It is a tragedy that we still follow the line expounded by the carbon emitters and polluters of the environment. We have accepted a high debt and fossil dependency scenario as the indicator of ‘Economic Development’. Our concerns with adaptation to the ongoing climate changes brought about by our own actions, seem to be minimal. The current disasters of fishermen getting caught in sudden, random, wind events, are a foretaste of things to come. Sudden violent downpours that strip and erode the soil or delays in rain bearing winds that create harsh drought conditions, will become more frequent. The ‘climate affected’ population will grow with every event. We are witnessing the thin edge of the wedge.
These tragic planetary changes have been brought about by us humans, through the agency of a human created value system that glorifies consumption. The modern notion of economic development assumes that consumption and the turnover of money, powers growth and is, therefore, good. But it is this very activity that affects the global climate and produces profound suffering for much of humanity, so can it really be called good?
To understand this apparent dichotomy, we have to understand that the source of power to propel ‘Economic Growth’, is firmly anchored in the consumption of fossil energy. Oil and coal were seen as substances with untold promise the development of the industrial revolution. However, this was not a universally shared view. Others, with no vested interest in profit in the promotion of oil, saw it differently,
The Shuar peoples of Amazonian Ecuador, under whose territories lie huge reserves of oil, have rejected oil exploration and extraction, they do not want to get rich on selling oil. They have a saying
“Oil represents the sprits of a long dead world, that we use to satisfy our greed for power and sacrifice and our children in return.” (CESR 1996).
Here lies a truth that cannot be escaped when looking at climate change. This statement reflects a wisdom, a truth, which, if appreciated, will clarify the actions needed to address the spectre of climate change. The wisdom is that there is a great difference between the spirits of the living world and the spirits of the dead world. They know that asking for power from the spirits of the dead world has a great price, often seeking the lives of our own children. Development diseases, like cancer and autism extend their tentacles to ever younger age groups confirming this fear.
To appreciate the indigenous view, one has to look at the elements in fossil fuels that contribute to the current crisis. One of the worst culprits is carbon in the form of Carbon Dioxide. We are told that Carbon Dioxide is a common gas that is emitted by all living things so their ‘contribution’ is natural. This brings up the question: “Does all carbon entering the atmosphere have the same value?”. The resolution to this question can put humanity on a path to real sustainable development and could avert a cataclysmic future. Thus, it is useful to study this question in the light of scientific evidence.
Carbon:
Carbon (C), the fourth most abundant element in the Universe, after hydrogen (H), helium (He), and oxygen (O), is the building block of life. It’s the basic element that anchors all organic substances, from fossil fuels to DNA. On Earth, carbon cycles through the land, ocean, atmosphere, and the Earth’s interior in a major biogeochemical cycle (the circulation of chemical components through the biosphere from or to the lithosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere). The global carbon cycle can be divided into two categories: the geological/ancient, which operates over large time scales (millions of years), and the biological/modern, which operates at shorter time scales (days to thousands of years).
The Global Carbon Stock:
The Global Carbon Stock began Billions of years ago, as planetesimals (small bodies that formed from the solar nebula) and carbon-containing meteorites bombarded our planet’s surface, steadily increasing the planet’s Carbon content. Today such increments to the planet’s Carbon stock have ceased, but the stock has become more compartmentalised.
Since those times, carbonic acid (a weak acid derived from the reaction between atmospheric carbon dioxide [CO2] and water) has slowly, but continuously, combined with calcium and magnesium in the Earth’s crust to form insoluble carbonates (carbon-containing chemical compounds) through a process called weathering. Then, through the process of erosion, the carbonates are washed into the ocean and eventually settle to the bottom. The cycle continues as these materials are drawn into Earth’s mantle by subduction (a process in which one lithospheric plate descends beneath another, often as a result of folding or faulting of the mantle) at the edges of continental plates. The carbon is then returned to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide during volcanic eruptions.
