Vietnam. A word that still to this day means many things to many different people. Travellers etch across its landscape throughout the year wandering its myriad paths and villages, soaking up its cultured cities. Its people are famous for their relaxed personalities and interesting take on life. But for several thousand Vietnam War veterans, this beautiful country remains a nightmare of ferocious memories, strange drug-addled flashbacks, and the emotions of fear and loss. Recently, I was picking through a history of America in the Twentieth Century and spent some time looking at this infamous war. One of the recommended readings, I was informed, was Michael Herr’s Dispatches. Herr wrote for Esquire Magazine during the late sixties and spent two years embedded with the US forces in Vietnam. A number of years following his return Herr wrote this book as a memoir of his time in the country and a scathing overview of the human catastrophe of the conflict. I was surprised, and deeply enlivened to the book before I even began reading, to find that Herr had co-wrote Full Metal Jacket – and indeed the crisp dialogue of that film is referenced significantly in the reality of his account of the war. He went further by writing much of the voiceover in Apocalypse Now – thus acquiring a central role in the two greatest Vietnam War movies.

Having finished the memoir, it is almost impossible to convey the savage intensity of Herr’s writing. Carefully examining the warfare from the point of view of the average “grunt” the book is a masterclass in exposing the utter depravity of the war. But much more than this the book finds a voice in the American soldier, a lonely dispirited, often courageous figure – mired halfway around the world in a green and brown sludge – drowning in death. Herr draws the colour from the country leaving only the forest and hills, the blood and rounds – the bright of napalm. Almost every single page (and I am not exaggerating here) reads like an image from the previously mentioned films – except Herr’s critical voice hangs dissonant echoing through the story, suffusing the theme. He examines the madness (absolutely staggering proportions), the fear and resignation, the burly anger and, scarily, the men who enjoy the unfolding drama. The killers. He weaves a narrative through some of the main conflicts of the latter section of the war – the Tet Offensive, the intensity of the military base at Khe Sanh. To my mind his journalist feels like Private Joker. Brash yet innocent, intelligent and conflicted. Herr mentions, quite loosely, that at times he crossed the line, his correspondent shedding viewer status and sitting behind an M-16 – gathering fire, shouting down the world.

Honestly, I have read very few books that truly – comprehensively – capture the very essence of a subject. Certainly, more so when that subject is the murderous hell of warfare. You sit with the marines for a period, wallowing in the endless rain of artillery (boarding the DMZ the forces effectively resided within bombing distance all of the time) the harsh shock of rifles and the buzz of choppers. Death exists permanently within inches, millimetres. And all of the time the NVA continued to pummel endlessly – never letting up, only dying, only to be replaced – inhuman in their courage. They fought viciously at night, armed to the teeth, almost no tracer rounds; just the startle of their AK47’s their AKMs, their shouts. It is serious reading when you look at the figures: Herr discusses this only in the broad sweep – 20% survival rate in some platoons, marine night-rotations often never returning, US napalm drops kill everything, period. It is serious reading any way you want to read it – but it is also reflective; it follows men into a war and explores their reactions, their humanity. Whether that humanity disappears into malevolence, or is shattered by madness and leaves an empty vessel where a grunt can exist on instinct, natural to the world around him, a marine, a Cav, whatever.

I’ll natter about the Origin in a future post, as I’m still trying to grasp the totality of the picture that Darwin introduces: but I will say that the work is vastly more interesting than its title suggests, and very easy to pick up and read through as a general reader, which was Darwin’s intention. As I mentioned this book was partly responsible for the introduction of an overriding image of nature, which has entered my thoughts, as a thunderous, mountainous force peerless in its global majesty. This sits well with the current event of adverse climate change. But how to be positive in this realm of monumental climatologically attrition? I think this is well showcased in the number of significant green revolutions taking place across the planet. Take for instance, Samso, a tiny island off the coast of Denmark: suffused in greening the Scandinavian landscape Denmark is already well known for its efficient renewable measures. Samso is 100% energy self sufficient, with all its electricity coming from wind farms; many house are heated by burning straw and many vehicles utilising biofuels for combustion. All of which describes an oasis of green energy, where the island produces so much that it sells to the mainland, and indeed, to third party vendors.

Not quite as self sufficient but remarkably well adapted to the new greening world is Costa Rica, which is involved in a staggering endeavour to become completely carbon neutral as a society. They began the process with large scale reforestation, but are now into biofuel plantations and wide ranging automobile carbon reduction. Costa Rica is a useful example (not lost on the many webpage’s describing their world leading policies) as it leads the way for the globally recognised Happy Planet Index. This brilliant exercise in putting life ahead of wealth is currently in the process of taking over from gross domestic product (GDP) as the fundamental indicator of true societal bliss. The index is, well, an index of human well-being alongside the environmental impact of the particular country, which is deemed essential since how can you have a well-being minus an environment. See the link a few lines back for further detail. Suffice to say Costa Rica is winning: not least because of its environmental measures. Which can only be construed as a positive thing for the world; and I feel as the HPI grows in stature such listings will be a measure of how well a country represents its people.

