Intro
Things are looking substantially suboptimal to say the least. As the climate crisis deepens and the collective societal capacity to constrain global warming to sub-1.5-degrees seems scarcely conceivable, I will be taking this opportunity to elaborate some select sentiments on the present state of select ecological threats, undertake wild speculation on the self-reinforcing pathways underscoring relative inaction among the wealthy and policy elite, and consider the potentially cosmic scale of change that probably lies ahead. This article will, at times, venture more into the realm of hypothesis and conjecture than has previously been the case, invoking inductive reasoning and theorising beyond the scope afforded by purely quantitative research based descriptions. In all such instances a distinction between these approaches will be made.
Select Ecological Threats
At this moment humanity is facing a climate emergency and without an immense and transformative increase in the scale of current efforts, we face an uncertain world of untold suffering (1,2,48). Factors such as expanding livestock populations and meat production, ongoing dependence on fossil fuels, global vegetation thinning and habitat loss are central to the rising carbon dioxide levels, ocean acidification, and ecosystem destabilisation events unfolding. To take just one facet of this relentless assault on the nature, the damage caused by deforestation alone should be viewed as the tremendously irresponsible and frequently irreversible practice that it is, with previous estimates of carbon impacts very likely to have seriously under-estimated effects by many orders of magnitude (3). A troubling component of these trends around deforestation, loss of habitat, loss of biodiversity, and concurrent increases in CO2 emissions, is in the generation of positive-feedback cycles that risk ecosystem collapse at local, continental, and planetary scales (4,5,6,7). In essence, as ecological instability becomes more established it becomes harder and harder to wind back, and increasingly greater resources are required to reverse or even just abate the resulting downward spiral. Failure of one system or cycle begets failure of others, and we are fast learning there are incontrovertible limits to nature’s inbuilt redundancy mechanisms, regenerative capacities, and resilience.
We are already losing this battle and the difficulty level is only going up. And for all species on this planet, humans, orchids and rock-wallabies alike, the prognosis is grim. We have, and are, already witnessing the rapid human-activity-related extinction of species at an alarming rate, part of an event referred to as the sixth extinction or Holocene extinction which is already set to irreversibly transform the planet. Through human-driven habitat loss, pollution, poaching, and the direct effects of global warming, thousands of mammal and bird species are positioned for imminent disappearance (45), these representing just a fraction of the overall estimated one million species facing extinction (9). We cannot afford to continue walking this road to ruin, especially after already witnessing the extinction of over 10% of the 273 endemic terrestrial species in the last 200 years for the Australian continent alone (10). The rate of global species loss is alarming, and in many instances the statistics of extinction certainly underrepresent the problem. It is probable that a majority of extinctions are unrecognised and undocumented from species being still undiscovered before they go extinct (11). This travesty of habitat, wilderness, and species-loss that should be treated with utmost social and political seriousness is going un-actioned, with dire implications for the fragile few biodiverse habitats remaining. Morally we are certainly each obligated to tirelessly press for urgent environmental policy action and accountability, alongside active and engaged public inquiry if we are to avoid the rising tide of predictable and preventable extinctions (12). We are fast losing biodiversity, and (if it is enough to motivate a response), the few species likely to remain are probably going to be the small and boring ones – those with unique ecological ecological functions, those with very small or very large body mass, or those with unlucky patterns of breeding (45) anticipated to go the same way as Australia’s ill-fated megafauna (13).
Adding insult to injury, emissions and ecosystem destruction are furthered by the use of cleared land for fossil-fuel-intensive practices like livestock farming, with emissions impacts through direct methane production from ruminant animals, land clearing required for production of fodder, associated transport emissions, fresh water requirements for both livestock and feed (coupled in no small part with concurrent water depletion from practices like cotton farming) (14), the necessary creation of monocultures, coupled with topsoil degradation, and loss of carbon through widespread non-regenerative farming practices (8). Unsurprisingly, “huge” transformations of current land-sector practices in areas of agriculture, forestry, wetland management, and bioenergy will be required if we are to meet targets of the Paris Agreement and stand any chance at securing a sub-1.5°C future (15). Collectively we must commit to sustainable land practices with utmost urgency and the longer we delay emission mitigation, the less likely we are to achieve targets, and greater our reliance on ‘negative emissions’ will be. Current commitments fall far short of a sub-1.5 degree future and if trends continue, we are disastrously tracking towards 2.5°C to 3°C of warming by 2100 (15).
