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Beyond the Point of No Return
It's too late to stop climate change -- so what do we do now?
As the pace of global warming kicks into overdrive, the hollow optimism of climate activists, along with the desperate responses of some of the world's most prominent climate scientists, is preventing us from focusing on the survival requirements of the human enterprise.
The environmental establishment continues to peddle the notion that we can solve the climate problem.
We can't.
We have failed to meet nature's deadline. In the next few years, this world will experience progressively more ominous and destabilizing changes. These will happen either incrementally -- or in sudden, abrupt jumps.
Under either scenario, it seems inevitable that we will soon be confronted by water shortages, crop failures, increasing damages from extreme weather events, collapsing infrastructures, and, potentially, breakdowns in the democratic process itself.
Start with the climate activists, who are telling us only a partial truth.
Virtually all of the national and grassroots climate groups are pushing hard to reduce carbon emissions. The most aggressive are working to change America's entire energy structure from one based on coal and oil to a new energy future based on noncarbon technologies -- as they should.
The Step It Up campaign inspired more than 1,500 protests in all 50 states this year, and is hoping to build on that impact by joining forces with the 1Sky climate campaign. The Campus Climate Challenge is planning a new and more energetic clean energy campaign. Focus the Nation continues to exhort colleges and universities around the country to green their campuses. Al Gore's dedication to bringing the climate crisis to public attention won him a well-deserved Nobel Prize, and he's using his newfound credibility to push even harder for action against climate change. The large Washington-based environmental groups are pressing to improve climate and energy bills that are moving through Congress -- even though the bills are clearly inadequate to the challenge before us.
But even assuming the wildest possible success of their initiatives -- that humanity decided tomorrow to replace its coal- and oil-burning energy sources with noncarbon sources -- it would still be too late to avert major climate disruptions. No national energy infrastructure can be transformed within a decade.
All these initiatives address only one part of the coming reality. They recall the kind of frenzied scrambling that is characteristic of trauma victims -- a frantic focus on other issues, any other issues -- that allows people to avoid the central take-home message of the trauma: in this case, the overwhelming power of inflamed nature.
Within the last two years, a number of leading scientists -- including Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), British ecologist James Lovelock, and NASA scientist James Hansen -- have all declared that humanity is about to pass or already has passed a "tipping point" in terms of global warming. The IPCC, which reflects the findings of more than 2,000 scientists from over 100 countries, recently stated that it is "very unlikely" that we will avoid the coming era of "dangerous climate change."
The truth is that we may already be witnessing the early stages of runaway climate change in the melting of the Arctic, the increase in storm intensity, the accelerating extinctions of species, and the prolonged nature of recurring droughts.
Moreover, some scientists now fear that the warming is taking on its own momentum -- driven by internal feedbacks that are independent of the human-generated carbon layer in the atmosphere.
Consider these examples:
- Despite growing public awareness of global warming, the world's carbon emissions are rising nearly three times faster than they did in the 1990s. As a result, many scientists tell us that the official, government-sanctioned forecasts of coming changes are understating the threat facing the world.
- A rise of 2 degrees C over preindustrial temperatures is now virtually inevitable, according to the IPCC, as the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is approaching the destabilizing level of 450 parts per million. That rise will bring drought, hunger, disease, and flooding to millions of people around the world.
- Scientists predict a steady rise in temperatures beginning in about two years -- with at least half of the years between 2009 and 2019 surpassing the average global temperature in 1998, to date, the hottest year on record.
- Given the unexpected speed with which Antarctica is melting, coupled with the increasing melt rates in the Arctic and Greenland, the rate of sea-level rise has doubled -- with scientists now raising their prediction of ocean rise by century's end from about three feet to about six feet.
- Scientists discovered that a recent, unexplained surge of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere is due to more greenhouse gases escaping from trees, plants, and soils -- which have traditionally buffered the warming by absorbing the gases. In the lingo of climate scientists, carbon sinks are turning into carbon sources. Because the added warmth is making vegetation less able to absorb our carbon emissions, scientists expect the rate of warming to jump substantially in the coming years.
- The intensity of hurricanes around the world has doubled in the last decade. As Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research explained, "If you take the last 10 years, we've had twice the number of category-5 hurricanes than any other [10-year period] on record."
- In Australia, a new, permanent state of drought in the country's breadbasket has cut crop yields by over 30 percent. The 1-in-1,000-year drought exemplifies a little-noted impact of climate change. As the atmosphere warms, it tightens the vortex of the winds that swirl around the poles. One result is that the water that traditionally evaporated from the Southern Ocean and rained down over New South Wales is now being pulled back into Antarctica -- drying out the southeastern quadrant of Australia and contributing to the buildup of glaciers in the Antarctic -- the only area on the planet where glaciers are increasing.
As one prominent climate scientist said recently, "We are seeing impacts today that we did not expect to see until 2085."[1]
The panic among climate scientists is expressing itself in geoengineering proposals that are half-baked, fantastically futuristic, and, in some cases, reckless. Put forth by otherwise sober and respected scientists, the schemes are intended to basically allow us to continue burning coal and oil.
Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen, for example, is proposing to spray aerosols into the upper atmosphere to reduce the amount of sunlight hitting earth. Tom M. L. Wigley, a highly esteemed climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), ran scenarios of stratospheric sulfate injection -- on the scale of the estimated 10 million tons of sulfur emitted when Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991 -- through supercomputer models of the climate, and reported that Crutzen's idea would, indeed, seem to work. The scheme was highlighted in a recent op-ed piece in The New York Times by Ken Caldeira, a climate researcher at the Carnegie Institution.
Unfortunately, the seeding of the atmosphere with sun-reflecting particles would trigger a global drought, according to a study by other researchers. "It is a Band-Aid fix that does not work," said study co-author Kevin Trenberth of NCAR. The eruption of Pinatubo was followed by a significant drop-off of rainfall over land and a record decrease in runoff and freshwater discharge into the ocean, according to a recently published study by Trenberth and other scientists.
