not growing. This is a combination of economics ( taxation on cigarettes) and lots of advertising.

[Micheal00026]

Appreciate your literary grace, is well written
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