Earth Systems Management
Description
As proposed by WM Eichbaum:
"In summary, ESM takes as a given that the human enterprise now operates at a scale which inevitably alters vital earth process so that they no longer operate singly or collectively to create a global environment healthy for life as we know it, and especially for humans. The new and dangerous functionalities of these altered processes are critical consequences. If the earth is to remain habitable, humans must act to manage these processes to avoid or mitigate these critical consequences. In the field of climate change practices that have been advanced include: releasing aerosols in the high atmosphere to increase its ability to reflect the sun’s energy, fertilizing the ocean to increase its ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere, and artificially whitening the Arctic to replace lost ice and thus enhance its ability to reflect solar energy All of these are designed to enhance the earth’s ability to manage the increases in atmospheric carbon due to our carbon economy. Additionally, massive engineered systems can be imagined which would directly remove carbon from the atmosphere. Any or some combination of these “fixes” would involve enormous costs, resolution of complex scientific and policy questions and decision-making about risk and benefits on a global scale. The task becomes even more challenging when it is understood that the critical consequences are associated with a number of processes in addition to those of the carbon cycle.
The balance of this paper is predicated on the idea that humanity must embrace ESM as the defining quality of the human enterprise in the Anthropocene and that that can only happen if new ethical values are adopted by humanity which result in a radical transformation of how we govern ourselves and how we allocate our rich financial and technical resources. One could also argue that, if such an ethical evolution were to come about, that would be a driver sufficient to, in the near term, change the actual nature of the human enterprise so that its consequences would no longer result in irreversibly negative changes in vital earth processes, i. e., we would choose to live within the earth’s given boundaries. In other words, humanity would exercise the humility to retreat from the Anthropocene age. Thus, humanity finds itself on the cusp of two great choices----embrace the Anthropocene and recognize the parallel responsibility for ESM or retreat from the Anthropocene thereby assuring that the human enterprise does not violate planetary boundaries and thus avoids critical consequences. Failure to choose one or the other path bodes ill for the future of humankind. Either choice will need to be built on the elements discussed below but as the arc of human history suggests that retreat is rare and moving forward into uncharted waters is the norm, the discussion has a focus on achieving effective ESM. " (http://etransition.org/Entri%20Web%20Site/images/2016.Eichbaum.New%20Ethics%20for%20the%20Anthropocene.pdf)