The noted British ecologist James Lovelock recently proposed the idea of installing deepwater pipes on the ocean floor to pump cold water to the surface to enhance the ocean's ability to absorb carbon dioxide. Others suggest dumping iron filings into the ocean to increase the growth of algae which, in turn, would absorb more carbon dioxide.
These proposals fail to seriously acknowledge the possibility of unanticipated impacts on ocean dynamics or marine ecosystems or atmospheric conditions. We have no idea what would result from efforts to geoengineer our way around nature's roadblock.
At a recent conference, Lisa Speer of the Natural Resources Defense Council noted, "These types of proposals are multiplying around the world, and there is no structure in place to evaluate if any of them work. People are going after these gigantic projects without any thoughtful, rational process."
What these scientists are offering us are technological expressions of their own supercharged sense of desperation.
To be fair, the reality that faces us all is extremely difficult to deal with -- as much from an existential as from a scientific point of view.
Climate change won't kill all of us -- but it will dramatically reduce the human population through the warming-driven spread of infectious disease, the collapse of agriculture in traditionally fertile areas, and the increasing scarcity of fresh drinking water. (Witness the 1-in-100-year drought in the southeastern U.S., which has been threatening drinking water supplies in Georgia and other states.)
Those problems will be dramatically intensified by an influx of environmental refugees whose crops are destroyed by weather extremes or whose freshwater sources have dried up or whose homelands are going under from rising sea levels.
In March, the U.S. Army War College sponsored a conference on the security implications of climate change. "Climate change is a national security issue," retired General Gordon R. Sullivan, chair of the Military Advisory Board and former Army chief of staff, said in releasing a report that grew out of the conference. "[C]limate instability will lead to instability in geopolitics and impact American military operations around the world."
One frequently overlooked potential casualty of accelerating climate change may be our tradition of democracy (corrupted as it already is). When governments have been confronted by breakdowns, they have frequently resorted to totalitarian measures to keep order in the face of chaos. It is not hard to imagine a state of emergency morphing into a much longer state of siege, especially since heat-trapping carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for about 100 years.
Add the escalating squeeze on our oil supplies, which could intensify our meanest instincts, and you have the ingredients for a long period of repression and conflict.
Ominously, this plays into the scenario, thoughtfully explored by Naomi Klein, that the community of multinational corporations will seize on the coming catastrophes to elbow aside governments as agents of rescue and reconstruction -- but only for communities that can afford to pay. This dark vision implies the increasing insulation of the world's wealthy minority from the rest of humanity -- buying protection for their fortressed communities from the Halliburtons, Bechtels, and Blackwaters of the world while the majority of the poor are left to scramble for survival among the ruins.
The only antidote to that kind of future is a revitalization of government -- an elevation of public mission above private interest and an end to the free-market fundamentalism that has blinded much of the American public with its mindless belief in the divine power of markets. In short, it requires a revival of a system of participatory democracy that reflects our collective values far more accurately than the corporate state into which we have slid.
Unfortunately, we seem to be living in an age of historical amnesia. One wonders whether our institutional memory still recalls the impulses that gave rise to our constitution -- or whether we have substituted a belief in efficiency, economic rationalization, and profit maximization for our traditional pursuit of a finely calibrated balance between individual liberties and social justice.
From a more personal viewpoint, an acknowledgement of the reality of escalating climate change plays havoc with one's sense of future. It is almost as though a lone ocean voyager were suddenly to lose sight of the North Star. It deprives one of an inner sense of navigation. To live without at least an open-ended sense of future (even if it's not an optimistic one) is to open one's self to a morass of conflicting impulses -- from the anticipated thrill of a reckless plunge into hedonism to a profoundly demoralizing sense of hopelessness and a feeling that a lifelong guiding sense of purpose has suddenly evaporated.
This slow-motion collapse of the planet leaves us with the bitterest kind of awakening. For parents of young children, it provokes the most intimate kind of despair. For people whose happiness derives from a fulfilling sense of achievement in their work, this realization feels like a sudden, violent mugging. For those who feel a debt to all those past generations who worked so hard to create this civilization we have enjoyed, it feels like the ultimate trashing of history and tradition. For anyone anywhere who truly absorbs this reality and all that it implies, this realization leads into the deepest center of grief.
There needs to be another kind of thinking that centers neither on the profoundly dishonest denial promoted by the coal and oil industries, nor the misleading optimism of the environmental movement, nor the fatalistic indifference of the majority of people who just don't want to know.
There needs to be a vision that accommodates both the truth of the coming cataclysm and the profoundly human need for a sense of future.
That vision needs to be framed by the truly global nature of the problem. It starts with the recognition that this historical era of nationalism has become a stubborn, increasingly toxic impediment to our collective future. We all need to begin to think of ourselves -- now -- as citizens of one profoundly distressed planet.
I think that understanding involves a recognition that a clean environment is about far more than endangered species, toxic substances, and the "dead zones" that keep spreading off our shorelines. A clean environment is a basic human right. And without it, all the other human rights for which we have worked so hard will end up as grotesque caricatures of some of our deepest aspirations.
Fortuitously, the timing of the climate crisis does coincide with other worldwide trends. Like it or not, the economy is becoming globalized. The globalization of communications now makes it possible for anyone to communicate with anyone else anywhere else in the world. And, since it is no respecter of national boundaries, the global climate makes us one.
At the same time, the coming changes clearly suggest that, to the extent possible, we should be eating locally and regionally grown food -- to minimize the CO2 generated by factory farming and long-distance food transport. We should also be preparing to take our energy from a decentralized system using whichever noncarbon energy technologies are best suited to their natural surroundings -- solar in sunny areas, offshore wave and tidal power in coastal areas, wind farms in the world's wind corridors, and geothermal almost everywhere. (It may even be feasible to maintain a low-level coal-fired grid, of about 15 percent of current capacity, as a back-up for days the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine.) But it's critical to stop thinking in terms of centralized energy systems and to begin thinking in terms of localized, decentralized technologies.
