The problem we have is arrogance. Humans are arrogant in that they think they can solve problems that are beyond their reach. And this arrogance is best summed up in a quote by John F. Kennedy, who said in June of 1963:
"Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings."
Frankly, he's wrong. There are lots of problems created by man that cannot be solved by man. A simple example: I can crash a car, but I can't fix it. And it's ironic that JFK said this a scant 5 months before he had a problem, created by man, that couldn't be solved by man.
This problem problem puts us in a lot of messes. Two of the biggest issues of the past couple of years, the economy and the environment, are being treated as though we can solve them. Most of the debate around global warming has centered on whether it is man-made, as though that means it is man-solvable. Guess what: even if it is man-made, doesn't mean we can do anything about it. We could cut off all CO2 emissions starting today and it doesn't mean that global warming will reverse, or correct, or change. We can throw as much stimulus money as we want at the economic downturn, doesn't mean it will work. And it's arrogant to think otherwise.
War, famine, the Dustin Diamond sex tape - all man-made problems, all unsolvable by man. This isn't a philosophical issue like whether a deity is so powerful as to make a rock too heavy for him to lift it; it's a tried and true fact that we are much better at creating situations than resolving them. There exists pirate treasure from the 17th century that was so well hidden and booby-trapped that to this day it cannot be retrieved. I could continue with examples all day. So we need to get off of our high horses and be a little more humble. We can't fix everything and anything - we aren't all Vanilla Ice (if you got a problem, yo, he'll solve it).
This of course will beg the question of "well, what are we supposed to do, just sit on the sofa and eat Cheetos?" No - we should focus our efforts on those problems we can solve. To borrow an example from Bjorn Lomborg (author of the Skeptical Environmentalist, and maker of good points even if they are sometimes obscured by a rather forceful writing style), rather than try to stop global warming because coastal areas will be submerged, take direct steps to prevent submergement of coastal areas - build a wall. We could help millions of people dying of malaria and other tropical diseases right now, but instead we press on to try to solve a problem that is probably beyond our reach, and may affect people several decades from now. Seems like a no-brainer to me.
You got a problem with that?
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ReplyDeleteThis is one of your best posts......
ReplyDeleteYeah, I gotta problem with it.
ReplyDeleteYou say that if something that is caused by man may not necessarily be solved by man... I agree, but what is the point? There are also things that are caused by man that can be solved by man. And things not caused, not solvable by man and things not caused but solvable by man. (I sense a 2x2 matrix here… and what were all the women doing anyway?)
You assume there is no solution to a global warming issue. Yet I don’t know that it is a foregone conclusion that there is nothing that man can do to 'solve' the issue. Perhaps not with the information that we have right now, but that doesn’t mean that research and innovation won’t discover some new technology to address the issue.
Having said that, I do agree that sometimes the 'problem' needs to be cast in such a way that is solvable. But, simply creating a solution to the rising waters at coastal cities does not also solve the other potential myriad of problems that a rise in temperature would also create.
You say that you crashed your car and couldn't fix it... I infer from that statement that NO ONE can fix it. (if the great Eric cannot fix it, after all, it must not be in the realm of possibility :P) But I could just as easily say that your car could be fixed, it just may not be the least costly approach.
So, back to issue of global warming as it relates to the car. Yes, we may have broken something… or maybe it just happened to break. We don’t know how to solve it (yet?) and maybe we never will. The question is: where do we throw the resources we have to maximize the benefit from the solution? We can’t buy a new earth, we can’t seem to fix it, so how do we best patch it up to keep it running while we figure out how to fix or replace it?
I like the 2x2 matrix idea. But you don't seem to refute (or refudiate?) my key point, which is that people in general tend to put all problems in the quadrant of the matrix titled "Created By Man/Solvable By Man." Which is arrogant of us.
ReplyDeleteIn one of my courses I try to teach that when confronted with a problem one should not just go ahead and try something/anything, but rather focus on the elements that have the most benefit. As a society, it seems as though we believe it to be better to do something rather than nothing, even when doing something is more costly than the benefit we would derive.
To answer your last point, I agree we can't buy a new earth (yet) but trying to stave off its eventual demise may be throwing good money after bad, and we may be better off trying to improve present-day quality of life instead.