Living on the Real World: How Thinking and Acting like Meteorologists Will Help Save the Planet

By William H. Hooke

Every day meteorologists sift through a deluge of information to make predictions that help us navigate our daily lives. Instead of being overwhelmed by the data and possibilities, they focus on small bits of information while using frequent collaboration to make decisions. With climate change a reality, William H. Hooke suggests we look to meteorologists as a model for how we can solve the twenty-first century’s most urgent environmental problems.

Living on the Real World explains why we should be approaching environmental issues collaboratively, each taking on a challenging aspect and finding solutions to small parts of the larger problem. It outlines current crises brought about by climate change and extreme weather, including effects on food, water, and energy, and then explores the ways we can tackle these problems together. Blending science with a philosophical approach, Hooke offers a clear-eyed analysis as well as an inspiring call to action. Everyone from scientists to politicians, educators to journalists, and businesses large and small, can—and must—participate in order to save the planet for generations to come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: American Meteorological Society
• Release date: Oct 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781935704577

Book preview

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PROLOGUE

Once upon a time, hundreds of thousands of years ago, the very first men and women walked the earth. They were hunter-gatherers. They would move from campsite to campsite, following game as it migrated and picking fruits, grains, and vegetables in their season. For these nomads, every morning of their lives, at dawn’s light, the first order of business was to build situational awareness (in other words, make a meteorological nowcast):¹ What’s today’s weather? Warm? Cold? Dry? Wet? Does it look to be changing? Is the cold season coming on? What do these weather signs portend for wild game, grains, berries, water, and our safety? Should we move on or can we afford to stay put one more day?

Everyone from the family elder to the youngest child thought about meteorological matters and thought as a meteorologist.

Thousands of years later, the nomadic lifestyle had given way to agriculture clustered around fixed villages and towns. The farmers and city dwellers—contemplating the salt-poisoned soils resulting from early, flawed attempts at irrigation, the newly discovered stresses and vulnerabilities of intown living, and the rise of corrupt, oppressive nation-states—looked back and realized those diverse prior times and places actually had a single name.

Eden.

As civilization took root in the Fertile Crescent, it was accompanied by, and in like measure owed its existence to, a flowering of science and technology. The invention of the wheel transformed the movement of people and goods and prompted the development of the chariot—armament that was as potent at the time as the tanks and armored personnel carriers of today. Humans began to mine for metals and more. Harnessing fire fueled a transition from Neolithic culture to the Bronze Age and then the Iron Age. Mastery of clay and other materials led to the development of cookware, tools, and other utensils. The invention of money, and with it the counting board and the abacus, enabled and supported a new service industry: trade. From arithmetic came mathematics. Study of the night skies revealed regularity and predictability in stellar and planetary motions. To support agriculture and meet the needs of city dwellers for water, civilizations developed massive networks of aqueducts and irrigation ditches.

Only one scientific challenge stubbornly resisted human progress, despite the best efforts of mankind.

Meteorology.

The people of the period could still do no better than produce the same single-point nowcasts (what is the weather like where I am now?) that their nomadic ancestors had relied on. In fact, when they wanted to characterize the vast gulf between the capabilities, reach, and power of God and puny man, they chose weather to drive home the point.

We find this, for example, in the account of Job, one of the earliest writings making up the Bible.² Job is portrayed as one of the wealthiest men of his time, but God allows Satan to strip Job of his wealth, his children and grandchildren, and, finally, his health. Job is all but dead. That background tees up the main narrative, throughout which Job complains to his friends about the injustice of God’s treatment. They offer cold comfort. Elihu, a young man in the party who has been silent throughout, grows increasingly frustrated with the conversation. He searches for a question that will bring Job to his knees, one that will wake him up to the reality that he is but a feeble man who has no right to question the Maker of Heaven and Earth. Finally it hits him. He asks: Hey, Job, can you forecast the weather?³

Of course, Elihu puts it a little differently. Here’s the text (Job 36:26–37:1–18, New International Version [NIV]):

How great is God—beyond our understanding!

      The number of his years is past finding out.

He draws up the drops of water,

      which distill as rain to the streams;

the clouds pour down their moisture

      and abundant showers fall on mankind.

Who can understand how he spreads out the clouds,

      how he thunders from his pavilion?

See how he scatters his lightning about him,

      bathing the depths of the sea.

This is the way he governs the nations

      and provides food in abundance.

He fills his hands with lightning

      and commands it to strike its mark.

His thunder announces the coming storm;

      even the cattle make known its approach.

At this my heart pounds

      and leaps from its place.

Listen! Listen to the roar of his voice,

      to the rumbling that comes from his mouth.

He unleashes his lightning beneath the whole heaven

      and sends it to the ends of the earth.

After that comes the sound of his roar;

      he thunders with his majestic voice.

When his voice resounds,

      he holds nothing back.

God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways;

      he does great things beyond our understanding.

He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth,’

      and to the rain shower, ‘Be a mighty downpour.’

So that everyone he has made may know his work,

      he stops all people from their labor.

The animals take cover;

      they remain in their dens.

The tempest comes out from its chamber,

      the cold from the driving winds.

The breath of God produces ice,

      and the broad waters become frozen.

He loads the clouds with moisture;

      he scatters his lightning through them.

At his direction they swirl around

      over the face of the whole earth

      to do whatever he commands them.

He brings the clouds to punish people,

      or to water his earth and show his love.

"Listen to this, Job;

      stop and consider God’s wonders.

Do you know how God controls the clouds

      and makes his lightning flash?

Do you know how the clouds hang poised,

      those wonders of him who has perfect knowledge?

You who swelter in your clothes

      when the land lies hushed under the south wind,

can you join him in spreading out the skies,

      hard as a mirror of cast bronze?

Elihu’s question throws Job for a loop. He ponders the notion. Predict the weather? No one can do that!

God Himself then piles on. He speaks out of the storm (Job 38:18–30):

Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?

      Tell me, if you know all this.

What is the way to the abode of light?

      And where does darkness reside?

Can you take them to their places?

      Do you know the paths to their dwellings?

Surely you know, for you were already born!

      You have lived so many years!

"Have you entered the storehouses of the snow

      or seen the storehouses of the hail,

which I reserve for times of trouble,

      for days of war and battle?

What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,

      or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?

Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,

      and a path for the thunderstorm,

to water a land where no one lives,

      an uninhabited desert,

to satisfy a desolate wasteland

      and make it sprout with grass?

Does the rain have a father?

      Who fathers the drops of dew?

From whose womb comes the ice?

      Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens

when the waters become hard as stone,

      when the surface of the deep is frozen?

At this, Job throws in the towel. In the end, he’s satisfied to let man be man and God be God, and he’s content to leave his poignant, piercing, universal question of the ages hanging. He and God are reconciled. God admonishes Job’s false friends, who had been pouring salt on his wounds, and restores Job’s health, family, and