Scientists tell us we have to contain this warming,
preferably below 1.5 degrees, certainly below 2 degrees.
Social and environmental collapse is predicted for
later this century.
We have to do something.
The bad news is: It’s Too Late!
It all has to do with tipping points. A tipping point
has been defined as when change in part of a system becomes
self-perpetuating beyond a threshold, leading to substantial, widespread,
frequently abrupt and often irreversible impacts.’
There are some keywords in that definition.
· Self-perpetuating
tells
us that the process has become runaway, and runs now under its own steam,
without need for external force.
· Threshold
tells us that there is a point at which a system changes from one state to
another state.
· Substantial,
widespread tells us that the new system that follows the
threshold is nothing like the system that preceded it.
· Frequently
Abrupt tells us that the change will be catastrophic and
will happen very quickly.
· Often
Irreversible tells us that we cannot go back to the
previous state, no matter how much we would wish that were possible.
The Earth systems that control, moderate, and form our
climate have been studied for many years. Meteorologists, Earth and Climate
Scientists now have a very good understanding of how these systems work, and
how they interact. At least 25 tipping points in Earth systems have been
identified, with 9 of these being especially crucial.
A recent report (December 2023) identifies a number of
these tipping points as likely to tip within the near future. At high risk of
tipping the report identifies the Greenland Ice Sheet, the West Antarctic Ice
Sheet, the Amazon rainforest, low latitude coral reefs, Boreal permafrost, and
the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). All of these are likely
to tip soon.
What makes things worse though, is that the Earth’s
systems are inter-linked, so that if one point is tipped it is highly likely to
trigger the tipping of other points – much like a row of dominoes.
However, climate it just one of Earth’s systems. The
Stockholm Resilience Centre has been mapping what it has called “Planetary
Boundaries” since 2009 (1). The Centre has identified nine of these – climate
change being just one of them. In 2009 the Centre had assessed seven boundaries
and found that three of them had been exceeded. Last year, the Centre released
its latest report in which all nine boundaries had been assessed and found that
six of the nine boundaries had been crossed.
None of this is good news.
It is too late to avert serious climate change. It is
too late to pull back from social and environmental collapse.
The systems are now self-perpetuating (with or without
human intervention), have exceeded some of the thresholds, and have become
irreversible.
Too late, too late, too late!!!
But wait
It is not too late to act. Yes, it is too late to act
to stop climate chaos and collapse. But it not too late to act in other ways.
There is good news.
There is an old saying (it goes back to at least the
early 1800s) and has been attributed to a variety of sources – Indian gurus,
Chinese sages, the Roman poet Statius, and the French theologian Hyacinthe
Loyson. No matter the sayings precise source, the sentiment expressed in it is
of value to us at this time. The saying is often quoted thus:
‘Blessed is the person who plants trees
under whose shade they will never sit.’
The nature of chaotic systems, tipping points, and
social/environmental collapse is that we have no way of predicting the outcome
ahead of time.
The best we can do going into the collapse is to plant
the seeds for the trees that may be of use to any (if any) humans that get
through to the other side of the collapse. Even though, we – acting today –
will never experience the benefit of those trees.
We must be careful what trees we plant though. That
means looking back over our history to identify the poisonous trees from which
we have eaten, and not planning them. Rather we need to plant those trees that
are healthy and provide good shelter.
Let me name some of these trees: kindness, compassion,
love, sense of beauty, care, empathy, respect, connection, equity. These trees
need to be made available to all humans. and to all the other creatures and
plants that share this planet with us.
We must not plant the trees of: exploitation, hatred,
narcissism, selfishness, hubris. Most of all we must not plant the tree of
human exceptionalism.
Otherwise, any human society that does manage to get
through to the other side of the collapse is doomed to simply repeat the same
mistakes we made that have brought us to the point of social/environmental
collapse.
Notes:
1. https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html accessed 6 November 2024