Regenerating Life through a Margulisian revolution – Part III of III

This is the 3rd part of a three-part series that reviews and expands on a new documentary, “Regenerating Life – How to cool the planet, feed the world, and live happily ever after”.

Water begets water,
Soil is the womb,
vegetation the midwife.”

                     Millán Millán

For thousands of years, Western academics and clerics insisted that the world was flat. During the enlightenment period, the Copernican Revolution shifted our understanding and now we see that Earth is actually round. This physical insight shifted the European’s understanding of their place in the universe dramatically – they no longer were located at creation’s center and had to redefine their very identity and role as human beings. And they did: they learned to understand the human body as “the most complicated machine that is known” with lots of mechanical parts; they learned how to colonize the globe; and they decided to eradicate our own indigenous roots that still treated the Earth as our mother and humans as wholes – and burned tens of thousands of knowledge keepers as witches. The European era of reductionism and the mindset of the machine had begun, and imposed globally through colonialism.

Early on, reductionism understood the human body as separate from the soul – and merely as a mechanical machine. We humans always described the body with the latest machine that we have invented: Descartes mostly imagined it as a bunch of hydraulic cables that move us around. Later, we imagined bodies as mechanical robots, with tiny wheels that resemble clockwork. Today, we often use analogies for brain as a binary computer. Yet, the core narrative of a machine is a constant in our medical metaphors.

We also like to treat the environment like a machine. If there’s a waste problem, we build recycling plants and incinerators that deal with the end product. If there’s air pollution from industrial factories, we add a filter to the exhaust stack. And as we observe and experience global warming, we are determined to find a mechanistic explanation and solution – the carbon dioxide “greenhouse shield” that mirrors heat back on us. So we develop technologies that fix these mechanistic problems – high-tech recycling plants, air filters, carbon removal machines, and even geoengineering “solutions” that are designed to tinker with Earth as a whole.

Whenever we see something we don’t like, we use the metaphor of war. The “war against pests”, the “war against drugs”, the “war against terrorism”, the “war against COVID-19”, the “war against carbon dioxide”. War calls for powerful weapons (technologies) and for concerted efforts that ignore unintended impacts (collateral damages). War calls for destruction, for domination, for elimination of the enemy. The Copernican revolution and Descartes’ paradigm of reductionism came along with our tendency to fight, battle, destroy, eliminate, exterminate.

So far, none of these wars and technical solutions have had any success. There’s more waste in the world than ever, despite recycling efforts. There’s more pollution in the air and water – even though the individual smokestack is cleaner, we just added more and more of these (mostly in the Global South). And carbon dioxide is continuing to rise, in our atmosphere despite 30 years of “war against carbon emissions”. It seems, the mechanistic view on life – started by the Copernican revolution and Descartes’ reductionism – is failing us everywhere.

We are currently experiencing the birthing of a new narrative of life, which recognizes the fundamental role of the living world, of interactions between organisms, and interactions between living creatures and the physical world. While this new narrative of life remains hidden and even suppressed, little signs are lurking through everywhere I look: in agriculture, urban planning, garden design, child education, climate change. Unfortunately, the dominant reductionist narrative remains strong and, at times, actively suppresses the “living world narrative”.

Lynn, the unknown giant of life sciences

In a past blog on the essence of life, I listed some of the scientific contributions of Lynn Margulis. The impact of her teachings could not be more important to our understanding of life. Lynn not only contributed to our scientific knowledge, as master story teller, she also translated these findings into a simple language that is very accessible. Her PhD thesis started out with a revolution – she described endosymbiosis, the origin of the cell from the symbiosis of two different microbes. Mitochondria and chloroplasts were once separate life forms that “merged” with another kingdom to form the modern cell. In fact, we now believe that ALL higher cells go back to a single merger event.