At the level of social organization, the coming changes imply the need to conduct something like 80 percent of our governance at the local grassroots level through some sort of consensual democratic process -- with the remaining 20 percent conducted by representatives at the global level.
For some years, I have been promoting a policy bundle of three specific strategies as one model for jump-starting a global transition to clean energy. Those policies, which are spelled out in my book Boiling Point and on my website, include:
- Redirecting more than $250 billion in subsidies in industrial countries away from coal and oil and putting them behind carbon-free technologies;
- Creating a fund of about $300 billion a year for a decade, to transfer clean energy to poor countries; and
- Adopting within the Kyoto framework a mandatory progressive fossil-fuel efficiency standard that would go up by 5 percent a year until the 80 percent global reduction is attained.
The initial impulse behind these strategies was to craft a policy bundle to stabilize the climate -- and at the same time create millions of jobs, especially in developing countries. Initially, I, along with the other people who helped formulate them, envisioned these solutions as a way to undermine the economic desperation that gives rise to so much anti-U.S. sentiment. They would, we hoped, turn impoverished and dependent countries into trading partners. They would raise living standards abroad without compromising ours. They would jump the renewable energy industry into a central driving engine of growth for the global economy and, ultimately, yield a far more equitable, more secure, and more prosperous world.
Unfortunately, given all the apathy, indifference, and antagonism to taking real action, nature has now relegated that earlier vision to the rear-view mirror.
But this kind of global public-works plan, if initiated in the near term, could still provide a platform to bring the people of the world together around a common global project that transcends traditional alliances and national antagonisms -- even in today's profoundly fractured, degraded, and combative world. Along the way, it could also provide decentralized stand-alone energy sources for disconnected social communities in a post-crash world.
The key to our survival as a civil species during an era of profound natural upheaval lies in an enhanced sense of community. If we maintain the fiction that we can thrive as isolated individuals, we will find ourselves at the same emotional dead end as the current crop of survivalists: an existence marked by defensiveness, mistrust, suspicion, and fear.
As nature washes away our resources, overwhelms our infrastructures, and splinters our political alignments, our survival will depend increasingly on our willingness to join together as a global community. As the former Argentine climate negotiator, Raul Estrada-Oyuela, said, "We are all adrift in the same boat -- and there's no way half the boat is going to sink."[2]
To keep ourselves afloat, we need to change the economic and political structures that determine how we behave. In this case, we need to elevate the ethic of cooperation over the deeply ingrained reflex of competition. We need to elevate our biological similarities over our geographical differences. We need, in the face of this oncoming onslaught, to reorganize our social structures to reflect our most humane collective aspirations.
There is no body of expertise -- no authoritative answers -- for this one. We are crossing a threshold into uncharted territory. And since there is no precedent to guide us, we are left with only our own hearts to consult, whatever courage we can muster, our instinctive dedication to a human future -- and the intellectual integrity to look reality in the eye.
Ross Gelbspan is retired from a 30-year career as an editor and reporter at The Philadelphia Bulletin, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe. He is author of The Heat Is On and Boiling Point, and he maintains the website heatisonline.org.
Footnotes:
[1] Author's conversation with Dr. Paul Epstein, of the Center for Health and the Global Environment of Harvard Medical School, September, 2006.
[2] Raul Estrada-Oyuela, Argentine negotiator, at the U.N Convention on Climate Change in Kyoto, Japan, December, 1997.
©2007. Grist Magazine, Inc.
94 Comments so far
Show AllAnd this is incentive to stop smoking?
geoff29
Little green goot balls? Was that the post by the guy who says we are all communist loonies? What happened to that post? He says the whole solar system is warming. Are the reds really using us? I was counting on getting a whole new viewpoint here.
Fabulous article. Thanks.
A truly excellent -- if disheartening -- article, Ross. I appreciate your saying what needs to be said, even while some of the statements are beyond chilling ... in particular, the following:
"To live without at least an open-ended sense of future (even if it's not an optimistic one) is to open one's self to a morass of conflicting impulses — from the anticipated thrill of a reckless plunge into hedonism to a profoundly demoralizing sense of hopelessness and a feeling that a lifelong guiding sense of purpose has suddenly evaporated."
and
"This slow-motion collapse of the planet leaves us with the bitterest kind of awakening. For parents of young children, it provokes the most intimate kind of despair."
My son is not yet 5, and I find myself feeling that kind of despair often.
Your recommended best approach to the coming changes -- essentially, "think globally, act locally" -- appears to be the smartest tack available to us.
Thanks for a highly insightful article.
Finally, no more "almosts." Time to sign up for my Mad Max Survival School. Just in case us silly humans do not choose to join together in common cause for the first time in history. (Not counting before, during and after Hurricane Katrina, that is.)
The above tough love reality didn't even include the side effects of hundreds of millions of weapons in the hands of the ever more desperate, or the unknown consequences genetically mutant organisms (AKA genetically modified/engineered "foods,") will have on the food supply, as mono-mutant-crops perish and there are no seeds to replant thanks to terminator/zombie "technology."
Lock and load, folks.
Depressing article. Thanks.
We must change the government in the United States. Both of our major parties are complicite in the dishonest denial of what is going on. For the United States, the major cause of the climate system's collapse, not to be willing to take strong measures to limit our burning of fossil fuels is a crime against all life. And we will reap the punishment for the selfish greed of our corporate 'leaders'.
We have an upcoming election for our national leaders. Do not vote for either a Democrat or a Republican. Better to just hide your head under your pillow than to give these bastards any shred of legitimacy. It's all fixed anyway and you know it.
Try to do what you can in your home and your community. Cut back your own burning of fossil fuels and plant some vegetables in the yard or in pots in the windows. The joy ride is over. It's going to be hard.
OK, I know I'm a rocket scientist, but I'd like to read something by someone who just seems to 'get it'.
