Our Certain Fate

Jun 26

By Stephanie Pierotti

COVID-19 continues to impact human lives across the globe. With no intent to minimize the pain and suffering COVID-19 has caused, from a historical perspective the pandemic has been a relatively minor disaster. The level of chaos that has unfolded in response has shown that we are weak, incapable of uniting and ill-equipped to deal with any circumstance that challenges the predictable routine of our lives. As we climb out of the hole COVID-19 has left us in, we are facing a monumental series of challenges from climate change.The first global summit on Climate Change happened in 1989, and in the 30 years since we have done little to nothing to address carbon’s acceleration of earth’s warming. The data clearly points to a less than ideal future for our climate that will substantially impact people across the globe. Despite this, I hope that advancing technology will help mitigate the impact, and as the effects of global climate change become increasingly obvious, that the public’s political will may accelerate our response. However, after enduring the last 18 months of COVID-19, and witnessing the public and political reaction to a disaster of this magnitude, I am more pessimistic about global climate change than ever. The most relevant consequences of climate change are already evident, and will inevitably worsen rapidly. COVID-19 has been an interesting test case for our society. It was not an earthquake or tsunami, not a singular event, but rather an ongoing chain of events that steadily increased the stress on our resources, supply chains, and the global economy. Global climate change is far more terrifying because it will not only exacerbate these newly apparent weaknesses, but also displace people, create more frequent natural disasters and escalate the chances of open warfare. We as a society and as a species are ill-equipped, and potentially incapable of meeting these challenges. Climate change is an inevitability that will irrevocably alter the future of humanity, and will present the most grueling conditions we’ve experienced since the last ice age.

One of the first and most jarring revelations of the COVID-19 Pandemic was that, despite scientific literacy being at an all time high, the general public has a poor grasp on the fundamental processes of biology, leading people to make false assumptions or become easily misled by the media and politicized misinformation campaigns. In all honesty most people’s scientific understanding is limited to television and movies, so climate change is framed in the context of Waterworld, The Day After Tomorrow or An Inconvenient Truth, the same way that most people’s understanding of DNA is based on Jurassic Park. This simplistic understanding makes it very easy for people to be misled or make false assumptions (like believing in UFOs). While the media entertainment complex bears much of the blame for this, we also have to accept that as a society we have intentionally tried to limit scientific knowledge from the public since the dawn of civilization.

The climate has changed drastically throughout the history of the planet. Climate change is not a singular catastrophic event, but rather a continuous ebb and flow between multiple natural forces. Most of the great extinction events were climate related, and often were caused, at least in part, by the dominant life forms at that time. During the Carboniferous Period, a type of plant called a scale tree was so successful that it shifted the climate. Scale trees converted carbon dioxide into oxygen, the opposite of what we are doing now, and with relatively few oxygen breathing lifeforms to use the oxygen, that oxygen buildup in the atmosphere provoked a mass extinction. These scale trees died out along with many other lifeforms at the end of the Carboniferous Period, they then decayed and were compressed under heat and pressure into fossil fuels. All of our fossil fuels were formed in this way, large-scale extinctions trapping decaying organic matter underground formed into coal, oil and gas, which we then burn for fuel releasing the carbon that was extracted out of the atmosphere millions of years ago. Carbon is not the only greenhouse gas, the most important greenhouse gas is actually water. Water vapor is ubiquitous in our atmosphere, but we need a carefully balanced water cycle to survive on this planet. Warm air holds more water, and since water absorbs heat then the air only gets warmer and absorbs even more water, creating a positive feedback loop called a runaway greenhouse effect, which is what we see on Venus. Our planet has way more water than Venus, and a lot of that is sequestered in the polar ice caps, which not only keeps sea levels low, but most importantly keeps that water out of the air. Ice also reflects sunlight, which reduces how much heat the earth absorbs. So in its simplest form, the problem is that there is an inflection point in which the amount of carbon in the atmosphere becomes great enough that it begins an inalterable sequence of melting ice, evaporating water and climate change of the atmosphere which will only continue to accelerate over time. This hasn’t happened in the 4 billion years that earth has existed, and the climate has swung like a pendulum from cold to warm, back and forth without ever completely running away in either direction. However, these swings have always resulted in mass extinctions allowing for the establishment of a new equilibrium in which new organisms evolve and thrive. One final thing to consider is that widespread glaciation is actually relatively rare, so the climate conditions that have largely been ideal for us during the Quaternary Period are an aberration, the entirety of which has been an Ice Age. For most of the history of the planet there was less land and there was more liquid water on the surface. This is one of the reasons we have so many excellent ocean fossils, some of the ocean is now land. Even if we can stem the tide of carbon we emit into the atmosphere, it’s unclear as to how much we can slow a process that has already begun. We are still currently in an ice age, and the earth has been warming for thousands of years before the burning of fossil fuels could begin to impact the climate. We’ve known since the late 1970s that human industrialization has substantially accelerated this process, but even if we had the will to cut carbon emissions dramatically the earth is still going to warm.