Lynn Margulis went further and looked at evolution, at ecological communities, at Gaia as the Earth in its entirety. Wherever she looked, she saw symbiosis as the driving force of life and innovation. She acknowledges competition as the cleaning lady that gets rid of inefficiencies – but not much more. Along her way, she re-wrote the tree of evolution (it is no longer a tree), the individual organism (which can no longer survive on its own), microbial ecology. Lynn is for life itself what Suzanne Simard recently became for trees – she saw deeper and clearer than anyone before her. And the establishment continues to hate her for that, because her perspective changes everything. Others believe that she is the most important academic of the 20^th century, whose work will define the science of the 21^st century in a mind shift that can only be compared to the Copernican revolution of the 18^th century.

For me, maybe the most impactful shift in my understanding of life is that she sees the cell as the center of life, and DNA as “merely” the database that stores information for this cell and can be accessed at will – maybe comparable to the harddisk in our computers. Lynn also redefined how we see individuals – she coined the term “holobiont” as the union of all organisms that a life form needs to survive. Mammals would die without their gut organisms –what is a cow without its symbionts? Unable to live and certainly unable to have offsprings, a cow without symbionts does not meet our definition of “being a species”. Similarly, a termite really is a consortium of 25 different organisms, each with their own genomes, each reproducing independently within the termite host. Individuals in a human family (or community) may have different genomes, but will share thousands of symbiont species that live on our skins and in our guts. In a holobiontic  view on life, individualism cannot exist – individuals without symbionts are unable to survive. Biologically, we are all communists and our successes can only be realized through the support of others! No wonder that our highly competitive academics had a hard time with accepting her insights.

Finally, Lynn also framed how we continue to search for extraterrestrial life when she worked for NASA. Her principles of “atmosphere outside of chemical-physical equilibrium” are still being utilized today to search for life on other planets, even though her name attribution is partly lost: Lynn used to be married to famous astrophysicist Carl Sagan, who also worked for NASA – I have no idea how her standing in the astrophysicist community suffered from that divorce, and she never talked about it. But overall, there’s nothing we know about life that wasn’t reshaped by her symbiotic perspective.

Like other scientists and thinkers who were once silenced by the majority dogma – Copernicus, Kepler, Socrates – Lynn spend much of her energies on fighting for acceptance of her insights. 40 years later, no biology textbook can be written without these ideas  – yet Lynn hardly gets cited. Her insights are too fundamental, too all-encompassing… Her life in battle was hard on Lynn’s psyche, she felt like an outcast and she increasingly supported other scientific outcasts. She asked uncomfortable questions – about the drivers of the HIV epidemic, or the official story of 9/11 terrorist attacks. Some of her doubts later turned out to be unsubstantiated, which gave further ammunition to those who silenced her message. To me, Lynn Margulis is the greatest of all feminists – yet tragically the least known.

A Margulisian take on climate: the biosphere’s self regulation of water and weather

Lynn Margulis laid out the groundwork for a new “climate science of life”, even though she contributed little directly to the climate change debate. Like no other scientist, Lynn described the mutually beneficial interaction of organisms that actively create more life, and environments that are conducive to more life. Yet, it was other researchers that found meteorological examples for the Gaia theory: individuals like Prof. Millán Millán , Erle C Ellis, Michal Kravcik, Gordan Bonan, or Carl Folke took our basic understanding of Gaia and filled in myriads of puzzle pieces for our new climate science of life. And like the GHG-focused climatology, we also start with the Earth’s energy balance and how energies flows from the sun to Earth and back into space.

A brief look at the atmospheric absorption of light elucidates the respective roles of vapor and other greenhouse gases, in particular CO2. As can be seen, most heat radiation is not interfering with carbon dioxide at all; without vapor, the “greenhouse blanket” is selective to few wavelengths and otherwise lets heat radiation pass into space. In fact, only few wavelengths are trapped by carbon dioxide – mostly around 2000 nm, where most radiation energy is already reflected and the atmosphere will eventually saturate. Meanwhile, water vapor is trapping heat radiation at various bands of wavelengths – with strong absorption peaks around 900nm, 1100nm, 1300nm, at 1900nm. Water vapor is the most potent greenhouse gas, making up around 70% of the natural greenhouse. Yet, water is involved in so many other processes of the atmosphere that it is hard to understand the net impact – is it a net cooling or a net heating? And given the role of water — how could we ever overlook the living biosphere as dynamic driver of the Earth’s water cycle and our atmospheric greenhouse, especially above land?

