Lessons in the unthinkable

Pessimism. That eternal stifler of human progress. Except when what seems like negativity is a dose of realism that can mean the difference between survival and catastrophe.

Take a little thing called the Titanic. With the 100-year anniversary of its sinking recently, themes of reckless optimism and human failure were all over the social media circuits, highlighting again how the dream of invincible technology can come up short when colliding with icy reality.

Like the Titanic's creators, society has been sailing along on the misguided belief that anything can be overcome with a big enough boat.

Lezette Engelbrecht, online features editor, ITWeb

Parallels with environmental threats are hard to miss. The same stubborn belief in the infallible nature of human advancement has led to a scenario where mitigation is no longer possible on several fronts. Like the Titanic's creators, society has been sailing along on the misguided belief that anything can be overcome with a big enough boat. We're vaguely aware of the dangers, but they seem intangible and distant when compared to the excitement of unchecked development.

And even if something were to go wrong - a little flooding here, a drought or two there - our impressive powers of engineering will surely hold up. We are, after all, unsinkable. Dig down into most arguments against preparing for future environmental risks, and that's the core belief.

Except, of course, when the ship goes belly-up. Then there's none of this unshakeable trust in human ingenuity. We do not have it all figured out and everything will not be ok. Then it's every man, woman and child for themselves.

So, in the spirit of a centenary since the unthinkable happened, here are a few lessons from the Titanic, as we chart a course through uncertain waters of our own.

One of the Titanic's biggest weaknesses was its shoddy planning. Despite all the claims of being indestructible, the ship's construction was not up to scratch from the beginning. Documents from shipyard Harland and Wolff show the hull was weak and the rivets flimsy, all in the name of making the Titanic faster and getting out of the docks in time. It was negligence on an epic scale.

If the substandard construction wasn't enough, its builders decided to equip a ship carrying 2 000-plus passengers with a mere 20 lifeboats. It wasn't simply irresponsible; it reveals the extreme hubris of the Titanic's creators and a complete disregard for the realities of the environment they were entering. There were all kinds of justifications: the number met marine law requirements (16 boats for vessels over 10 000 tons), there would most likely be vessels nearby it could call for help, and so on and so forth.

But the Titanic was almost five times bigger than the 10 000-ton guideline and maritime safety regulations hadn't been updated for almost 20 years. Somehow, the thought of making provision for the massive increase in size got lost in the anticipation of being the biggest and best.

In addition, organising risk protection around the concept that it won't happen is almost humorously illogical. The whole point of planning for inevitabilities is based on the notion that it's unlikely to happen, but in case it does, you're covered. It's the rationale behind helmets, seatbelts, airbags, insurance. What's the use of protecting with half measures? So it is with threats facing the planet. Some will argue that climate change is a myth; that environmental damage and species loss isn't that bad, or that it will only happen 100 years from now. We are unsinkable. But the data reveals something different. Ice bergs are appearing in the form of temperature changes, shifting seasonal and rainfall patterns, and an increase in extreme weather. All of these changes will affect us in our lifetime and significantly so. And as with real icebergs, the peaks we see in many cases hide a bulk that we have neither conceived of nor planned for.

Like the Titanic, growth has not been matched with better risk protection and laws have not been updated. We hold onto the belief that a few life boats will do for a planetary ship of seven billion. If society makes the same mistake; if we fail to plan adequately for very real and present risks, then there will be no answer for future generations but “we knew and went ahead anyway”.

Here's the thing about warning systems; you're supposed to heed them. In the case of the Titanic, ice was a well-known hazard in the Atlantic seas, and the officers intercepting radio messages would have been aware of the dangers. They received six warnings about sea ice from nearby vessels on 11 April, five more the following day, three more on the 13th and six on the fateful day. But the ship was travelling too fast when it collided with the berg that ripped its hull open, and it could not change course at the last minute.

As with environmental threats, ignorance cannot be a defence. The consequences of unchecked carbon dioxide emissions and natural resource use have been common knowledge for decades. Yet, there's a persistent sense of denial about the dangers we face. Fingers are pointed everywhere else: natural cycles, solar flares, the imaginings of a few quack scientists. Meanwhile, the evidence is piling up and the warnings are growing louder and more frequent. Humankind vastly overestimates its ability to cope with changes that may be far more dramatic than anticipated. We too, are speeding along in the wrong direction, waving aside the steady stream of warnings.

When things go wrong, rescue has a way of conforming to social patterns. As much as we'd like to think everyone will have equal access to adaptation strategies, the Titanic provides a chilling example of the opposite. When the life boats were being filled, the richer classes went in first and the rest had to wait. Yes, women and children were prioritised, but even this rule was superseded by that of social standing. Figures show a drastic reduction in survival figures as you head down the passenger classes. It's the same with climate change - there will be no equality in coping with impacts - those who contributed the most to current levels of CO2 will likely suffer the least, because they have the means to adapt to change. The poor, meanwhile, will have to stretch their meagre resources even further to try and stay the damage.

Of course, the future of environmental sustainability is also different from the Titanic story in many important ways. There is still time to heed the warnings. There's time, if not to completely change course then at least to alter it, and even time to add more life boats. There is time, but it is very limited.

If society can learn from the lessons of the Titanic, it can replace the 'unsinkable' mentality with one of sober, but not defeatist, realism. After all, just because the unthinkable is happening, doesn't mean we need to lose the ability to think.