We must not fool ourselves into relying on technofixes

Many of my generation will be familiar with the phrase attributed to Captain Oates “I am just going outside – I might be some time”. Oates was part of the ill-fated Scott expedition to the South Pole. The expedition reached the pole only to find that Amundsen, a Norwegian, had beaten them to it by 35 days. Their return to base was seriously hampered by appalling weather. Finding that his own bad health was dramatically hindering the speed of the expedition, Oates left the tent and walked into the blizzard to die. His noble action was too late – his comrades died before they could reach their base camp.

The Scott and Amundsen expeditions could hardly be more different – Scott used the latest technologies and methods and a large number of people: new fabrics for protection against the cold, tinned food, large food dumps left for the return journey, horses for power and for the final push to the pole the sledges were pulled by men walking with snow shoes. Man would dominate nature to reach the pole.

Amundsen, having lived among the Inuit, with humility and respect, knew the importance of working with nature and not against it. His team was small – only four people travelled from the Antarctic coast to the pole and back. Like the Inuit, he used dogs to pull the sledges which meant they travelled fast. The journey would be shorter than Scott’s – requiring less food. Inuit clothing was much warmer than Scott’s many layers of wool. Being better protected against the cold Amundsen’s team needed to eat less food to keep warm – meaning they had less to carry. Using fewer people also reduced the need for food. As they travelled their food requirements for the remainder of the journey reduced, they therefore needed fewer dogs and so they ate the weakest – further reducing the amount of food required at the outset. The Norwegians skied.

Scott and Amundsen were both working in an extreme environment, they both thought long and hard about the problems they might face but I think Amundsen got it right – you have to work with nature not against it.

Today we face changes in the environment and for some of us in the world these changes will be extreme and life threatening. At present, I think the majority of the people on earth and their governments follow the line taken by Scott – man up against nature. We need to transform our thinking to understand that we are nature – we are not apart from it. In many ways we are not even an important part of nature – few species, if any, rely on our existence but we rely on the existence of many, if not most, of the other species.

We know that nature is resilient but for our own survival we have to live within limits. To a large extent we already know what those limits are and in the case of climate change we have to reduce our production of climate change gases with urgency.

This does not mean that we should not attempt to use as many new techniques that we can find to mitigate our current actions: carbon offset, carbon trading, carbon sequestration; nuclear power (if we have to); spraying ocean water into the air to form clouds the use of iron filings or giant parasols in the sky. They are not the answer and might never be the answer but they are worth a shot in the short to medium term as long as our main priority is for us to lower the global production of climate change gases.

As Amundsen said “this is the greatest factor … the way in which every difficulty is foreseen, and precautions taken for meeting or avoiding it. Victory awaits him who has everything in order — luck, people call it. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time; this is called bad luck.”

With the threat of climate change we need to make our own good luck by taking the necessary precautions – reducing our production of climate change gases is the bedrock of any strategy.