There are reams of words. Whole spillages of words delivered into the ether of the internet acknowledging the fear of humanity at our capacity to wreak lasting damage on our society. Just read the pages of the climate project or the climate count down. Whole earthquakes of tiny words. Such is the embrace of the people and the fear. Bill Bryson, in his revelatory work of simple genius – A Short History of Nearly Everything – discusses at length the shocking power of the earth to unleash damage on the surface of the planet. In fact it incorporates a number of chapters. There is as seriousness to that power. I think that it is always present, and can never be fundamentally shifted. Utilised, though, is another thing entirely.

Imagine a sea of biological organisms that are bred solely to capture carbon from the atmosphere. That is, apparently, not too distant a possibility. These and a number, what can only be termed as vast, other engineering wonders are mixing around the political and scientific landscape seeking a home, and awaiting the correct level of funding to become a reality. These ‘projects’ are the burgeoning new world of geoengineering. Caveat: I say burgeoning, and new, but really they have been around for an extraordinary length of time; but have only lately been confirmed as a major step in tackling our climate problem. Their ultimate goal is the protection of our climate from the adverse effects of our buildup of carbon, but delivered in the swiftest possible timeframe. This swiftness is both bold and somewhat reckless, but the thought is, we may require swift and reckless at some point down the line.

Besides the aforementioned multiple organism engineering, there are a few main methods being tested: cloud seeding (first publically used – supposition alert – by the Soviet Union to deflect the weather systems pushing north from the Ukraine following Chernobyl) is a method by which clouds are deliberately formed. The purpose of this seems to be that consistent cloud cover would deflect significant amounts of sunlight, and thus reduce (significantly) the corresponding heating. It is thought that this could be managed both quickly, and to an absurd degree. To my mind Ireland is automatically eliminated from this requirement, as we achieve it naturally. It, of course, brings with it the issue of poor growing seasons for certain crops, and the withering problem of murdering organisms that demand voluminous sunlight. There also exists the possibility of planting artificial trees. This is currently taking place, but to a lesser degree than is envisaged in planet saving mode. This effectively would work in tandem with the current carbon cycle of carbon capture by trees. The issue, in the same way that a tree has this issue, is that the carbon is only stored until it is set free. This happens all too commonly across the world at present where overzealous corporations and developers burn into forested woodland to make room for road networks, and thereby free the captured carbon. It is both ruinous to the habitat (destroying multiples of life) and our planet.

There are many other types of geoengineering (not least the Russian idea of building a massive sun blocking device in the outer atmosphere to shade part of the planet) and I will continue on this topic as write through these blogs; but the aforementioned give a feel for what is being engendered. They are an interesting line in our assault on warming. As I said previously they bring with them the potential for possible mishaps, or indeed, many side effects that have disasters consequences. But they work in their swiftness; and can, in many cases, achieve powerful reductions in the rising temperatures However, this topic has filtered across the media in the last two years bringing awareness to the subject and with it it’s most troublesome aspect: the potential alacrity with which some geoengineering projects could have an impact as somewhat reduced the necessity for immediate action on carbon reduction.  Scientists worry that successes in cloud seeding and other methods could loosen the greening of the world’s political framework. And as any scientist would confirm (or indeed any science writer) geoengineering in almost every case is a temporary halt at best – while at worst, it could be too little too late.

The Science of Survival Parts 1, 2 and 3.

The first evidence of violence is roughly 15k – 14k years ago, and takes the form of skeletons in mass graves with crushed skulls and limbs with marks lacerating their bones which appear to be made from weapons.  It stands up with the perception that this type of violence only occurred as humans gained something worthy of protection, as this period coincides with the first major formations of civilization. Indeed, it is possible to trace right throughout history a connection between war and the requirement to obtain something of merit: often war is committed for the purposes of acquiring a resource (whether it is gold, water, territory or oil). These examples highlight the logical aspects of warfare and take away from the vision of war as an inherent human trait ingrained in our dispositions. Coinciding with this is the fact that humanity is significantly less violent that it used to be. The strongest contribution toward this appears to be the advent of democracy, which is a known precursor for increased wealth and living standards: with wealth comes the ability to acquire resources.  It is notable that there have been no wars between developed nations since the Second World War. Almost all warfare in the current period is guerilla tactics, often with an extremely vivid goal as the ultimate purpose for persevering. But there still remain issues that could lead developed nations to return to warfare – energy being the formidable leader in that category.  As climate change continues to wreak havoc upon the globe, energy will only gain a greater significance to an under-powered human tech population trying desperately to stabilize its industrial might. If ever there was an issue that guaranteed conflict it is this. And in today’s nuclear age the fear of avoiding full scale unit warfare by relying on ranged weaponry can only cause greater concern that an unavoidable clash is within the bounds of reality.

That article I mentioned earlier registered an interesting theory in the debate on avoiding such a scenario: the continued education and political awakening of women. Their argument is formed over a number of grounds. Firstly, with education and political freedoms women are more likely to have fewer children: with fewer mouths to feed globally, there is decreased demand for energy consumption – and significantly fewer issues around population space. With educated women comes greater political exposure, and thus, more democracy.  It is again understood that women vote more pacifist candidates, than men, and this engenders more pacifist candidates running for election. Finally, and most prevalent, is that educated and politically involved women are more likely to run for office themselves: the more women in office around the globe – the less war, period.