This article has one problem. It looks at changes assuming the world is static. For instance, he talks about crop failures in existinng agricultural areas. But there's a flip side to that, there will be crop improvements in areas that were previously too cold. Stuff will move, and we have to accept that. But just looking at the negative is wrong.
Don't get me wrong. The one thing I see is that this is going to drive a massive re-organization of our society. Things we take for granted will have to go away. The world will be a different place. Its not going to be just a matter of the fact that we'll need a different fuel to power our SUVs. Its that we are going to be in a world where the idea of a personal auto for each person will seem silly. And the whole nature of America's cities, where the whole concept of suburbs based on cheap, easy and personal transportation will also go away.
But I get really tired of the people who only see the negative and scream about gloom and doom. Its going to be diffferent. Be ready for change. Elect leaders who embrace change and who aren't tied by corporate contributions that force them to protect existing business models.
Great article, but what else is new? Scientists have been warning us for decades about this and we have just let it in one ear and out the other. We have done practically nothing. It would help, maybe just a little, if we would shut everything down on weekends. No driving and shopping. After all, stores used to be closed on Sundays with no ill effects on the economy. But we can't even manage to do that. We must keep on shopping at all costs, driving to the mall in our gas guzzlers. I do feel sorry for children and those who even now still see fit to bring more of them into the world. But what the hell are they thinking? Homo Sapiens is Latin for literally, "wise man". So much for the wise man. Too intelligent for his/her own good, I say.
COMarc,
Your frustration with the overabundance of pessimism is understandable, but the current trend by the elites, by the corporate oligarchy, appears to be to accelerate the polarization of income distribution, and to invest more in military and police technologies, to make it easier for them to hoard scarce resources and to control masses of people. As Gelbspan, following warnings by Naomi Klein, states in the article:
"This dark vision implies the increasing insulation of the world's wealthy minority from the rest of humanity — buying protection for their fortressed communities from the Halliburtons, Bechtels, and Blackwaters of the world while the majority of the poor are left to scramble for survival among the ruins."
There is a real possibility of a very dark future, consistent with this vision, that we all should become aware of so that we can become motivated and organized to do what we can to prevent it.
COMarc,
So true, there could be a lot of good spinoffs - the rise of clean, quiet, car-free integrated communities, and a slowing of the pace of life would be some of them.
There may be probelms with merely moving crop-growing regions further north. first of all, the only places with the physical geography for such a thing is Canada and Russia. And while it may warm up emough at northern lattitudes for corn and soybeans, I suspect the rocky, boggy, boreal forest or tundra soils are going to be a poor replacement for the fertile soils of the US/Canada or Eurasia grain belts.
Finally, payback time!
Man has never succumbed to reason, even to save himself. He has repeatedly demonstrated his subservience to emotion and religion, and to greed, and will continue to do so until the last part of the world burns.
"A clean environment is a basic human right."
"... we need to elevate the ethic of cooperation over the deeply ingrained reflex of competition."
"As nature washes away our resources, overwhelms our infrastructures, and splinters our political alignments, our survival will depend increasingly on our willingness to join together as a global community."
As the immigrants who cross our borders and trek across the burning desert just south of here begin to run out of water, they start to jettison excess baggage: suitcases, family photos, money, clothing, shoes, jewelry, children and companions. When you are dying, your own body is excess baggage. "Basic human rights" is something they leave behind before they even start walking. The ethic of cooperation is an early casualty.
If the author wishes a seminar on how creative, how global, how cooperative human beings become as they enter the uncharted territory of radical deprivation, our Mexican neighbors might be the appropriate teachers. Desperate people are people whose resourcefulness has failed them.
Mr. Gelbspan is a Pollyanna. Global infrastructure is made possible by plenty of food and money and leisure, which is why it was not invented by the Bantu but by visionary capitalists. Joining together as a global community will be a trifle difficult once that infrastructure is gone. We are only one baby step away from living in scattered, isolated outposts. Subtract your car, your phone, your local airport, your local Safeway, and you are simply lost in the hinterlands.
The author is right that a great bubble of illusion is about to burst. Space/time is full of them. Welcome to the Bhagavad Gita. As the prescient Tamar McCartle once said: It's not so bad once you give up this idea that you have to survive. COMarc is right. Dumping the accumulated juju of civilization is not necessarily a bad thing.
What a load of horsecrap! "No national energy infrastructure can be transformed within a decade." Such a corporate apology is not befitting any thinking person with a conscience. The national energy infrastructure of the U.S. could be completely changed to a clean energy system in two (2) years. All it would take is to get at it and get to work. All of the technology exists already and all that is needed is to do it. The problem, and that means the only problem, is that the corporate governments would lose a major control asset over their populations and that would precipitate the downfall of their evil empire.
Maybe such corporate authors should keep their articles (corporate apologies) shorter so that we would have time to read more of them so that we could debunk more of their goofy nonsense. And the mixing of truths and half truths with their "spin" doesn't fool us for a second. The only sector which would need to be kept fossil fuel dependant would be air travel, and that would extend the useful life of fossil fuel resources by at least a millennium.
kivals
Point conceded. I also have great admiration for early thinkers and visionaries, without whose blueprints the capitalists who implemented their ideas would still be piling rocks into fortresses. Clever, smart, wise people have always been with us, though their conceptions seem to have materialized only when useful in warfare or otherwise attractive to kings or capitalists. Leonardo da Vinci invented the helicopter. But it took Boeing (or whoever makes the damn things) to realize that idea and put them in the sky. I didn't mean to pay capitalists a compliment by calling them visionary, though in their perverted way that is what they are. An architect imagines Trump Tower and it might remain on paper. Trump imagines Trump Tower, and next month there it is. That physical infrastructure, the one we live in, our highways, our hospitals, our commerce, is intricately a part of the familiar world in which we function and survive. I'm not sure we know what all would disappear if our dream came true of making the capitalists disappear. A benevolent alternative system with comparable motivation and resources does not appear to be waiting in the wings.
