I’ll never forget the stomach-churning mix of fear and excitement I felt when a high-school friend, David Westover, took me for a ride in his souped-up sedan on an unfinished stretch of highway in suburban Rhode Island around 1973. We got up to 125 miles per hour in that short journey and burned about a quarter of a tank of gas.  . That mixed sensation comes to mind sometimes when I regard the rocket-like trajectory of human numbers and appetites in the past century and, most likely, the next two generations.  To a large extent, we have to buckle up and hang on for the ride, even as efforts are made to mesh human aspirations with both the limits of known resources and our capacity to innovate.  One reason for diving in is the substantial persistent uncertainty attending issues that could powerfully shape conditions in this century (for instance, while the basics of greenhouse theory are clear, the pace and extent of warming and sea-level rise remain unclear). Waiting for clarity, while comforting to some, is unlikely to be the wisest policy on issues like energy and food sufficiency (or avoiding the next act of large-scale terrorism).  Another is that breakthroughs only come with a lot of effort and experimentation and, unavoidably, failure. Learning involves breaking. This means that a useful trait these days is the “courage to fear” — a phrase used in a recent discussion of tipping points by Allan Shearer, an architecture professor at the University of Texas, Austin, who studies how humans design the future as much as he designs structures.  I got at some of these thoughts, and more, when Brian Merchant of Treehugger caught up with me for a short video interview during a break in the recent Climate, Mind and Behavior meeting at the Garrison Institute. Here are a couple of bite-size video segments and some transcribed snippets:  I used to think the more unnerving aspects of the science were biogeophysical. What’s going to happen to with glaciers and sea level. But the human factor by far is the most unnerving, when you really dig in on the reasons we don’t respond to certain kinds of risks. And this isn’t just climate. I’ve written an awful lot about earthquake country. Istanbul is a sitting duck for a giant earthquake that everyone knows is coming. The Pacific Northwest [faces] the same issue — and there you have a completely explained geological risk. It will happen. It’s actually much clearer than climate. The only issue there is when. And still in Oregon there are a thousand schools that have not been retrofitted to the standard you would need to survive the quake that’s going to come.  I don’t think this is a messaging problem. Everyone in the game, whether they’re a calamatist or a complete rejecter of basic physics is part of this landscape that’s very natural. The first step for me is to look at the disarray…. This is the way we are. We’re a young species. We’re flooded with information now. There’s all this evidence that shows parts of us are locked in our reptilian little fight-or-flight fear reflex. There are some among us who are by nature risk takers and individualists. So that, as a starting point, is a better way to say, where do we go forward… Historically the climate challenge has been, “How do we fix them?” Those people, whoever they are. Take your pick, from whichever standpoint. The one thing missing there of course is the mirror. I recently came up with this conceit on Dot Earth, anthropophilia, which is that there’s been too much of this “woe is me, shame on you” and we need to sort of stop, look in the mirror and say, “Hey, we are an interesting creature and we face an interesting predicament,” and realistically how do you move forward from there.  It’s like we’ve woken up at the wheel of a vehicle, we haven’t done driver’s ed, there isn’t even a manual that’s been finished yet –- meaning on the complexity of this global system –- and our foot is on the pedal and pushing down, and we’re heading toward a curve. And there’s a lot of uncertainty…. Knowing that stasis, business as usual is not going to give us a smooth ride through this century, is step one…  I’m definitely not pessimistic. Humans have had this amazing capacity to deal with problems and exploit opportunties. Quite often it comes with hard knocks. We need a wake-up call. But we’ve also go this stunning capacity to disinvent and invent resources. Coal was a meaningless rock 500 years ago. Then coal was the basis for an industrial revolution. One day, coal — whatever’s left not combusted — will be a meaningless rock again. And we’ll look at something else that we don’t regard as a resource now as valuable.  We can kind of surprise ourselves. I’m not saying we can count on that — certainly not with our disengagement now on basic education, on sustained investment in research and development and support for entrepreneurship. We’ve been in a bipartisan slumber party on those things for decades….  This is about developing a new relationship with energy, a new embracing of the need for inquiry, and some self regard. We’re variegated. We’re polarized too often. And there are bad guys too. But even with all that stuff, it’s time to get busy.  Addendum: As if on cue, Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, perhaps the biggest defender of an unfettered fossil-fueled future, is true to form this morning in a speech on the Senate floor calling for President Obama to tap every drop of extractable oil. Here’s his chart of “America’s true oil potential” (from a report by the Congressional Research Service):  While noting that non-polluting forms of energy have a purpose, Inhofe’s speech contains no hint of a plan for advancing non-fossil options — or conserving energy. I thought conservatives conserved things.  A go-go approach to domestic oil extraction might make sense if American highways could keep adding lanes as the country heads toward and beyond a population of 400 million.  Look at the latest congestion report from INRIX, “America Back on the Road to Gridlock,” to see how that is playing out.
You've awoken at the wheel of an accelerating car and haven't taken driver's ed. Welcome to the human predicament of the 21st century.