Not casting a disparaging shade on what I believe to be heroic, undervalued, and timely (16) revegetation efforts such as the #TeamTrees campaign, Trillion Trees, and the tireless work of Greening Australia, but the national cognitive dissonance present in simultaneous deforestation of millions of hectares is as jarring as it is agonising (17). Such a ‘plant-here, thrash-there’ approach can only be explained as the twisted manifestation of policymakers’ attempts to strike an unholy balance between a public desire for climate action and the conflicting need to protect interests of private enterprise. Furthermore, this is a situation not limited to the ecological regeneration effort being readily evidenced in other sectors such as transport; recent data revealing the way increased vehicular diesel emissions are effectively cancelling out any gains from renewable energy replacement of coal plants (47). All of this exists within the fairly fraudulent ‘creative accounting’ strategies used to misrepresent national emissions calculations (18,19), serving to muddy the waters of informed public debate, contravene voices of those concerned, and provide fallacious justification for stalling climate action to preserve a business-as-usual paradigm.
A Social Gradient of Climate Action and Inaction
As previously described, the following portion of this piece will briefly venture into the realm of speculation, presenting the theory that with the progression of global warming, a social gradient is emerging akin to the social gradient of health famously elucidated by Sir Michael Marmot (20). With increasingly adverse climactic events and associated threats to food supply, fresh water, and human health, I would suspect such social gradient is only likely to be reinforced, and the divide between the have’s and have not’s become even more pronounced. The direct carry-over of climate change onto worsened human health is very likely to further a radical wealth, health, and social disparity.
Proposed social gradient of the climate crisis, complete with Microsoft Word-verified grammatical errors
This theory can be summarised in the pessimistic sentiment that those who possess the greatest means of effecting change often have the smallest incentive to do so. Preservation of a business-as-usual status quo represents an absolute necessity for those made wealthy off the fossil fuel and all industries inherently damaging to the environment; individuals and companies who have become gratified beneficiaries of an ‘I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone’ philosophy. It is the same kind of mechanisms operating for the extremely wealthy across a majority of domains where private profit and the pursuit of wealth is understood as indispensable, noble by nature, and inexhaustible. The resources available to evade impacts of climate change for the wealthiest countries and individuals already far outstrip that of most low-lying and non-OECD nations, conferring an ability to continue these exceedingly profitable but environmentally unconscionable operations in many corners of the world with relative impunity; evidently unperturbed by the outcry of those left insolvent and drowning (21). It is these kinds of trends that have led prominent climate policy experts at the United Nations to proclaim climate change as the current greatest threat to human rights (22) and into speculating on the risk of a ‘climate apartheid’ scenario where only the wealthy will have the resources to escape the ensuing hunger, conflict, and chaos (23).
The unfortunate nature of this social gradient is that those most responsible for environmental damage and with the greatest carbon footprint also seem to be those who are least concerned.“The more we consume, the less we feel” as stated by Monbiot (24), highlighting the correlation between increased wealth and a decreased concern for harms caused, with the populations of rich nations the least likely to feel guilt about their environmental impact (24).
In this present state of flux we must also consider the role played by world leaders and government policymakers as key actors who have overwhelmingly proved disappointing in their resolve to address this unfolding disaster. Policymakers and representatives who, whilst the Amazon burns, sea levels rise, and glaciers vanish, shamelessly continue with brazen attempts to mislead and downplay the reality of the current climate emergency (25). How can we explain the pervasive political inertia and bizarre lack of climate action exhibited by policymakers when faced with such a real, tangible, and imminent threat to life as we know it? (26)
In understanding this, we must first consider the manner by which much mass media messaging has revolved around selling the concept of taking relatively meaningless individual action. Be it through keep-cups, metal straws, planting a vegetable garden or truly laughable suggestions such as charging your phone less (27), commercial mass media has proven itself absolutely determined to push the soft, emotionally reassuring, fundamentally consumerist narrative that “small lifestyle changes” (28) at an isolated individualistic level is all that is required as an answer to global warming. This is no accident. The deflection of responsibility and blame to individuals and away from leaders and wealthy fossil fuel barons represents one of the most well crafted strategies to date at effectively subduing any spark of organised collective activism. The depraved genius of this approach has really been to reflect passionate and motivated individuals away from a critique of policymakers and private enterprise and instead towards thinking about the ways co-workers, friends, or family may be letting down the green effort, and ultimately focus their energies at local, trivial, inconsequential, and individual levels. Collective action loses favour, and corporations walk free (29). Lifestyle choices will neither shift large-scale decision-making power away from the oligarchy nor lead to the social and political change required to avert climate disaster, not least within any timeframe of consequence (30,48).
