SotA-R-2: Drought and Its Effects in the 2030s and 40s
(This is part 2 of the “Stages of the Anthropocene, Revisited” Series (SotA-R).) Of all climate-change-related disasters, drought may very well be the worst. While other kinds of disasters might look more disastrous because of the clearly visible damage they cause, droughts destroys livelihoods. Drought is associated with water shortages (obviously), crop failures, famine, migration/refugees, and violent conflict (including civil war and war). Furthermore, droughts tend to affect larger areas, and the effects are, therefore, widespread. Persistent drought can make once fertile and pleasant lands inhospitable or even uninhabitable. For these reasons, significant changes in global precipitation patterns can have...
Stages of the Anthropocene, Revisited
(This is part 1 of the “Stages of the Anthropocene, Revisited” Series (SotA-R).) In Stages of the Anthropocene (2018), I argued that if one aims to make mid- or long-term predictions of the effects of climate change on human civilization, it is useful (if not necessary) to distinguish three phases or stages within the time period known as the “anthropocene”. There is some disagreement about when the anthropocene started – the industrial revolution (mid 18th century) and the advent of the atomic age (mid 20th century) have been suggested, and an argument has even been made for the emergence of...
(Not) Too Late for What?
Some people seem to believe that it is too late to fight climate change. Others seem to believe that this kind of fatalism is as dangerous as climate change denialism (because both effectively advocate not doing anything). It’s hardly a secret that I’m rather pessimistic about climate change and its effects – just have a look at what I’ve written about the topic before – but that doesn’t mean that I think that it is “too late” to fight climate change. Rather, I think that the notion of it being “too late” (or not) in this context is nonsensical. The...
Predictions
A year ago, I predicted that the Covid19 pandemic would kill 35 million or even more people. Although mortality statistics suggest that the current official death count (about two and a half million at the time of writing) significantly underestimates the real number of deaths, it is also becoming increasingly unlikely that we’ll reach numbers anywhere near that pessimistic prediction any time soon. The reason why my prediction was so far off is the same reason why many other predictions fail: they insufficiently take into account that human behavior changes in response to changes in circumstances. Typically, models used to...
Lessons from the Ongoing Disaster (for the Next One)
Presumably, you are aware that we’re in the middle of a disaster. That’s unpleasant – to say the least – but it’s also quite instructive. There is much we can learn from the ongoing disaster and humanity’s responses to it. But whether we can use those lessons to avert the even bigger disaster looming on the horizon is questionable. Rather, it seems that the most important thing that we can learn from the corona crisis is that we as a species may very well be incapable of avoiding catastrophy. ignore and deny For months, the general attitude of most governments...
What to Do?
(This is part 8 in the No Time for Utopia series.) I never liked Tolkien’s books – I always found them badly written, reactionary garbage – but when I was trying to write this final chapter in the No Time for Utopia series I kept returning to this quote from The Lord of the Rings: “I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with...
The 2020s and Beyond
(This is part 7 in the No Time for Utopia series.) The main guiding principle of this series is a rejection of “ideal theory”, that is, of idealizations and unwarranted abstractions from the real world. Nevertheless, by viewing the climate crisis in relative isolation and by mostly ignoring how it might interact with various other developments, I have effectively abstracted that issue from the real world. Unfortunately, this is not easily remedied, and any attempt at a broader view will be largely speculative. It can only be speculative, because even a slightly broader view is well beyond the level of...
The Possibility of a Revolution
(This is part 6 in the No Time for Utopia series.) In The Ethics of Climate Insurgency I argued that an insurgency aimed at overthrowing the enemies of our children is not morally justified because it is unlikely that – in the present situation – such an insurgency can succeed. It may seem that that conclusion also makes a discussion of the possibility of some kind of revolution to avoid catastrophe and establish something like the Lesser Dystopia is moot, but that is not exactly the case for (at least) two reasons. Firstly, in considering the possibility of a revolution...
Enemies of Our Children
(This is part 4 in the No Time for Utopia series.) In the previous two episodes in this series I argued that there are two possible futures for mankind and our planet. One is global societal collapse, which may take place within a matter of decades. The other is the “Lesser Dystopia”, a set of policies and adaptations intended to avoid societal collapse and the massive suffering it would cause. The Lesser-Dystopian path is a rather narrow path, however, and significant deviation will inevitably result into a slide towards the Greater Dystopia of global societal collapse. To some extent, both...
The Lesser Dystopia
(This is part 3 in the No Time for Utopia series.) In On the Fragility of Civilization, I argued that due to the slowly compounding effects of an increasing number of relatively localized “natural” disasters caused (directly or indirectly) by climate change, a vicious circle of failing disaster management, economic decline, civil unrest, and hunger will trigger a cascade of collapsing societies, eventually leading to global societal collapse in roughly 25 to 30 years from now (give or take a half decade). The world during and after collapse will be very different from what most of us have ever experienced,...
On the Fragility of Civilization
(This is part 2 in the No Time for Utopia series.) Doom has always been a major attraction for some, perhaps even many people. There are whole subgenres of extreme (heavy) metal built on the aesthetics of death, doom, and decay. But “doom” in the form of extreme pessimism about the (near) future is also increasingly common in discussions about climate change and its effects. In Stages of the Anthropocene I tried to look into the more distant future. Whether what I found is an example of “doom” in this sense is debatable – at least I didn’t predict human...
Stages of the Anthropocene
preface (2022) There are major mistakes in the predictions and calculations involved in this article. For an attempt to come up with better predictions (and thus, an update of this article), see the SotA-R series. The model results presented in the last episode thereof, suggest 3°C to 5°C of average global warming. (Original post) — Climate scientists don’t often look at the distant future and when they do, their “predictions” are so vague that they hardly count as predictions at all. Most published work on climate change focuses on the current century. There are good reasons, for this, of course...