We read another excellent article still here on this site, where 110 scientists say we have until 2015 to act, we read another that says we have 50 years to correct the problem. We hear world leaders say there is no problem, it's normal for nature to have warm periods and cold periods, they have scientists who back them up on those comments.
Now we have an excellent article here to digest, where it says we have already passed the point of no return and are screwed, no matter what we attempt to do to correct the most serious problem humanity has ever faced. ___ So, ___ who's right?
voxclamantis,
The global infrastructure was invented by "visionary capitalists?" You lost me there. All the hard work, the development of the science and technology underlying this infrastructure, was performed by scientists and engineers, many of them working out of universities, of course standing on the shoulders of the great mathematicians and scientists in human history.
In a capitalist society, the capitalists are those with the power to implement the technology, and so in the US and the rest of the capitalist world it should not be surprising that capitalists did implement the technology, certainly for their own short-sighted purposes. And that myopic vision has led us and will continue to lead us toward a precipice.
So, the tipping point is here, or just zoomed by, and rather than look at scientific solutions (daft though most are), the solution seems to be a networking of right thinking people who with touchy-feely their way out of the mess.
If the tipping point is here, we're screwed. The only rational solutions aren't really solutions but ways to mitigate the destruction of countries like Bangladesh (which will drown), the mass starvation across no-longer fertile Africa, and a general collapse in world trade and economic well-being.
First one to the bottom of the cliff wins.
Build an ark.
read little green goot balls dot com! the truth is there! very intelligent lot of highly intellectual free thinking individuals!
The obvious answer to "who's right" is: We don't know, and by the time we do know, it will be too late to act on that knowledge. Hence the precautionary principle, and the need to simultaneously work both to limit further damage and to help ourselves and our communities and the global human community deal with the damage that is already inevitable.
One specific question: Eating locally sounds good, and is something I've been working towards and supporting local efforts. But what if/when your local area isn't able to produce food? Does that mean that people in Australia, for example, don't eat? or don't have water? Historically, people migrated from areas where food was scarce to where it was plentiful. It seems to me either we continue to transport some food and water, or we allow much freer migration of people than currently (and deal with the social and political disruptions of that), or we resign ourselves to millions of people dying of hunger and thirst. I don't see an easy answer on this one.
Great article. There is some sanity out there after all. Thank you!
Who was it? Oh yes, Jimmy Carter, who turned the DOE into an alternatives excellence center. Big programs in Solar, Wind, combution analysis were looked into during his term of office. Consumers we given large tax incentives to insulate, get solar water heaters etc.
The national speed limit was set to 55.
He was laughed at. Remember his fireside chat with his sweater on?
Such innocence, such alarmism
Such VISION
The rethuglicans have lulled us into a 25 year stupor, they of the corporate breath, and arithmatic teeth.
And what have they done with their ill gotten booty?
"the community of multinational corporations will seize on the coming catastrophes to elbow aside governments as agents of rescue and reconstruction" (they have already done this) "— but only for communities that can afford to pay. This dark vision implies the increasing insulation of the world's wealthy minority from the rest of humanity — buying protection for their fortressed communities from the Halliburtons, Bechtels, and Blackwaters of the world while the majority of the poor are left to scramble for survival among the ruins.
Get ready
We didn't start this fire.
_http://home.uchicago.edu/~yli5/Flash/Fire.html
If it wasn't already too late, our good Dr. Watson laid the final straw in Bali this week. The US continues the stall. We lose at least one more year (until the neocons pack up and leave the White House.)
KEW has a point. Who has the right time frame? Who has the answers?
My take is that is this article is spot on. The timing may be negotiable, but as far as I can figure, life as we have know it is pretty much over. And not just because of climate change. There are a lot of terrible things that are going to happen in the not too distant future as nations and corporations squabble over the last remaining carbon resources. The real problem is those with the wealth and power still think they can prosper outside of the community of the world. They are still of the mindset of "Every man for himself" and the "one with the most bombs wins".
My take? Time is pretty limited. Reconnect with friends and family. Get to know your neighbors. Work to bring your community together to mutually support each other through the tough times ahead. Prepare. Whether it's two years or ten, things are going to get tough. Me, I'm old. And I'm NOT going to give up smoking at this late date. I don't have much time left anyway. So, I'm going to spend my time helping my community be as self sufficient as possible. Plant gardens. Laugh a little. Love a lot.
Peace to all
This planet will survive with us or without us. Even the most corrupt of power grabbers, the most clever of 'spin' artists, will eventually run out of a place to hide when this planet decides to change its course. There is no one point on this globe where the ground does not touch itself nor meet the sky.
The people we have put in charge on this planet have serious decisions to make and I agree... we are running out of time.
Now THIS is a Nobel Peace Prize speech!
AFTER WE HUMANS ARE GONE... THE EARTH WILL FLOURISH ONCE AGAIN...
WHAT A CRUEL, BRUTAL, RUTHLESS AND DESTRUCTIVE SPECIES WE ARE!
A properly designed political method would enable and encourage the kind of participation that will be needed. I still think it should be given immediate attention.
Interesting how the dystopic future of thr first Terminator movie finds resonance in Klein's book and is likely the way the filthy rich view the problem.
Ark building is good; it's what I'm doing. Making this the last consumeristic winter solstice is another good idea. Wholesale reconfiguration of the US government is an even better idea. All of which I've said before. Not many people from "advanced" countries know how to forage, nor are there many places to do so with all the asphalt, concrete and buildings as the "nature" in most people's locales. With money worthless, what will city dwellers use to trade with farmers for food? Will farmers even bother?
As a cruel, greedy and brutal species, it is looking like we might also be rather short lived. I am now 62, but when I was in high school I made the decision to dodge the child trap. It's increasingly looking like a lucky choice.
1. To make government into a Swiss-like direct democracy as Ross implies we can do one of two things: We can wait forever until things get so bad that the right will realize the "free" market won't fix the problems and will join progressives in trying to fix things. There is little chance of that happening however, as disasters result in more reactionary authoritarian conservatism.