Figure 4: The light spectrum of the atmosphere. Source: Wikipedia

On clear skies, visible sunlight can pass the atmosphere undisturbed, until it reaches the ground. Clouds directly reflect some sunlight back like a mirror. On the ground, sunlight is either reflected directly as visible light (“albedo”), or is converted into other forms of energy – sensible heat, latent heat, and warming of the ground:

• Sensible heat is upward-moving infrared radiation, which is susceptible the being captured by the “greenhouse blanket” in our changed atmosphere.
• Latent heat is the energy that water molecules absorbs when shifting shape from liquid to gaseous vapor. As vapor moves upward, it can transports energy through the lower atmosphere without any reflection from greenhouse gases, until it eventually condenses and releases its heat into the sky – creating puffy cumulus and other clouds that shade the Earth surface.
• Energy absorption directly warms the ground surface. How much the ground warms varies dramatically– on the same day, a forest may have 22°C, a meadow 24°C and a lawn 26°C, while bare soil heats up to 45°C, plastic lawn to 55°C, and asphalt and cement to 65°C.

Figure 1: Water and energy flows in a degraded and vegetated landscape Vegetation and soils control how sunlight is reflected, absorbed, converted.

Vegetation shifts the flow of water and energy. Figure 1 shows how vegetation modifies the water and energy balance, where the same amount of sunlight and clouds are blown into a region.

• A landscape without vegetation (Figure 1, left) and with degraded soils, clouds only create a little rain. When this rain hits the ground, very little water can infiltrate the ground where it would be stored for later. Most water immediately runs off along the surface and into a river – heavier rainfalls create flooding elsewhere. Also, the sensible heat that is re-radiated by the degraded surface is later caught in the greenhouse and reflected back toward Earth – the two “legs” of global warming, re-radiation from the ground and reflection from greenhouse gases, mutually intensify each other in a feedback loop.
• A vegetated landscape  (Figure 1, right) transpires water vapor and emits biogenic aerosols that serve as condensation nuclii for clouds. More water  is pushed into the atmosphere and form more clouds, and again more rainfall. Transpiration turns water into vapor, adds more vapor to the air, absorbs solar energy at the surface, and thus cools the lowest layer of the atmosphere.  Vapor then transports energy upward and eventually releases it as sensible heat when it condenses and forms water droplets. The warmed air then quickly rises and creates some turbulence – we can observe these as cumulus clouds on a nice summer day! The increased cloud cover above vegetation also reflects more sunlight energy back into space, shading and cooling the ground. And with less upward-directed heat radiation, the greenhouse gases have less to reflect – the greenhouse effect is turned down from boiling to a simmer.

In the old, mechanistic climate paradigm, deforestation was long believed to have a cooling effect at the surface, because desert reflects more visual light into space than living vegetation.  However, scientists now warn that we oversimplified the energetic impact of deforestation, as there are many other changes to water and energy flows [1]. Prof. Millán Millán measured how this vegetation-water-energy interaction shifts wind and weather patterns [2]. In Southern Spain, the summer storms have waned, which were once a lifeline for local agriculture. Millán  demonstrated how trees transpire vapor and move energy up as latent heat, until they condense and release that energy as sensible heat into the clouds. This heat pushes moist air higher up and builds up high cumulostratus clouds that we all know from thunderstorms in summer evenings. Once the forest was removed, there was less vapor in the air and no heat release. Summer storms waned, and the region now experiences dangerous water scarcity. Similar disruptions of the water cycle after vegetation removal were observed all around the world – around the Mediterranean, along the Rockies in California and BC, in Slovakia, in China, in India. Vegetation makes rain – and the removal of vegetation makes drought. Wildfires are now burning our drying Earth and hyper-accelerating global warming as they disrupt transpiration and create degraded soils that release even more heat radiation that the strengthening greenhouse shield can reflect back on us. Just like a mirror cannot blind us without a source of light, the greenhouse blanket would not cook us without the “furnace’ of degraded soil. Soil degradation may be the biggest threat to the survival of our civilizations, yet it remains mostly overlooked – especially in the climate debate ([3],[4],[5]).

