Enter Exponology

"And if the ground's not cold/Everything is going to burn/We'll all take turns/I'll get mine too." -- Pixies, "Monkey Gone to Heaven"

Recently, I watched some global warming denier on The Daily Show, and why Jon Stewart just didn't throw the guy out was beyond me. They had nothing resembling a civil conversation on the matter, the tool -- an AEI hack who I will not name, because his new book is a joke, so you're just going to have to look him up -- had no cogent argument against global warming whatsoever, and Stewart spent most of the interview talking about how he felt the guy was going to hit him. This is global warming's greatest, smartest counteroffensive? Offensive is right.

Then comes the news that last month, a Winter month, was our hottest of all time. Since they started keeping records, that is. Which they probably did because the idea that the planet is some kind of climate-controlled waiting room tailor-made for humanity by Jesus, Allah or some other invention began to make no sense once things got bumpy and uncomfortable. Anyway, the dry-as-hell AP has the spiel:

"The presence of El Nino along with the continuing global warming trend contributed to the record warm January," NOAA said. "The unusually warm conditions contributed to the second lowest January snow cover extent on record for the Eurasian continent. During the past century, global surface temperatures have increased at a rate near 0.11 F (0.06 C) per decade, but the rate of increase has been three times larger since 1976, or 0.32 F (0.18 C) per decade, with some of the largest temperature increases occurring in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere."

I would like to take this opportunity to point out a new science or branch of knowledge I'm keen on inventing, called Exponology. It's still in the formative stages, because my background is in language and media, not science, but it both came to me in a dream and is beginning to look more and more like something I can explore in Hyperhighway to Hell.

Taken at its linguistic root, exponology is simply the science that studies exponents, both of the numerical and fanatical variety. For the former, it is interested in gauging how rates of change accelerate exponentially past the informed predictions of, well, pretty much everyone. For example, look at last part of the AP quote above: Notice how the rate of temperature is broken down by decade, a comforting strategem until you get to the part where the rate triples since 1976. This upheaval is what exponology would like to tackle, not how gradual shifts occur, but how dramatic increases exponentially tumble upon one another, erasing whatever grace period we seem to think we have before we're totally screwed.

In other words, just because global surface temperatures have increased at a rate near 0.11 F (0.06 C) per decade doesn't mean that they will continue to do so at that rate, or that any gradual rate of change can be established. The only thing that is going help us out of our own self-imposed annihilation is calculating the exponent, not the average by decade, by year, by whatever. Because that will truly tell us how much time we have left on this lucky planet, as well as why scientific predictions, especially on global warming, always fall short of the mark. That is, when the scientific community tells you that we're going to lose our fish by 2050 or so, they're failing to take the exponological nature of the rate change into account, meaning that they are always more optimistic, even though their science is rigorous, than they should be. When I hear 2050, I turn to exponology and end up with 2025, 2015 or even 2010. Same goes for everything else.

Why? Because once change -- in climates, in governments, in techonology -- is set in motion, it rarely follows a measured path. It explodes, it expands, it accelerates, so fast so that we're already in its chaotic wake by the time we've worked out a deadline. Nice word: Dead. Line. Say it with me.

The other dimension of exponology comes when you study exponents of a different type, those defined by the term itself as supporters, champions, proponents or promoters of, well, whatever. Ideologies, the status quo, disaster capitalism, American Idol. Studying the sociopolitical strata of these exponents can be as illuminating as studying the numbers of the other ones. Because change comes not just with math and science, but with policy and propaganda as well. Everybody has something to gain, and something to hide. Except for me and my monkey, as Lennon sang on The White Album. And like the immortal Pixies sang in the song of the same name, that "monkey's gone to heaven."

That song also talks about the planet heating up, how we will all burn when the globe ceases to stay refrigerated. Exponolgy has become my tool for studying how that will happen, as well as how it will be spun. If the idea doesn't sound like it's fully formed yet, it isn't. Like I said, it came to me in a dream. I swear.

But that said, it has come in very handy. And like a true student of knowledge, rather than a gatekeeper capitalizing on its exchange or use value, I'm happy as hell to opensource the discussion and see where it goes. So nerds, scientists, deniers, doubters and interested parties should feel free to criticize, modify and supplement the idea here or on Morphizm, if they wish. Ideas are nothing without social momentum, and I haven't been able to get this one out of my head ever since it popped into there five or so years ago.

But just remember -- you heard it here first. Unless you heard it somewhere else first, and in that case please tell me where. I can use all the help I can get, especially once Hyperhighway to Hell kicks into high gear. Because accelerations -- social, ecological and otherwise -- need to be accurately studied and scrutinized if we are to survive. A gradual rate of change makes no sense to a world soaked in explosive change. Especially from a turbulent planet we still barely know anything about.