2. We can join Senator Mike Gravel's National Initiative for Democracy to achieve the same Swiss-like direct democracy. A great idea that none of the leading candidates are picking up on and that will likely fade into obscurity after the "election".
3. We can incorporate We the People into a for-profit where each American gets equal shares of stock and dividends from their public treasure in the form of money, clean air and water, peace, free health-care and education and a healthy environment, achieving the same Swiss-like direct democracy with the right's cooperation, right away.
I'm not optimistic on any of these three ideas. The money-power is so firmly entrenched that it will probably take many of us with us as it dies.
The remaining oil is too precious to burn for energy. Survivors may need to go back to walking, to the horse, the horse and buggy, the bicycle, electric trains, windships and so on. Anything to do with burning fossil fuels would have to be closely examined. The remaining fossil fuels would best be used to build windmills, solar panels, water purifiers, desalinators, instead of for making polluting plastics, chemical fertilizers and herbicides, bombs and weaponry, toys, etc.. A sustainable society would take inventory of people and available resources, encouraging the harvest of surpluses and discouraging the use of diminished resources. Easy to do through the internet and everyone's cooperation.
We may finally overcome religious and corporate barriers to control population numbers humanely through contraception. To live sustainably within the carrying capacity of the land as determined by availability of natural resources and people instead of being forced to reduce our populations through war, plagues, famines and crime.
We will all have to plant crops and keep farm animals in an organic and sustainable way, without petroleum. Learning how to do this could be vital. Crop and animal biodiversity could be crucial in preventing losses from lack of resistance to disease, weather and other stresses. As one poster said here, GMO seeds from companies like Monsanto are seriously harming biodiversity.
We may learn that as for all other living beings, humanity's two greatest enemies are overpopulation/resource depletion and wealth/power concentration. After that realization, we might learn to live socially and cooperatively instead of anti-socially and competitively. Our instinct to compete could be satiated through sports instead of by stealing, raping and killing.
Among our greatest hurdles might be for each of us to learn to control the greedy, fearful, bloody authoritarian beast within and give our generous, peaceful and humane side its turn at the helm.
As a father of four, I worry about the coming changes. I have decided to learn what I can about how to cope, and to share my enthusiasm for learning with my family, to share the knowledge with them, to help them learn. We have lively discussions across a broad range of subjects regularly. we explore and study alternative power, gardening, wild edibles, food preservation, rainwater harvesting, sustainable building techniques, wellness and herbal medicine, etc. We practice what we learn. It is a positive, hopeful, empowering experience.
Just as importantly, I talk to everyone in the community who will listen. I usually end my conversation with "if things get really bad, look me up -we'll help each other"
Without a doubt, millions will suffer and perish in the period of great change coming. To the extent that we help each other, our chances of survival will be enhanced.
"We have an upcoming election for our national leaders. Do not vote for either a Democrat or a Republican. Better to just hide your head under your pillow than to give these bastards any shred of legitimacy. It's all fixed anyway and you know it."
Amen. In "The Departed" Jack Nicholson asks someone in a bar how his mother's doing. The man answers, "She's on her way out." To this Nicholson says, "We're all on our way out. Act accordingly."
The same is true for this largely failed incarnation called the human race.
voxclamantis,
yes, I was responding to that post, which is gone. We should let that be a lesson to us lest we get out of hand here. thanks for referring to the missing post so I don't seem completely smarmy!
I would like to say in regard to any conjectures about future realities, that it just about always never corresponds to the actual thing once the actual thing, place, time, gets here. That in reference to an earlier post about this being bhagavad time, that when is it ever not?
No Change, or growth, even from a state of non-being, happens without some form of violence or pain depending on how you happen to see it. And looking back on the evolution of the world, if you prescribe to that idea and sorry if you don't, evolution has seemed to have been a positive thing. Maybe.
I would also like to say regarding this particular moment in time in which we daily commiserate the end of reality itself, or rumors of its demise, about how fortunate we actually are. Thanks in great part to the enlightened thinkers who have patiently delineated the world to us and the quality of being human - so that even an article like this could be written and also understood. In a way we are so spoiled when we start complaining about what kind of losses we may have to endure.
Really, as horrible as we might see the world, it seems to me good in equal parts. Maybe I'm all wrong, but I think if I were none of us here would have the slightest ability to comprehend each other. Perhaps we don't I hear you say. I know our more acute awareness capability increases the agony of the moment, but I still like to concentrate on improvements that exist in the world.
we could be completely in darkness and ignorance, were it not for the small often thankless efforts of millions of individuals. We could be devoid of knowledge, which perhaps you might argue that we are, I know, especially if you frequent certain websites out there which cater to that kind of thinking. But, the pity's there, I think.
When we humans are all eradicated, will it matter if the planet survives? Matter to whom? I'm sure it will matter to any life alive here, if any other life manages to survive, but I fear that life will likely be microbes, and or worms, deep sea life and roaches perhaps. Well, if so, at least they are not likely to f%%k it up the way we humans have and continue to do.
Most have heard that as global warming progresses, the methane gas which has been frozen in the Arctic perma-frost for millions of years, will be released into the atmosphere, as it already is doing. When the mixture of that gas reaches a certain critical point, ???, all animal life on Earth will die. Then some credible scientists are of the opinion, that eventually the atmosphere will become so explosive, that any spark will ignite the atmosphere and the planet will become a big ball of flames. The only humans who may be witness to the massive fire storm, will be any who may be still alive in a space station, or those from another world.
In any event, the global warming IS allowng billions of tons of locked up methane gas to escape the soil and that will insure we are ALL history. Not really very good history actually.
I'm gonna miss you all.
Mordechai the quote from The Departed is dead on isn't it? It's sad that when the cockroaches inherit the planet one of them might ask in 80 million years, "Why would a species as intelligent as that (humans) intentionally destroy their own living environment?"
