Earth’s health is more complex, endangered than previously imagined

All of you know about the optimist who sees the glass as half full and the pessimist half empty, but what about a third take?

Maybe, oh, an engineer’s – who sees the glass as less than optimally designed for maximum efficiency, meaning it’s twice as big as it needs to be.

That’s the problem with either/or thinking, which gives two answers: one right, one wrong. There’s little tolerance for ambiguity, shades of gray and open-ended analysis.

Too bad, as that’s what I favor, the purpose of which is not really to find firm answers at all but simply to continue to ask questions. Like maybe questioning the question we’re supposed to answer. The bullets don’t start, as diplomats say, until the talking stops.

But black-and-white thinking is insidious; it just creeps in. Did you even notice my own little slip, just above? I automatically wrote “the problem,” rather than “a problem.”

You have to continually monitor yourself to avoid the trap, and it’s not the easiest – or most comfortable – thing to do.

Case in point: I decided some relatively short while back to immerse myself pretty thoroughly, at least from an amateur’s perspective, in the whole global warming “thing.” If you’ve read my past couple of columns you know that I skew toward the doom and gloom side of the issue.

See – already either/or, my answer being right, of course. And I knew enough, or thought I did, to have a decent understanding of the topic, which I’d basically been avoiding because I didn’t want to be even more depressed than usual.

And I was, naturally, wrong. But probably not in the way you might think.

Our plight is possibly even more depressing than I imagined. Not what you wanted to hear, right?

But there are a few buts, ands and ifs that I should include, including several issues of which I was completely unaware – which is to say ignorant, ill-informed, clueless, oblivious and blind.

Which might be my natural state regarding most matters, as some of you will no doubt agree, but it’s not one that I’m happy with maintaining.

So here are a just a few little contingencies that I’m not going to explain, as they’d each need at least a full column to adequately address in even a rudimentary way. But I want to toss ’em out there by way of throwing water on myself.

OK, we all know about the whole carbon-in-the- atmosphere deal, right? Burning too much fossil fuel, which causes global warming, which melts all the ice and the oceans rise 80 feet, and most species, including us, die, die, die! Right?

Well darned if that’s not too simplistic.

As it happens, there are five approximately equal carbon “tanks,” and the focus is generally upon just two of them: the carbon in fossil fuels and in the air.

The missing three reservoirs? The upper level of the oceans, plant matter and topsoil. All of which also interact, and no doubt change the warming scenario, albeit in ways that we don’t yet fully understand.

Still, many possible answers – not just “Die, foolish humans!”

And quickly – since I’m running out of space – two others, for you to look up for yourselves and feel good about so doing.

First, feed cows grass to eat like nature intended, which could maybe change the world. Second, find a small, inexpensive, nonpolluting wood cookstove for, oh, about 3 billion people to use, and maybe change the world.

Learning is fun, and admitting you’re at least partly wrong and mostly ignorant, does get easier with practice. Trust me, I know.