An over-shared twitter aphorism of the modern age
Though investigation and inquiry uncovering vested political interest underscoring climate inaction would likely surprise no one, the interesting question involves examining the possible ideologies upheld those in positions of power who publicly profess pro-fossil fuel or conversely, anti-environmentalist positions (31,32). As a premise, let us assume given the relatively universal public awareness of as potentially a cataclysmal event as climate collapse, no world leader or policymaker can reasonably remain unaware or uninformed. Given role of environmental issues in opinion polls to public protests to economic expansion into the green sector, it may be fathomable that even policymakers outspoken against emissions reductions may be relatively well-informed on expected trajectories of climate change through the policy briefs and reporting from political advisors delivered to them. Even accounting for bias in policy briefs, the self-reinforcing services of yes men, and insular opinion circles, the anti-environmental messages we witness from those in such positions can only lead us to suspect they come from: a place of inanely hopeless optimism, a deeply uncaring and indifferent ‘I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone’ ideology, willful ignorance, or premature adoption of a post-climate-apocalypse mindset that is now only focussed on the protection of personal property, assets, and the welfare of a select few associates. The metaphorical building of lifeboats (33).
A Cataclysmic Cosmic Calamity
For many of us the earth-altering catastrophe of a deteriorating climate is a near-constant undertone to daily life in a business as usual world, yet broader public acknowledgement lags behind. Though discussed in hushed and contemplative tones at occasional moments of compelling lucidity among friends and colleagues, the gallows humour of the world’s end might provide ample material for online memes and instagram influencer rhetoric, but seems to have been largely absent from mainstream public dialogue. Through the mechanistic complexity of global warming, manifestation in diffuse downstream effects, inherent uncertainty of the time horizons involved, and provision of mixed messages by mass media outlets that sow doubt and undersell its seriousness, there has been no major public outrage for something which threatens the continuation of life as we know it.
The Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette. 14 August, 1912. (37).
Unfortunately, selling the idea of conservation and a need to protect the natural world seems to have failed (34,35,46). Though warning alarms have sounded for over a century (The Rodney and Otamatea Times, 1912 [below]), the effort to spur pre-emptive action from leaders, governments, and nations has not been met with the required action. The most eloquent explanation I have encountered for this toxic phenomenon is provided by John Kay in his discussion of economics and the global financial crisis of 2007-8.
“The cost and consequences of preventive action are real and measurable. But if preventive action is successful, the costs of the damaging event that have been avoided, and indeed the very nature of these events themselves, will remain hypothetical. The public applauds not the cautious captain who escapes the storm but the heroic seaman who like McWhirr, battles successfully through.”(36)
With all that is going on regarding climate change it is easy to mentally discount the legion of other plausible threats to humanity in spaces as varied as international conflict, infectious disease and antibiotic resistance, famine, and the constant threat of nuclear armageddon (38). The number and nature of such perils is easily enough to compel any sane individual into search of an abandoned island or distant land in which to live out the rest of your days (39). For myself, a journey into the questionable Wikipedia rabbit hole of doomsday prophesying provided cold comfort. Shortfalls of any sweepingly simplistic unified theory such as the Fermi paradox aside, it is hard to immediately dismiss the conjecture linking climate change to the concept of a great filter.
Whilst many sub-themes relating to climate catastrophe, ecological emergency, and planetary meltdown provide nothing more than sustenance for Hollywood dramas, from The Day After Tomorrow to Birdemic; ocean acidification, the freshwater cycle, and climate change are three important planetary boundaries each considered sufficient in their own right to pose a genuine existential threat to humanity (40). Whilst debate inevitably continues around the specific tipping points of natural systems or the validity of quantified statements about the precipitous levels we must avoid for each hypothesised boundary, the idea of toeing that line is really one that shouldn’t be entertained. If corporations or governments persist in attempts to extract a maximum return on natural resources for economic profit before they are forced kicking and screaming into any kind of green new deal, then we will be collectively engaging the planet in a game of chicken in which there will be no winners. Countries cannot continue to defer responsibility, kick the can down the road to future generations, freeload, and generally play games with each other when facing a genuinely existential risk (41,42).
Theoretically we could change behaviours and lifestyles but empirically in practice we have not (43) and we will not (44). Unfathomably, at this moment in time we possess the scientific theory and modelling to understand climate change, we are already seeing the devastation of focusing events that should have spurred action, we collectively have the tools and resources to implement sustainable technologies and practices to turn this around, yet still lack the critical impetus required to make this change a reality. At this moment, I know not what more could actually change in order to make climate action the unifying global collaboration it needs to be.
I don’t think this is the universe in which we win.
Outro
Some of my favourite movies and video games feature something in common; a rewind mechanism, a re-do, a second chance to get things right after a catastrophic mistake. As comically simplistic as it is, it is still an idea that has been tumbling around in my thoughts for some time. What if this was that kind of a moment? What if we suspend disbelief for one moment and imagine we had that kind of a power, a kind of perfect foresight, and a kind of a second-chance opportunity to get it right. If we looked at this moment in time as a historical branch point where we can see what possible ecological disaster lies ahead, and were gifted the extraordinary power to avoid it.
What would we do differently?
What would we change?
Clockwise: Back to the Future (1985), Forza Horizon 4 (2018), Life is Strange (2015), Prince of Persia (2010), LoZ: Majora’s Mask (2000)
T Michniewicz, 09/11/19
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