The answer: A cockroach obviously doesn't know the joy of tossing a Styrofoam cup from the window of a pile of steel that gets 15 mpg in bumper to bumper traffic on a 6 lane highway on their way to suburbia! Yay America for choosing consumerism over life!!!
4. Vote Green Party whenever possible.
Betsy wonders if we will resign ourselves to millions of people dying of hunger and thirst. Millions of people already die of hunger and thirst each year. More than one hundred million people die each year from all causes including old age. We live quite comfortably with that in general. The earth's capacity to maintain a human population on a sustainable basis is diminishing as we damage the planet. Cheap and abundant energy from fossil fuels has allowed the human population to expand past six billion and it will continue to expand for now. The sustainable number of people that the earth can hold may be in the neighborhood of say two billion. But that number is declining with the damage to the ecosystem. We can expect billions of fewer people within the next thirty years. And they won't go voluntarily. Neither will natural death from aging and a declining birthrate and an increased child mortality rate be sufficient in themselves to bring about the massive decline in population which is inevitable with global climate change and peak oil. Most of us won't have to 'live with it' because within thirty years most of us will not be here to worry about it. In the meantime...go for a hike in the forest and enjoy life while it is your possession.
I'm profoundly depressed by this article; yet to me, it rings true. I've been watching the world population increase--in particular, the population of the industrialized world since I first read The Population Bomb when I was 19 years old. As a result of reading that book, I decided not to have children, and I was sure that everyone would read that book and decide either not to have children or to stop with the first girl (the old zero population growth fantasy). I harangued my siblings, my friends, people I met on the Greyhound bus--anyone whose attention I could grab for a minute--to spread Paul Erhlich's gospel. And you know how much good it did? None that I know of (i.e., my siblings and friends all had kids; I don't know about the people I met on the bus). I just believe that so many people fail to connect their own behavior to global economy, global warming, or global anything and basically think that if they just continue doing things as they always have, everything will turn out all right. To think otherwise is unthinkable. So my point is, I think, that if a thousand people read this article, maybe a handful or maybe one or two will actually start doing something differently in response to the coming cataclysm. Some people think (a) the whole thing is bullshit; (b) some think it's the fullfilment of religious prophecy; (c) some think their gods will step in and save them; (d) some think technology will do it; (e) some will actually start mobilizing other community members and preparing for the worst. Which group are you aligned with? For my part, I know I'm not with a, b, c, or d, but I don't know if I'm ready and/or able for e (especially considering my dismal performance with the population issue). Is it even possible for us--the 40 or 50 people who will read and respond to this article--to influence anyone outside our miniscule group?
it doesn't matter who or what you belong to as long as you can bring yourself to the idea that despite losing everything you have you would do it if the situation could in time reverse itself. Even if you were referring to a time several millenia hence and from the bottom of the sea. What would it matter?
I know that's not a practical solution, but at least it's a kind of acceptance of responsibility on some level. It wouldn't be true if you were thinking you personally stood to gain by it. Or if we lived this life without making some small gesture to the future of the sort of the personal sacrifices of those who preceded us.
I mean, you can feel for those who are suffering within your capacity to feel, and act on it in the capacity you have to act on it, but I'm having difficulty with the idea of being "depressed." Disheartened, discouraged, frustrated, maybe even hopeless if you get that far, but "depressed" is just kind of self-pity.
What if it is self-pity? I think you're splitting hairs and semantics.
There is more working against us here than just this global warming disaster. If there was no such thing as climate change, the rate of development and consumerism threatens our civilization.
As Peter Ward states,
...we are witnessing "the Father of All Mass Extinctions. There is a good possibility that losses in diversity in the present will surpass anything in the geological past. Facing that specter could shake the very tenets of conservation."
And infamous E.O. Wilson in a recent letter to the U.S. Senate,
"The future of humanity is inextricably tied to the fate of the natural world. In perpetuating this, the Earth's sixth mass extinction, we may ultimately compromise our own ability to survive."
And finally The Convention on Biological Diversity: Global Biodiversity Outlook 2
"... we are currently responsible for the sixth major extinction event in the history of earth ..."
Some 18-40% of species are expected to go extinct by 2050, possible more, a mass extinction as large as the one that took the dinosaurs. The current extinction, unlike the one 65 million years ago which took tens of thousands of years to come to fruition, the current one will happen in decades or less. An alarming 18-40% loss due mainly to habitat destruction. A cataclysmic 70% extinction possiblity due to global warming alone. Combine the two and you have far surpassed the perfect storm.
May you live in interesting times!
www.OnePlanetOneLife.com
Exploring the Potential for Global Environmental Collapse and Accelerated Human Evolution
"In this case, we need to elevate the ethic of cooperation over the deeply ingrained reflex of competition."
DUH! Like this is some revelation? I have been screaming this since I was 10. I'm now 60. Is this what "can't see the forest for the trees" is all about?
Idiots all.
It's unfortunate that the dinosaurs died out(excepting their remaining cousins the birds). They were much better stewards of the earth.
Don't worry, be happy! George Wanker Bush has a solution for all the pesky problems associated with global warming!
And to think, you thought he was just a crap-kicking, dry-drunk, draft-dodging Texas chickenhawk, working with his close-knit group of neo-fascist reverse-Robin Hood corporate/government thieves and criminals in his crime family! Shame on you!
George and his ilk know that there are no problems with the coming global warming crisis that can't be solved by a nice, long "Nukular Winter" (nuclear to the rest of us), conveniently brought on by a looming global thermonuclear war. You know, World War III that he has been lying very hard lately, I mean working very hard, lying is hard work, to bring to fruition, but all you liberals and greenies keep getting in the way. Can't you all just relax and get out of the way, and give his plan a chance to work? Remember he is the decider, and it is his hand that is on the button. Give his war a chance, it will also help with that nasty little overpopulation issue.
We have built an unsustainable infrastructure and blighted the natural world entrusted by each generation to the next. We have failed in our stewardship. As life's necessities have been moved further and further away from where they are consumed, we have jeopardized life itself.