Figure 2: Vegetation makes summer storms. Source: Millán 2005

One of the main drivers of soil degradation and the drying of the water cycle, and related changes in storm and rainfall patterns, is the conversion of forest into agriculture, and in particular cropland with long periods of bare soil.  When comparing latent heat flux for different land uses in Florida over the annual seasons [6]), it became apparent how agricultural bare soil contributes to dramatic a reduction in latent heat flux during spring when soils are bare (Figure 3): latent heat decreases by 30 W/m2 and increases sensible heat accordingly, almost 10 times as strongly as the global greenhouse gas effect.  A recent study in Brazil showed that primary rainforest radiates only about 30 W/m2 upward, while the rest of the solar energy is either reflected directly on clouds or transformed into latent heat. Whereas agricultural crop- and pastureland radiate ~250 W/m2 upwards, if averaged over the growing season. This is almost 100 times the average global warming effect of 3 W/m2! Likewise, evapotranspiration is around 4 mm/day in the primary forest, and less  than 1mm/day on agricultural land [7]).  Whenever land cover degrades from lush vegetation to bare soil, latent heat fluxes dramatically decrease while sensible heat fluxes increase.

Figure 3: Heat radiation on cash crop fields. Note the peak while soils are bare. During times of bare soil, agriculture emits most incoming solar energy as sensible (IR) heat radiation. Source: Cheng et al., 2014

The increase of heat radiation is only one feedback of living landscapes on the climate that are inadequately addressed by climate discourse (¹). John Feldman’s film Regenerating Life touches on several other biological feedbacks: cloud formation due to plant exudates, temporal transfer of heat from day to night, and other complexities that exceed what climate models can resolve. Nor are these feedbacks considered within the climate negotiations and policies. For example, a recent dialogue on the relation between climate and land (UNFCCC, 2020 [8]) solely focused on two aspects: impacts of the greenhouse effect on land, and impacts of landuse on atmospheric greenhouse gases. Politicians have  made up their mind: climate is about carbon dioxide, so we have to fight carbon dioxide by commodifying emissions in carbon markets. More financialization, more capitalization, more profiteering will solve the climate crisis – and we should convert more biosphere into cash crop land and produce corn-based ethanol or palm oil-based biodiesel. The reductionist approach to climate action could not be more misguided.

Many scientists are now calling for better consideration of the biosphere feedbacks in climate politics (e.g. [9],[10],[11]), but it seems hard to cut through an increasingly ideological fog.   A recent article by Rob Lewis explores this fog through the eyes of meteorological empiricist Millán Millán, as does Part II of this blog series from my own experience.

How the Margulisian revolution prepares a new human identity

The Copernican revolution shifted European’s self understanding as humans and redefined their agency with respect to the rest of the world, the living biosphere, and other human communities. Colonization, industrialization, Neo-Darwinian competitiveness, and capitalization of our world’s resources would not have been possible without this shift in our identity as “Western humans”.

The Margulisian revolution may offer a similar massive shift in our identity – if we could just recognize it as such. The Margulisian worldview sees all organisms connected in reciprocal relationships – relationships that are often beneficial and stabilizing for the larger system. Life begets more life, water begets more water, and it is somehow all connected. Competition is not irrelevant, but evolution subordinated competition to the larger principle of mutual benefit.  In hopeful moments, I see its proliferation everywhere – from how we treat children or how animals are respected on progressive farms, how we treat the planet. The New Story touches everything we do – sometimes in miraculous pathways. Watch Charles Eisenstein’s “The New Story” for some inspiration!