COVID-19 also highlighted how persistent our most basic tribal instincts are, and how easily they can overwhelm the rest of our senses when we are under duress. Our culture and society presents an illusion of separation between humanity and the rest of the natural world. We have convinced ourselves that we shape our own destinies and exert free will to make conscious choices. While our behaviors may be unique compared to most other lifeforms, we are still controlled by protein strands that serve no other purpose but to reproduce, and as such we consume resources to perpetuate that goal ad infinitum. Humanity's conquest of earth does not look all that different from the expansion of other incredibly successful species, and our impact on the planet mirrors these organisms of the past. Keep in mind that we share more than 50% of our DNA with trees, that all of us started life as a single celled organism and that almost all of our brain function is outside our conscious control. Our intelligence has convinced us that we are something more than our predecessors, but the reality is that we are merely a continuation of several billion years of evolution. We have become an extremely successful organism by evolving a specific set of traits that led us to this point, which begs the question of how much we can actually adapt to survive on a rapidly changing planet. Our closest relatives, bonobos, chimpanzees and gorillas all express aggressive, territorial and extremely tribal behaviors, which are exaggerated by environmental conditions. Competition between hominids, especially during the ice ages, would have been extremely tough, and a bottleneck indicates that we all evolved from a relatively narrow set of fierce survivors. We fear outsiders, we take advantage of the weak, we horde and we all want to eat first. While I will concede that there are a plethora of examples of a single person rejecting their genetic predisposition, all of evolution, and not only genetic evolution, but the evolution of our ideas, culture and beliefs have shaped us into the organisms we are today. As a species we now consume pretty much everything, even the rarest earth metals are mined for incredibly specific uses, and all of this consumption creates an enormous amount of waste that we bury in the earth or dump in the ocean. Even if we are more efficient with energy usage, anything that uses electricity is producing carbon. As great as electrifying cars is, two thirds of our electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels, and the complicated system of carbon credits and offsets is nothing more than a shell game for corporate marketing materials to create the illusion of responsibility. To make a radical change in carbon emissions we would have to change everything that we do. I’m not sure it’s possible for us as species to stop consuming and reproducing, let alone collectively change the nuanced ways society does those things for the greater good.

The humanitarian crisis as the result of climate change is already underway as coastline cities are in the process of, or preparing to push back rising sea levels encroaching into densely populated areas. The places that are most susceptible to rising oceans are constantly trying to maintain their current coastline regardless of sea level. In places like New Orleans, Miami or the Outer Banks the coastline is already constantly maintained to preserve waterfront property, and the entire east and gulf coasts will soon come under threat. Around the world, places like Bangladesh and Holland have been dealing with rising sea levels for years, with Bangladesh being a densely populated nation that could present an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the near future. Down the road all of the coastal nations of Europe and Southeast Asia will face substantial encroachment of the ocean. Over two billion people live in Southeast Asia, with substantial geographic, ethnic and political barriers that would make a refugee crisis in a single nation a calamity, and a refugee crisis across multiple nations catastrophic. We currently have a political refugee crisis in the region that has forced the Rohingya people out of Myanmar into Bangladesh, a country which is certainly not equipped to handle an influx of a quarter of a million people. In Europe, the Syrian refugee crisis altered politics drastically, and strained not only the Eastern Euopean nations that faced the brunt of the migration, but also the wealthy western European nations that all drifted substantially to the right in support of xenophobic restrictions on immigration. Many parts of the world are already under stress from rising sea levels, and the impacts of displaced people, which will only be exacerbated by the declining will of wealthy nations to support humanitarian crises. The western democracies as a whole, with America leading the way, have retreated from engagement with the rest of the world, especially from nations that have little economic or political power.