The balance between weathering, subduction, and volcanism controls atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations over time periods of hundreds of millions of years. The oldest geologic sediments suggest that, before life evolved, the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide may have been one-hundred times that of the present, providing a very different atmosphere and substantial greenhouse effect.
Fossil Carbon
The operation of life has been clearly demonstrated to change the chemistry of earth’s atmosphere to what it is today. One of the most active agents of this change is oceanic plankton, photosynthetic microscopic phytoplankton that produce prodigious quantities of oxygen and biomass over time. Oxygen is released to the atmosphere and the biomass is consumed by respiring zooplankton (microscopic marine animals) within a matter of days or weeks. Only small amounts of residual carbon from these plankton settle out to the ocean bottom at any given time, but over long periods of time this process represents a significant removal of carbon from the atmosphere. This slow removal of Carbon from the primary or living atmosphere into the fossil reservoir, while at the same time adding to the atmospheric reservoir of oxygen, had a major effect on the maintenance of biotic homeostasis or ‘global eco equilibrium’.
A similar process was repeated on the land especially at Devonian times with the huge vegetation mass that covered the earth absorbing Carbon Dioxide and then being mineralised in the lithosphere into coal, effectively removing a huge volume of carbon from Earth’s atmosphere, the Oxygen released by these early prodigious forests was released into the atmosphere and contributed greatly to the chemistry of the current atmosphere.
These processes are still active today, Carbon that enters the Lithosphere (fossil Carbon) is removed completely from the biological cycle and becomes mineralised into reservoirs with ages of 100’s of millions of years.
The biological or ‘living’ carbon cycle
In the living world, the major exchange of carbon with the atmosphere results from photosynthesis and respiration. During the daytime in the growing season, leaves absorb sunlight and take up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In the oceans, the planktonic cycle has a similar photosynthetic cycle. Both create biomass. In parallel, plants, animals and substrate microbes consume this carbon as organic matter and return carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The amounts of carbon that move from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, respiration, and back to the atmosphere are large and produce oscillations in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. This ‘living’ Carbon has a very significant chemical signature of carbon isotopes, it has a quantity of the rare unstable isotope 14C and 13C to 12C ratio is constant.
All fossil carbon emitted into the atmosphere that lacks 14 C and has a lower 13C/12C ratio, it is very different chemically to biotic carbon, it is not a part of the modern or biotic cycle.
The Fossil subsidy:
It is now clear that fossil Carbon and biotic Carbon have extremely different sinks and need to be valued differently when considering the impact on the global biosphere. While the carbon balance of the planet has been greatly modified by the post-industrial human activity of clearing the forests of this planet, it is the ‘fossil trigger’ that introduces an increasing increment of ‘new’ carbon into the atmosphere.
A clear distinction between fossil and biotic energy and a placing of differential values on the two sources, will go a long way to expose these addicted economies and assist ‘developing nations’ to avoid the pitfalls. The ‘fossil subsidy’ required for the creation and operation of future ‘development’ projects should become cost criteria for acceptance or rejection of future ‘development’ projects.
There is a great danger of accepting consumption of fossil fuels as a tool for ‘development’. Once a nation or economy has become ‘fossil addicted’, they are willing to sacrifice their own wellbeing and the wellbeing of others to feed their addiction.
However, the reticence of some Governments to face up to their global obligations, underscores the great danger of accepting the consumption of fossil fuels as a tool for ‘development’. Once a nation or economy has become ‘fossil addicted’, they are willing to sacrifice their own wellbeing and the wellbeing of others to feed their addiction. Witness the destruction wrought on the health of its own citizens in the process of facilitating oil extraction through ‘fracking’ in the US, or the rush to protect the agrotoxins of the ‘Green Revolution’ in Sri Lanka, in the face of a growing public health cost. As seen today politicians have become the agents promoting fossil addiction and are actively working to promote their agendas.
Development without a clear vision of where we are heading towards, can only spell disaster for the future. Having ‘leaders’ and their ‘advisors’ without the slightest ability to comprehend the words above will ensure our demise into fossil dependency and will accelerate those climate changes that we are already facing.
by Ranil Senanayake 
