Art Bell and Whitley Strieber.
This is a review of art bell & whitley strieber ‘The Coming Global Superstorm’ Pocket Books New York 2000 pp.220. This review highlights the main features of this book. It was first published in mm15.
Cornucopian Superstorm Optimists.
Superstorms.
The authors postulate the existence of what they call a ‘superstorm’. This is a transcontinental blizzard capable of covering the northern continents in layers of ice with a matter of weeks and eventually triggering off an ice age .. “superstorms are rare. .. there may exist in the fossil record an echo of one that took place between seven and ten thousand years ago.”[1]
Global Burning.
The authors believe the Earth is currently affected by global burning, “On march 15 1999 scientists at the university of arizona and the university of massachusetts reported on their construction of a thousand year record of the earth’s (sic) average temperature. The results were shocking. What has happened is that a nine-hundred-year long cooling trend has been suddenly and decisively reversed. The scientists predicted that the earth will shortly be warmer than it has been in millions of years.”[2] They conclude there is now enough evidence to warrant policy changes, “There has been a sufficient amount of climatic upheaval and the changes, especially in the arctic, are rapid enough now to suggest to us in the strongest terms that social and political policy needs to be changed.”[3] They believe that environmental disasters could generate public support for these policies, “People see all around us the evidence of rapid climate change. All over the world, violent weather has made its indelible mark. Despite the best efforts of the global warming sceptics, the open and obvious fact of environmental decline is a far more effective propaganda tool than any lie or obfuscation cooked up by environmental sceptics.”[4]
Global Burning Produces Superstorms.
The authors contend that global burning isn’t going to lead to a continual rise in global temperatures. Ultimately rising temperatures will trigger off a superstorm which could be so powerful, and on such a scale, that it could lead to an ice age, “The ultimate and ironic effect of global warming would have become clear to the survivors: a new ice age would have begun.”[5] The authors suggest that during the ice age-interglacial cycles of the last few million years, global warming has triggered off superstorms leading to ice ages, “When the warm ocean currents that now flow north cease to do so, our whole climate will change.”[6]
Most scientists agree that, if oomans hadn’t been around, the Earth would be heading back into another ice age around this time. They argue that, at present, it is unlikely that the Earth will return to an ice age because of anthropogenic global burning. The increases in anthropogenic global burning are too powerful to allow the onset of the next ice age. However, bell & strieber suggest that superstorms possess such enormous power they could reverse global burning and bring about an ice age in a very short period of time.
The authors’ assumption over this issue is that the Earth is naturally cold. Anthropogenic global burning has, in effect, been suppressing the Earth’s natural cooling mechanisms but eventually, these mechanisms will spring back and push the climate into its natural cold state. However, the authors provide no evidence that the Earth is naturally cold nor do they provide any proof that the Earth is capable of releasing vast blizzards across the northern continents.
Ancient Civilizations.
One of the most striking aspects of this work is the authors’ belief that ooman civilization began much earlier than commonly supposed .. “it is perfectly possible that there was an advanced civilization on this planet that predated our own ...”[7]; “But now there is evidence that not only were we capable of speech much, much longer ago - as much as four hundred thousand years ago - but technologically based activities were occurring even longer than that.”[8] They allege the egyptian sphinx was created far earlier than a mere 4,000 years ago.
The Earth’s Geophysiological History.
Underlying the authors’ views about the return of a new ice age are assumptions about the Earth’s climate history. They do not outline these assumptions but they can be glimpsed from their analyzes of various epochs in the Earth’s history.
The Cenozoic (65million to the Present).
As far as the authors are concerned the cenozoic epoch, which followed the extinction of the dinosaurs, was a warm period. However, it first started cooling 40 million years ago, “Forty million years ago, the earth started an immensely long process of cooling. The change ended the warm, placid eocene epoch and began the cooler, drier oligocene.”[9] The authors’ explanation for this cooling is that it was due to astronomic factors, “The cooling continued. This slow, steady change is believed to have been due to a long term decline in the sun’s heat, because few other causes could have been so consistently present over such a long period.”[10]
The Pliocene (c.6-3 million years ago).