The most susceptible nations will soon be experiencing further displacement of people caused by atmospheric effects of global climate change. Weather patterns have been changing rapidly, and the threat to life and property isn’t simply from sea level. The most visible impact will be from Atlantic hurricanes that frequently strike areas in the United States that are most prone to sea level rise. In our country we’ve managed to substantially mitigate the cost in human lives from natural disasters, but the cost in dollars continues to escalate. Several major hurricanes, like Katrina in 2005 and Maria in 2017 showed how poor preparedness initially overwhelmed our support systems only to be followed by a very expensive and horribly mismanaged recovery. Increased occurrences of hurricanes, severe thunderstorms, floods and especially droughts will drain time, money and energy from our resource pool, and will put increasing pressure on local, state and federal governments. All of which already had precarious budgets that have been further destabilized by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The impacts on resources essential to survival will only exacerbate the territorial and migrational impacts of global climate change. Water is the most essential of all resources. As dependent as we are on our cars and phones, we can live quite comfortably without them, but you can only live comfortably for a matter of hours without consuming water. Drought may end up being the most severe effect of global climate change, from our water intensive farming practices to the raising of livestock, our food production infrastructure is wholly unprepared to face a water shortage. The American west has had substantial droughts for years, in fact the political history of the west largely revolves around water rights. The dams that have been built to provide water now have reservoirs with shockingly low water levels, mirroring the rapid decline of glaciers around the world. Furthermore, the unabated drought conditions have caused a perpetual battle against wildfires, most notably in California and across the southwest, but more recently severe fires are expanding further into Colorado, Oregon and Washington. Most of these fires occur away from inhabited areas, but we have seen a number of large fires encroach on the suburbs that are simultaneously extending further out away from the cities, inevitably increasing the risk to lives and property. Access to water for both drinking and farming is an issue across the undeveloped world, and water is also incredibly important in sanitation. The lack of good sanitation incubates viruses, bacterial infections and other microorganisms, potentially putting all of us at risk of another pandemic scenario.

Commodities as a whole are being affected by climate change. The cost of all of the essential products that we regularly consume have been radically increasing in cost at the production source, transportation, and warehousing, and ultimately the pain will be felt at stores where customers eventually absorb this cost. While this is not entirely the result of global climate change, and is attributed to a variety of factors, in general the demand for food, water and mineral resources will only increase, while the supply will not. Places like California, where food production is currently abundant, will struggle to increase production, and will face complications that will likely reduce production capacity. Arable land for grazing is an issue in countries that are heavily dependent on meat consumption. We’ve already seen substantial increases in food costs over the last few years, as well as several severe disruptions on produce due to drought. Droughts and famines will also result in migrations of vulnerable populations, and nations will struggle to support refugees when they are already struggling to support their own citizens. The refugee crisis in Sudan, where over a million people have migrated to Uganda is a current example of a landlocked nation's population spilling over the border into a nation completely ill-equipped to support them.

