Learning to look ahead again

October 28, 2005 - If we were to invent a time machine, I would want to see what it was like in Africa, 100,000 years ago when our species was just born. If you have been to the Serengeti, you know how impressive the variety and abundance of animals are, even today. A hundred millennia ago, the diversity and concentration would have been far greater. In that context, the small groups of naked apes who were our ancestors would not have been very impressive. After all, there weren't many of us, we weren't very big, fast or strong, nor was our vision, smell or hearing very acute.

But we did have a special advantage - the most complex brain ever known. That brain compensated for our lack of sensory and physical prowess, conferring a massive memory, curiosity and inventiveness. And one of that brain's inventions was the concept of a future. Our ancestors recognized that they could shape that future by making deliberate choices in the present. Foresight was the great leg up that enabled our species not only to survive but to flourish. We are now the dominant species on the planet, the most numerous mammal in the world and so powerful that we are affecting the biological, physical and chemical makeup of the biosphere.

And that is why climate change has become a major issue. It is astounding to me that today, with all the increased brainpower to give us greater predictive powers, we no longer use foresight as our forebearers did. For decades now, the leading scientists of the world have been telling us that we are on a dangerous path, that we are compromising the air, water, soil and energy by our activities, and that we are undermining the diverse creatures that make this planet habitable by cleansing, capturing, replenishing and creating air, water, energy and soil.

We are upsetting the atmosphere upon which all life depends. In the late '80s when I began to take climate change seriously, we referred to global warming as a "slow-motion catastrophe" - one we expected to kick in perhaps generations later. Instead, the signs of change have accelerated alarmingly.

We saw, when Katrina hit, the consequences of ignoring foresight. Scientists had warned of such a catastrophe for years. Even when the hurricane was forming, experts gave warning days ahead of landfall and evacuation orders were given more than 24 hours before. Yet the richest, most powerful and technologically advanced nation in the world failed to act on the warnings and we all witnessed the disastrous results. What is it going to take to return to the strategy for survival that worked so well for 100,000 years?

The terrible part of this looming catastrophe is that people have been working on solutions for years and have developed concrete steps to massively reduce our energy use, while stimulating whole new industries and technologies that are more efficient and affordable. Indeed, Amory Lovins' Rocky Mountain Institute has released a massive study showing that the United States, the greatest user of oil in the world, can reduce its oil needs by at least 50 per cent while saving money and halting its dependence on foreign energy.

Detractors often point to the variability of analytic models and the lack of absolute certainty. Well, foresight was never absolutely certain. Climatologist Stephen Schneider of Stanford University says, "If the sandwich on the table in front of you has even a 10 per cent chance of having food poisoning, would you eat it?" I know I wouldn't.

Yet here we are playing Russian roulette with features of the planet's atmosphere that will profoundly impact generations to come. How long are we willing to gamble? It's time to take back the critical faculty for survival - foresight - and begin to act as our ancestors did to get us here in the first place.