Lecture Notes: Mickey Glantz - Our War with Nature

Mickey Glantz - Consortium for Capacity Buildings at INSTAAR

Lecture date: Nov 11, 2008

The global soup - we are all an essential ingredient

Early warning systems - more important than governments realize. In times without crisis, there is always pressure to take away money. This does not make sense.

"Time, the tide, and global warming wait for no one." The challenge of creeping environmental problems.

Impacts research has become the new frontier of global warming investigation. Is this the best thing on which to focus our efforts?

Human modification of climate an ancient practice. What will the future look like? Geo-engineering schemes to control climate change: solution? or a whole new type of disaster?

• Towing icebergs to Africa!
• Thermal mountains!
• Damning the Mediterranean Sea!
• Aerosol injections into the stratosphere!

So many exclaim: "Technology is the answer!" But what was the question??

Modeling the climate system without people: wrong! We live in the Anthropocene - we are the new era of the earth!

Nature and society interactions: humans dominate nature, humans subordinate to nature, humans in harmony with nature. How do we achieve harmony?

Commoner's 4 laws of ecology (applied to climate):

1. Everything is connected to everything else
2. There is no such place as "away"
3. Everything is always changing
4. There is no such thing as a free lunch

Ecosystem goods and services for human well being vs. human goods and services for ecosystem well being... hmmm

We need nature, nature does not need us!