All of these factors put extreme stress on a global economic and political system that is at best tenuously stable, decreasing the likelihood of cooperation and increasing competition. We are currently in the midst of a period of rearmament in Asia, with China above all others investing in military hardware. Both China and Russia have made clear their intent to reclaim territories that previously were part of their national borders, and have substantially increased minor confrontations with their chief rival, the United States. After a couple decades of military withdrawal from the west, the east is now filling that vacuum. Europe has radically reduced its military power, combined with a weakened NATO, and a substantial reset of our historic alliances in Europe, the region is exceptionally vulnerable to Russian interference. Russia’s political influence continues to grow in eastern Europe and will certainly have an effect on western European elections. In the far east China’s territorial intentions have been made starkly clear with their actions in the autonomous Xinjiang region and Hong Kong, and the continued harassment of the US and Taiwan in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait. The Chinese are literally building islands in the middle of the sea to get closer and closer to Taiwan. As precarious as the current situation may be, it's the actions of these nations in regards to climate change that are truly concerning. It appears that Russia is pro-climate change, while this approach might be incredibly naive, Putin sees it as a huge opportunity for Russia. Russia is the largest country in the world, with most of it being close to uninhabitable, and the majority of its coast line largely useless because of seasonal ice in the Arctic Circle. Russia may actually be one of the few nations that may have access to more coastline, more resources and end up with more arable land. The consequences for some Russians would certainly be dire, but the calculus seems to be that Russia comes out ahead as the result of global climate change. In addition, Russia’s number one business is fossil fuel based energy, so they’re not interested in pumping the brakes on carbon consumption. China’s approach has been a little more confusing, with China simultaneously appearing to be taking some tacit steps toward carbon reduction, while also pushing forward with the most aggressive industrialization in the history of the world.

Aside from direct territorial aggression from China and Russia, there is a pretty serious race to secure resources around the world. China has been active in Africa, a continent that still has substantial untapped resources, especially water. China is also draining all of Western Australia's mineral resources, which includes an awful lot of carbon. China’s proximity and economic engagement to both Australia and New Zealand has put these two nations at odds with their traditional allies, with New Zealand retreating to a neutral position on China, and Australia struggling to reconcile economic boom from Chinese mining, and having an increasingly dependent relationship to an authoritarian police state. Both Japan and South Korea are extremely concerned about Chinese expansionism, with Japan slowly moving towards a substantial military for the first time since World War II. In this post-war period, the major powers have been extremely reticent to engage in large-scale open conflict, and I would imagine that will continue, but small-scale conflicts over borders will likely become more frequent, and history shows that in a combustible environment small conflicts can escalate rapidly. The history of life on this planet suggests that the most severe existential threat is not from an extrinsic force, but from own actions. People are exceptionally good at killing each other, and we have become increasingly proficient at it. After the end of the Cold War the notion of nuclear war faded away as it was no longer a functional propaganda tool, ultimately being replaced by the existential threat of Islam and rebranded as the War on Terror. However, the US and Russia have over 12,000 nuclear warheads, and both nations have shown an increasing will to update their nuclear arsenal with more modern warheads and new delivery methods. Seven other nations have nuclear warheads with varying degrees of deliverability. In 1945, the nuclear warhead was the pinnacle of weapons technology, and in the seventy-five years since we have developed a variety of chemical, biological and cyber weapons that have never seen use in a hot war. The next large scale conflict could easily eclipse the devastation of any previous war. It's not only the actions of our enemies that are alarming. Since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 the United States’ political and economic strength has waned drastically, and as our financial might collapses, we will become increasingly dependent on our military for leverage not only over our adversaries but also our allies. The US will also be attempting to secure resources and borders to preserve our way of life in the face of extreme local environmental challenges. In the post-war period the US has actually had our troops in open warfare somewhere in the world for over half of that time, and that’s not even including the invasion of Grenada. Ultimately the greatest threat to our existence is ourselves, we’ll likely consume everything we can and then burn what’s left to keep ourselves warm.

The end of the last ice age saw the climate swing in our favor, and for ten thousand years society has expanded unabated, but now we find ourselves at the precipice of a climate that will challenge everything that we have built. The Late Bronze Age Collapse may serve as a possible comparison where multiple societal challenges triggered an abrupt period of conflict, starvation and pestilence that ultimately collapsed much of the civilised world at the end of the second century BC. The long term forecast for Earth’s climate is entirely speculative, and there are countless additional factors that were not covered here that will impact that outcome, many of which have the potential to make things much worse. However, the current and near future impacts are very real and inescapable, and while they are not apocalyptic, they will put unprecedented stresses on our global community. With droughts, pandemics, natural disasters and conflicts happening with greater regularity and often overlapping, it may very well feel like the world is ending for people affected. The geo-political environment is more unstable than it has been since the end of WWII and the pandemic proved that we are ill-equipped to deal with this sort of existential threat. Our entire way of life has led us to this point and seems unlikely we’ll be able to evolve fast enough to adapt.