Meanwhile, Indigenous cultures around the globe are rediscovering their own relationship to Mother Earth, and reject the worldview of modern Christianity – especially the Catholic churches’ contempt for Earth deification.  As soon as we accept the sacredness of Earth as a self-regulating entity that is “alive”, our spiritual service is directed to nurturing this Goddess of life. Our role shifts from exploiting Earth to gain earthly riches, to glorifying creation by stewarding life. And this is empowering, because it grants every human the right to be alive by embracing this stewardship role – despite the planetary crisis, Earth needs humans. Watch Lyla June’s “Possibility of Regeneration” 6-min animation!

But first, we Westerners have to fully respect and embrace the living sacredness of Earth and its climate, soil, vegetation, and other creatures. Water begets water, soil is the womb, and vegetation the midwife. I love this image because it uses a metaphor that is grounded in the female power of birthing. For long, I referred to this transition as the “2^nd Copernican Revolution” – to highlight the fundamental quality of the mind shift that is simmering. I now believe that this is a mis-nomer: Copernicus was male, and his male revolution established a mechanical worldview. Whereas Lynn Margulis pulled together the scientific basis that crushed this mechanical worldview, at least for anyone who is open enough to listen deeply, think reflectively, and observe the world around us attentively. Let us embrace the female character of this revolution – and let us remember Lynn Margulis for her invaluable contribution to this New Story of Life. Her decades of academic research put this story onto a solid scientific footing within the language of reductionism. So let us embrace the Margulisian Revolution of our human identity – it is female, all-encompassing, and scientifically beyond doubt – our reductionist methods of the Copernican revolution have confirmed that.

References

[1] Davin EL, de Noblet-Ducoudré N. Climatic impact of global-scale deforestation: Radiative versus nonradiative processes. Journal of Climate. 2010 Jan 1;23(1):97-112.

[2] Millán MM. Climate/water-cycle feedbacks in the Mediterranean: The role of land-use changes and the propagation of perturbations at the regional and global scale. In: Regional Climate Variability and its Impacts in the Mediterranean Area 2007 Sep 23 (pp. 83-101). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

[3] Hamaker JD, Weaver DA. Survival of Civilization. Seymour, MI, USA: Hamaker-Weaver Publishers; 1982 Jun.

[4] Montgomery DR. Dirt: The erosion of civilizations. Univ of California press; 2012 Apr 10.

[5] Gomiero T. Soil degradation, land scarcity and food security: Reviewing a complex challenge. Sustainability. 2016 Mar 18;8(3):281.

[6] Chi-Han Cheng, Fidelia Nnadi, Yuei-An Liou, “Energy Budget on Various Land Use Areas Using Reanalysis Data in Florida”, Advances in Meteorology, vol. 2014, Article ID 232457, 13 pages, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/232457

[7] Pongratz J, Bounoua L, DeFries RS, Morton DC, Anderson LO, Mauser W, Klink CA. The impact of land cover change on surface energy and water balance in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Earth Interactions. 2006 Oct;10(19):1-7.

[8] https://unfccc.int/event/dialogue-on-the-relationship-between-land-and-climate-change-adaptation-related-matters

[9] Bonan GB. Forests and climate change: forcings, feedbacks, and the climate benefits of forests. science. 2008 Jun 13;320(5882):1444-9.

[10] Seneviratne SI, Wartenburger R, Guillod BP, Hirsch AL, Vogel MM, Brovkin V, van Vuuren DP, Schaller N, Boysen L, Calvin KV, Doelman J. Climate extremes, land–climate feedbacks and land-use forcing at 1.5 C. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. 2018 May 13;376(2119):20160450.

[11] Miralles DG, Gentine P, Seneviratne SI, Teuling AJ. Land–atmospheric feedbacks during droughts and heatwaves: state of the science and current challenges. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 2019 Jan;1436(1):19-35.

[12] Kraamwinkel CT, Beaulieu A, Dias T, Howison RA. Planetary limits to soil degradation. Communications Earth & Environment. 2021 Dec 8;2(1):249.