Emissions Tuning, Not Industrial Abstinence

Karl T. Muth advocates managing, rather than simply slashing, our level of emissions.

As the 21st century moves onward, left-wing environmentalism continues to look more like Ludditeism, or the worst kind of conservatism. The concept that the world should be preserved at whatever point in time, state, temperature, and biodiversity humans happened to industrialize seems a bizarre, arbitrary, logically-indefensible view. Surely we are not resigned to being mere janitors for the surroundings we suffered in so many years ago.

Why should humans merely be curators or spectators – rather than sculptors – of the world we inhabit? It seems the ultimate mode of silly non-interventionism, irresponsible isolationism, and industrial impotence to simply scale back our polluting activities to affect the environment less. Rather, we should aspire to impact the environment more.

Our aspirations should not be for our presence to be benign, but for our presence to be affirmatively influential. We are not merely this blue spaceship’s passengers or residents. We are its engineers. We're the most brilliant boffins born into this, the heirs of a long monarchy of beasts. Other species may be this vessel's enlistees, but we are its officers. That is not a religious statement, but it is a statement of responsibility – as the most technologically-advanced species (and the only one with the capability to improve the configuration of the ship’s life support systems), we are responsible for everyone aboard, but that does not mean there will be chaos and that does not mean there will be no sacrifices or no casualties.

If we have the ability to have an impact on the environment, which I believe we do, we should not be afraid of our climate change powers any more than we are afraid of our power to make a campfire or our power to dam an otherwise-flood-prone stream. We should exploit our ability to influence the world’s climate.

I think everyone agrees that we should not simply have random, haphazard impacts on our surroundings and that some emissions patterns have been careless. Setting the world’s future climate by building factories in various places to make various things without some broader policy consideration is probably not ideal. After all, we do not set the thermostats in our homes by letting our housecats paw at the dial or by placing possible temperatures on a dartboard.

But simply scaling back industrial activity is not environmentalism or preservation or laudable. It is careless and foregoes one of the most important opportunities of our time and species. Rather, tailoring our industrial activity – including our climate tuning (I prefer the terms “climate tuning” and “terraforming” to “climate change") – to have desirable effects should be the focus.

This may mean vastly increasing our industrial activity and changing its constituent parts. It may mean emitting more particulate in some parts of the earth on a schedule. It may mean purposely blocking out light from the sun using high-altitude emitters or earth-based launchers or smokestacks of already-existing industrial areas.

But setting emissions caps the way most Western leaders suggest is akin to a “one child policy” for emissions. No, it’s worse than that – it’s like preaching abstinence to your half-dozen pet rabbits. Moving emissions around or making them more expensive still only suppresses – but does not manage – the emissions.

Only with a more positive attitude toward our power to influence our environment can we assure that our influence will be positive. We must manage the emissions levels around a string of variables, from agricultural output to water levels. However, the problems involved are not beyond our engineering capabilities or collective intellect.

I don’t know if the optimal emissions amount is higher or lower than the current level, but I do know that we should not merely tend to some biospheric museum in which we are a static exhibit. We should emit the right amount – and the right mix – of chemicals to make the environment as productive as possible for human prosperity, economically and otherwise.

The last two generations (the postwar decades) have seen an assault on mankind’s resolve to control the systems on our intricate spaceship. There has been waning enthusiasm for many of our greatest accomplishments, from vaccination against disease to the harnessing of the atom for electricity. In a tragic sabotage of scientific ambition, children have gone from being told to aspire to be astronauts to being told to be afraid of microwave ovens. We must revive fervent, passionate excitement for science and our use of technology to dominate and control and regulate the state of things – particularly among young people who will need to take on a righteous enthusiasm for these important tasks.

Some argue that this type of emissions-management will require careful, global cooperation. This is true. But so will simply slashing emissions without regard for researching and producing the optimal level of emissions. Both will require an enormous collaborative international effort. So let’s stop trying to just “emit as little as possible” and instead try to “emit the right amount together.” That difference is the difference between fearing our surroundings and being empowered captains of our own destiny.