The long process of cooling eventually led to the formation of the antarctic ice cap, “Then, about 6 million years ago, during the pliocene, an event rare in earth’s history began to occur. The antarctic continent .. started forming an ice cap. As the continent began to ice over, ocean levels dropped so low worldwide that the mediterranean became an inland sea and then dried up.”[11]
The Pleistocene Ice Ages (3 million years ago to the present).
The authors argue that about 3 million years ago, at the start of the pleistocene, a series of volcanic eruptions pushed the Earth led to a cycle of ice ages and inter-glacials, “It was at this time that a period of geologic unrest started. Volcanism began to spread across the world. As a result of all the volcanic and seismic activity, central america rose out of the sea. It blocked the all-important flow of ocean currents around the equator that had served to stabilize earth’s climate for millions of years. This alteration of the earth’s geography contributed to what would soon become the biggest change in climate that had happened in sixty million years. It was the beginning of the great extinction event during which we have appeared.”[12] Volcanic eruptions created a land bridge between the americas that changed oceanic circulation and brought about the start of the glacial-interglacial cycles, “Just under 3 million years ago, something happened that disturbed a period of nearly 60 million years of relative climatic stability and gradual species change.”[13]; “Three million years ago, when the geologic epoch known as the pliocene was ending, earth (sic) was a very different sort of place from what it has been since then. (The continents were the same). But there were no polar caps, and - of utmost importance - there wasn’t any land connecting north and south america. Because of this, the climate was totally different from what it became when the central american land bridge appeared.”[14]
For the last 3 million years the climate has switched between ice ages and interglacials, “For the last 3 million years, the ice cover has waxed and waned ...”[15]
The change in the climate led to considerable changes on land, “It must have caused a huge die-off of forests because .. CO2 levels began to fall. Over a million year period, they were cut in half, and kept falling.”[16]; “In fact, for the past 3 million years CO2 levels in our atmosphere have been incredibly low. Compared to what is usually the case on earth, the carbon dioxide content of our atmosphere is still so low that it has almost no insulating effect at all. In fact, in the whole geologic history of the earth, levels have been this low only once before. That was 300 million years ago .. At that time, a massive ice sheet stretched over what is now called south africa and world climate was harsh and cold.”[17]
The Pleistocene Ice Ages are an Unstoppable Natural Process.
The authors suggest the forces behind the cycle of ice ages-interglacials are so powerful that anthropogenic global burning cannot halt or reverse them. Indeed, all that anthropogenic global burning can do is trigger off global cooling, “The cycle that is responsible for our present climate is an established scientific reality.”[18] Thus the more that oomans contribute to global burning, the more they push the Earth towards the next ice age. The authors conclude that oomans are currently living in a dangerous situation, “The history of our climate over the past 3 million years confirms that we are sitting on a powder keg - even without human interference.”[19]
Criticisms.
Bell & strieber’s belief that a huge Forest die-off caused a drop in the concentration of CO2 doesn’t make any sense. A huge die-off of Forests would not lead to a decline in CO2 levels. In addition, the authors argue that the land bridge between the americas caused a change in the climate but they don’t explain how the change in ocean circulation produced the strange cycle of ice ages and inter-glacials over the last 3 million years.
Perhaps the most important assumption made by these authors is that the Earth’s climate is determined by oceanic currents, “The way that the oceans circulate, distributing heat across the planet, is what determines our weather. When the great oceanic currents change, climate changes with them.”[20] However, the authors make no attempt to explain the Earth’s climate history in terms of the movement of its oceans. They imply that the Earth’s Photosynthetic capacity is of little significance to the climate. Presumably it simply reacts to the changes brought about by the oceans. The authors are thus on the side of the ipcc and nasa whose views of the Earth’s climate differ from those of james lovelock.
Oomans’ Origins.
The volcanic activities which began 3 million years ago destroyed the african rainforests and forced oomanoids onto the Grasslands. The first to emerge was probably paranthropus robustus. About 3 million years ago it was australopithecus africanus. Ice ages caused a frequent die out of oomanoids, “For the last 3 million years, the ice cover has waxed and waned, and every time the ice has reappeared the extinction rate has soared.”[21]
Bell & strieber’s interpretation of recent Earth history is advantageous to oomans in the sense that they blame the recent mass extinctions of Biodiversity on the repeated appearance of ice ages. The current extinctions began a long time before oomans were around, “The rate of extinction now is about what it was after the object that killed the dinosaurs had struck.”[22] Oomans emerged during an extinction event, they were not the cause of it. Oomans are only exacerbating massive extinctions. If oomans boost global burning leading to an ice age there will be widespread extinctions, “Humankind is the catastrophe that is bringing on the climax of the present extinction event.”[23]
The Earth’s Mass Extinctions.