Our jobs - overseas. Our food - not local, that's for sure. Our fuel sources - overseas. And someone dares speak the praises of capitalism? What madness. Understand that, while capitalism may very effectively produce goods and services, it is predatory by personality. Small, local farms are gone; we now have all our eggs in one gigantic agribusiness basket. Oil and gas are now transported all over the world. Decentralized, "soft energy paths" have been slaughtered in their cribs by predatory greed. Multi-national corporate empires have moved jobs, destroyed communities and destroyed the fabric of our national culture. It is we, the humans, who will reap what they have sown.
To undo the damage, all the trends toward getting larger and getting further away need to be reversed. We cannot sustain life on the planet without local food, local power, local governance.
The great tragedy is not yet a national awakening. There is no significant momentum for reform. There is little or no infrastructure to support the changes we so desperately need. Those who have prospered have grown rich and powerful. They control the means of production. They control the mainstream media. They control the halls of government. They make the rules.
Those who have not prospered will soon understand how much has been stolen from them. Today, most either remain largely unaware of the crises that lie ahead. Many who can see the urgency of the problem are deeply discouraged and see no mechanism to reverse its course.
So-called progressives spend huge amounts of energy highlighting the evil and the corruption and the injustice but they have not been effective in designing and defining and rallying support for a new vision. So much of what passes for resistance reduces to little more than attacks on Bush or even on status quo Democrats. What's your plan, man?
For those of us in the US, we truly do live in the belly of the beast. With the very darkest observations about the societal disruptions we surely face, perhaps there is also the greatest hope for change. Despite all the words in all the online forums and despite all the organizations working for real change, perhaps it must grow darker still before our brothers and sisters are able to see the light. I find that many I speak to still prefer to look away from such ominous prognostications. Where I see hope; they see nothing but despair and they still choose to look away. How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see? Perhaps they will not respond until they can see the future more clearly with their own eyes. The urgency we face demands us to be proactive; the reality is that the masses will choose reactive when there is no choice left to them. Still, they will react. Let's hope it's not too late. We will pay for our foolishness; we will pay for their greed. But we will prevail.
Well, here's my 2 cents---all we have is the present moment--the past is...well past, and the future is...not here yet. Why not simply put as much Love and Light into this present moment and who knows what that will do in creating the future? Instead of lamenting this particular vision, ask yourself----How would I have it be? Then go about living your life RIGHT NOW in precisely that manner.
None of us have any iron clad certainty of life beyond the present moment, and still we squander it, either regretting the past and/or worrying about the future. Aren't we really missing the point altogether?
Within 2 years an undeniable, natural climate-driven event will bring everyone to the point of taking action. Until then, my feeling is that it is a waste of time and resources to try to move anyone who doesn't already get it, off the dime.
Better use the time and $ to put in place a local skeleton infrastructure for survival of viable population centers, from neighborhoods to counties. Probably nothing bigger than that will work. Globalization is already on the way out. National government is only relevant to the top 1% and corporations. State gov't, maybe, but only in a few areas. Water, food and solar DC/decentralized power, of course, are key. When States and localities are ready to listen, you will be able to step up to the plate with a plan. Just what will happen? Sure, I'll stick my neck out and give up my guess: not original, by the way...
Ice caps weigh a lot. As water melts off and flows to the equatorial region, Greenland will bouy up a bit, stir up the tectonic plates, give up an earthquake here and there. The mid-atlantic ridge will lite up further heating the ocean, a third of Greenland's ice cap may slide into the n atlantic triggering a tsunami that would dislodge that slice of Azores island that's cocked to go, triggering a tsunami that would wash the east US coast pretty clean, or vise versa. This week's weather is a preview of land based winter weather patterns whose major characteristic is ice. There's a tardy cyclone down near Gitmo that may develop into something for MSM NILFs to cover. After a chaotic summer, the weather has started to show signs of being inclined to organize into large cyclonic systems centering over the n Atlantic and to some extent, the central and northwestern Pacific. Had enough yet? The secret code is buried right out in the open, on the IPCC ice core data chart that Gore presented to us in his book and movie. That man should never have to pay for another drink in his life.
Add a dash of magnetic pole swapping and stir in 7 billion people, let bake at 2 more degrees C.
If we choose cooperation over competition, we could do OK. If not, who knows?
Cheers
"There is no body of expertise — no authoritative answers — for this one. We are crossing a threshold into uncharted territory. And since there is no precedent to guide us, we are left with only our own hearts to consult, whatever courage we can muster, our instinctive dedication to a human future — and the intellectual integrity to look reality in the eye."
What a crock! American Indians have experienced massive climatic changes in their past and there is precedent to guide us. All of this johnny-come-lately talk of cooperation and caring for each other is good talk but hardly new. The Traditional Indian Culture is the culture that White America continues to try to kill off, yet in that culture we find the answers, if you have the wisdom and courage to listen.
Listening is a difficult thing to engage in. I have attempted to encourage the editors of Common Dreams to include some American Indian articles. I have even submitted an article with permission from the author to use. So far I have not received a response.
There is something that you need to know. Among my people we believe that it takes up to seven lifetimes to know Creator. So as you might expect it takes time to begin to understand. I would encourage you to begin as soon as possible. Many Elders and Sacred Teachers have given up on White America. There are others however who will cooperate. I strongly recommend that you begin.
Some quick math. Annual Production:
US coal fired electric generation: 2 million gwh
US total fossil fuel elec gen: 2.9 million gwh
US Nukes: 782,000 gwh (104 reactors)
Large French/American Nuke Generator: 10,000 gwh
Large nuke reactors to replace coal: 200
Large nuke reactors to replace all fossil: 290
We would have to have 20 - 30 public funded nuclear reactors under construction all the time for 12-15 years to reduce electric generation CO2 by 80 - 100%. Not to mention replacing automobile and heating fossil fuels with electicity. Could we do it? It would be quite a project, and then we would have to replace them with new generation fast reactors. Should have started 15 years ago.