Issues and Interventions

Growing up in Reno, Nevada, Jonathan Lawhead was attracted to philosophy from an early age. 

“Maybe it was living in a place where I was surrounded by so much probability,” he joked, before adding more seriously, “When I was in middle school I can remember pulling down Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigation from my dad’s bookshelf and flipping through it and thinking, ‘Wow, this is so cool.’ I didn’t understand a quarter of it, but I thought it was fascinating.”

Lawhead arrived at USC Dornsife this Fall to become Dornsife’s first sustainability postdoctoral researcher. He earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, and peace and conflict studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and a doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University in 2014, where he wrote his dissertation on the foundations of climate science.

As a member of the USC Dornsife Sustainability Task Force, a recent initiative of Dean Steve Kay, Lawhead is working across the disciplines of philosophy and earth science to examine the ethical implications of human intervention as a solution to global warming.

“The job of philosophy in general is to address pressing social problems and it’s hard to think of a more pressing social problem than climate change,” Lawhead said. “It’s the biggest humanitarian and scientific crisis that we’ve probably ever faced and it’s really fruitful ground for philosophical analysis.”

At Columbia, Lawhead became interested in the philosophy of physics and in particular questions about emergence and how large-scale organizations come out of small-scale interactions. This led to his research on the philosophy of complex systems, philosophy of science and specifically, philosophy of climate science.

At USC Dornsife, Lawhead is working with Ralph Wedgwood, professor of philosophy and Julien Emile-Geay, assistant professor of earth sciences, a specialist in climate modeling.

“My job consists of building a bridge between philosophy and earth sciences,” Lawhead said. “My goal is to get people to talk and realize there are common problems in each discipline that people on both sides can shed light on.”

“I’m housed in the earth sciences department, which gives me easy access to people working there,” Lawhead said. “I can just walk down the hall and ask questions about how this model works, or about the mathematics.”

Lawhead’s current project is a continuation of his dissertation on complexity and adaptive systems. With Emile-Geay, he is working on research papers about geo-engineering — deliberate large-scale interventions in the climate to mitigate the effects of global warming.

“One proposal, for instance, would be to spray aerosol into the atmosphere to act like little mirrors that will reflect some of the sunlight and decrease radiation, an offset of global warming,” Lawhead said. “Another proposal would be seeding some of the ocean with iron oxide. That would increase algae blooms and hopefully, through photosynthesis, decrease the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere.”

While many proposals for intervention are gaining traction, Lawhead noted major concerns about intervening in a system as complex as the global climate.

“There is concern that intervention of this nature could have the potential for disastrous, unintended consequences,” he said. “I’m looking at some of the mathematical signatures of tipping points, of large changes in typical systems and how we can detect them. I am also thinking about the ethical implications of trying to make these sorts of interventions. How can we rigorously evaluate whether or not this is a good thing to do? At what point are we desperate enough to try something like shooting volcanic ash into the atmosphere?”

This project is one example of countless others that are addressed by members of the USC Dornsife Sustainability Task Force. Task force members, who have been drawn from departments across USC Dornsife, promote research at the intersection of people and the environment.

Wendy Wood, Provost Professor of Psychology and Business and vice dean for social sciences at USC Dornsife, together with Charles McKenna, professor of chemistry, and vice dean of natural sciences and mathematics, was appointed by Kay to lead the task force. Wood noted that many of the environmental challenges facing our society are captured in the task force theme, The Climate, Coasts and the City.

“Dornsife’s task force is uniquely structured to be able to address complex challenges involving earth science, marine biology and society,” she said.

The task force builds upon USC Dornsife’s successful interdisciplinary undergraduate major in environmental studies and its associated progressive master’s program, the teaching and research programs affiliated with the USC Wrigley Marine Science Center, the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity, and the USC Dornsife 2020 Climate Change in Southern California Bight research cluster, among others.

Lawhead is a big fan of cross-departmental research, believing philosophy works best when it’s part of an interdisciplinary collaboration.

“Philosophy is like wasabi. It’s fantastic when you take a little bit and apply it to something else as a spice, but it’s really terrible if you eat a whole bowl of it.

“What is wonderful about being a sustainability postdoc at USC Dornsife is that I’ve found a way to apply a lot of interests I had developed independently as an undergraduate and in graduate school, and bring them together in one project,” Lawhead said.

He is working with William Berelson, professor and chair of earth sciences, on designing a pilot course for next year that he hopes will become an interdisciplinary minor on geosystems.

“Solving the problem of climate change isn’t something that one department or one group of people can do. Finding a solution will require input from economists, climate scientists, chemists, philosophers and political scientists,” Lawhead said. “USC Dornsife is pioneering this broad, multidisciplinary perspective in a great way with the Sustainability Task Force and I’m honored to be the first person to take it on.

“I hope other institutions start to pick up that this is the right way to do things.”