Devangshu Datta: Technology turns green from olive

VIEWPOINT

According to Miss Manners and the etiquette-gurus, the weather is the one unexceptionable topic. Al Gore, Dr Pachauri and Co. may, however, have changed that by making the concept of global warming mainstream.

It is difficult nowadays to make an innocuous remark about the likelihood of rain or shine without the G words entering the conversation. The ensuing debate is guaranteed to cause rising room temperatures. In any normal company, there will be a few pro/ anti fanatics. Both sides will quote reams of impressive statistics; refer to dozens of seminal tomes; and generally make themselves pests.

What is more, they will drag everybody else into the argument. In that sense, GW is worse than mainstream religion. In fact, GW is a post-modern religion. Even committed God-freaks and atheists are socially conditioned to leave agnostics alone when they debate the existence of the Big Guy.

Global warmers and deniers have no such inhibitions. Fence-sitters are accused of 1) pusillanimity 2) lack of social conscience 3) scientific ignorance 4) body odour. (Ok, scratch the last, though it will follow naturally if GW occurs.)

Well, despite all the heat, I remain a GW agnostic or a mild pro-warmer. Certainly, there is consensus that GW is occurring and there is evidence that human actions are responsible. But it is not clear to what extent warming is human-mediated. It is also not clear how one can reverse or halt this and how much that will cost. It is not clear how much damage will be caused if GW continues. The Gore-UN projections are alarmist (and contradict each other in projections). The deniers are ostrich-like and hugely overstate the costs of combating GW as well.

We don't understand long-term climactic processes well enough, yet. There have been epochs in recorded history when the world was a lot warmer. The Viking settlements in what is now icy-cold, windy Newfoundland, for example, were viable because the Earth was warmer in the 10th century. There was also the "Little Ice-Age" of the 14th-19th centuries, when temperatures were a lot colder. These were pre-fossil fuel eras, when man lacked an ability to manipulate the environment. Nobody knows why these epochs occurred.

Measures against the occurrence of GW can be compared to taking out disaster insurance. In actuarial terms, we can say the Earth is faced with a potentially disastrous event in GW. But GW has a probability that cannot be computed. By investing in technologies that may help stop GW, civilisation will pay a premium. That cost, too, is of an order that cannot be computed!

However, despite ambivalence about the nature and causes of GW, I am all for anti-GW measures being taken. This is for philosophical reasons. Man is a tool-using and tool-inventing animal. An investment in anti-GW technologies could be just what is needed to provide the next boost for human civilisation. What is more, GW could spark the first wave of technological advances that are not driven by man's desire to exterminate fellow creatures.

Most technology was originally developed for military purposes and then adapted for civilian use. In fact, most of the impetus for basic research comes from military needs. That's been the story of the past 6,000 years. Once a new technology is in place, other uses are always found for it. Once mass civilian adoption and adaptation occur, costs drop dramatically (one reason why the deniers are overstating costs).

Our 21st century quality of life is still reaping the benefits of technologies developed in World War II and during the Cold War. But military research is secretive (and disseminated slowly) and people die in large numbers before the technology benefits the aam aadmi.

A worldwide drive into anti-GW research would avoid these problems. It is the one issue that could unite a majority of citizens, governments and corporates. It is a casus belli, which could offer the world the benefits of a good global war, without actually leading to bloodshed.