Controlling The Ash

I have always had nightmares, and even when dreams are not particularly horrifying, the concept of dreaming is already difficult for me. Though the narrative structures we use to make sense of our conscious life may be a construction (which is somehow related to an especially large pre frontal cortex) that structure gives me comfort, even when it gives me anxiety. By this I mean that I, and I would guess most people, have a terrible time living in the moment, because of this knowledge of past and future. This means that the thing that makes us conscious may also make us unable to experience living in the ways other creatures do. That is other animals that don’t obsess over job promotions, mortgages and most profoundly death. So why in all of this unease with being present during waking hours, would I be especially concerned about sleep? I guess that the uncontrollable flashes of unconsciousness, while real, lack a narrative that I can make sense of. Time is slowed down, or sped up.

All of this I think must be accepted. While Buddhist monks may be able to be truly in the moment, most of us try to control our futures. This lack of ability to control is especially relevant with the Iceland volcano ash, which is keeping me an ocean away from my family. While it feels a little like a nightmare this cloud of ash hovering over Europe, I did what so many of us did when we heard about this. We tried to figure it out. Our curiosity as humans though rarely remains an academic curiosity. Generally we want to be able to do something about it. Like I said, we are living in the future. So I read more articles about a subject that has been of interest to me lately; geoengineering. I first took notice of geoengineering when I heard Nathan Myhrvold speak about replicating the effects of a volcano, by spraying large amount of sulfur into the stratosphere. The small particles would act as tiny mirrors, and reflect the sunlight away from our ever warming planet. This is an ethical challenge of the greatest type. Should we deliberately alter the climate in such a dramatic way? Wouldn’t it be nice if the Icelandic Volcano did it for us? Of course it won’t. Despite air traffic delays, it is a relatively small volcano. But for those few hours before I researched it, I found myself excited by the prospect that our planet would indeed cool. Since I was so enthused by this, I started to think that maybe geoengineering is actually a good idea. Aren’t we already affecting our planet by warming it? More relevant is whether it is by our doomed nature as creatures stuck living in the future that we must control it.

It now looks like the ash cloud is clearing, and I will be boarding a plane tomorrow, where I will be polluting the sky with a warming CO2, rather than waiting in New York as a  volcano cools a small part of the planet. I will go to sleep wondering if it is a good time for us to make some big leaps, rather than small steps. At least we won’t be feeling so useless and unconscious.