The authors point out that, “Five enormous extinctions have been identified in the past .. the ordovician extinction 439 million years ago; then the devonian, permian and triassic events; and then the cretaceous extinction, which destroyed the dinosaurs.”[24]
Green Cornucopians.
The authors are green cornucopians, “If we survive, the great quest of the 21stc is going to be for machine intelligence. We will find out if an intelligent machine can ever become conscious; we will find out the meaning of the soul.”[25]
Oomans protecting the Earth.
Science to make Predictions about the Climate.
The authors believe that action needs to be taken against global burning to stop it from triggering off a superstorm. They are not chaos theorists because they believe the Earth’s climate can be predicted. However, at the moment there are a number of problems in making such predictions difficult. Firstly, there isn’t enough scientific evidence and the scientific modelling isn’t good enough, “Even given the recent attempts to create better models, there are fundamental flaws in the whole modelling process that render science even more impotent. The so-called general circulation model, one of the primary tools of climate research, does not adequately explain the way that carbon dioxide is exchanged between the oceans and the air, with the result that it cannot be used to definitely prove that global burning is under way. The sceptics point out that global average temperatures have changed only slightly in the past fifty years, during which period carbon dioxide emissions have increased many times over. Science cannot adequately answer them.”[26] The authors argue the power of scientific prediction is likely to become feasible only when man has married machine, “We need more reliable models of the climate, and perhaps we need intelligent machines to help us to make them. The problem of the weather has to be solved. Prediction must be made so nearly perfect that policy can be constructed on a foundation of knowledge .. ”[27]
Voluntary Action.
They believe that personal, voluntary action is an important solution to global burning, “So we need to get personal. We need, each of us, to understand what we can do, and do it on our own.”[28]
Geo-Engineering.
The authors believe that ultimately the only way to stop the succession of ice ages and inter-glacials would be by blowing up the land bridge between north and south america, “Eventually, if the weather was ever understood well enough, a further plan to improve the situation might be launched. This would involve the greatest engineering effort in human history, nothing less than the separation of two continents now linked by a land bridge. A portion of central america many miles wide might be excavated by a human species armed with a clear understanding of how the weather actually works. Mankind would then re-establish the ancient equatorial current and attempt to return the weather of the planet to the balance that it had enjoyed through most of its history. The new current would flow much as currents did in archaic times, around the equator, bringing even heating and regular seasons to the planet once again.”[29] If this sounds plausible then it has to be asked what makes it outstandingly better than other similar large scale geo-engineering proposals such as blocking off the mediterranean to stop nutrients leeching into the atlantic?
Oomans will Respond to the Climate Challenge.
Like all cornucopians, the authors have confidence that oomans can overcome environmental disasters, “The fantastic promise of zero fossil fuel use seems within the reach of existing technology”[30] Indeed, climate disasters will be a great challenge to ooman ingenuity .. “our unstable environment is the essential wellspring of human evolution and change, and the more serious our environmental problems become, the more creatively we are responding to the challenge.”[31] In other words, after a few climatic disasters oomans will wake them up to the need for change and then make wholesale changes to prevent global burning from causing further problems.
Doom.
And yet, despite the geo-engineering, the artificial intelligence, the green cornucopianism, in the end the authors are forced to admit that all is doom, “Since science hasn’t got the ability to be definite and there is a large, effective, and well financed group on the other side of the equation (i.e. the global climate coalition), there is virtually no chance that we are going to act decisively as a society in this matter.”[32] What in the end is going to defeat oomans is oomans themselves. No matter how scientific that oomans become there will always be the denialists - the political nay-sayers who simply dismiss scientific evidence when it is against their material interests.
Conclusions.
This work owes no intellectual debts to lovelock. The authors have made no use of any of his scientific discoveries. Indeed, many of their ideas and explanations run counter to gaia. In conclusion, this work provides some interesting insights but theoretically it fails to provide any substantial case for their propositions. It is another sign of the fragmented nature of the scientific community over what needs to be done about the climate.
