"Warming of the climate system is now unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level."
"The earth will probably sink and drown, but at least it will be the result of generally acknowledged political and economic ideas, at least it will be accomplished with the help of science, industry and public opinion, with the application of all human ingenuity. No cosmic catastrophe, nothing but state, official, economic and other causes. Nothing can be done to prevent it."
The first quotation is from the report issued on Friday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which found that unless we curb greenhouse emissions, the average temperature of the earth may rise by as much as 6.4 degrees Celsius in the next century.
The second passage, pessimistically modern as it sounds, appeared over 70 years ago in the final chapter of Karel Capek's novel "War with the Newts." Capek, a Czech philosopher, playwright and novelist, had no notion of global warming when he wrote the book. It would take scientists decades to notice the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and still longer to come to the right conclusion about its effects.
Capek was writing social satire, and his vision of a massive rise in the world's oceans can hardly be called a prediction, or even a lucky guess. What really is prescient, however, is Capek's account of how humanity allows itself to reach the point at which nothing can be done.
"War with the Newts" begins with the discovery of a race of giant, intelligent, friendly newts living in the South Pacific. The Newts soon learn to speak, and they can be taught to do nearly anything, but they have very little imagination or independent thought. The result is that a massive slave trade in Newts springs up, along with abolitionist groups, schools for the education of Newts and pro- and anti-Newt political societies. A lengthy newspaper debate takes place over the question of whether Newts have souls, with all the celebrities of the day weighing in.
Over the years, humanity becomes increasingly dependent on Newt labor, so that when the inevitable Newt rebellion takes place, people are slow to respond. Coastal countries have used the Newts for construction and to defend their borders, with the result that the Newts are heavily armed with explosives.
The Newts begin to bomb levees and flood coastal cities - starting, oddly enough, with New Orleans. Yet they are still so necessary to the world's economy that no government wants to be the first to stop using them. By the time they announce their plan to drown the coasts of all the continents and make the entire world habitable for Newts, there is no longer any way to stop them.
In the book's final chapter, "The Author Talks to Himself," Capek the bleak visionary and Capek the compassionate humanist appear as separate characters, engaged in a kind of tug-of-war for the fate of the human race. "I did what I could," the first Capek insists. "I warned them in time ... they all had a thousand absolutely sound economic and political reasons why it's impossible."
It is the second Capek who wins, arguing that if humanity can destroy itself there is nothing to stop the Newts from doing the same. Yet there is also something prescient about the means he chooses for their destruction - a massive cultural war between the technologically advanced Western Newts and the ancient, religious Newt civilizations of the East. Their weapons include artificially created diseases, with which the entire Newt population eventually wipes itself out.
We are now at a moment when most of Capek's visions are beginning to seem like accurate predictions. A cultural war of East against West, the widespread use of biological weapons, rising sea levels, coastal flooding - all of these have already begun to happen. What is not yet true, at least as regards climate change, is that "nothing can be done to prevent it."
Like the people of Capek's novel, we have been warned in time, and while we may have a 1000 sound reasons not to curb our use of fossil fuels, none of them will seem very sound 50 or a 100 years from now. It is clear from the IPCC report that while some of the damage we have done is irreversible, it is not too late to slow the process of climate change. If we do not - if our government chooses to ignore the warning signs - there will be no compassionate Czech humanist to rewrite our story. Katy Crane '07 is a compassionate American humanist.
