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...
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...
A Theory of Disaster-Driven Societal Collapse and How to Prevent It
(abstract) — One of the effects of climate change is an increase in extreme weather and natural disasters. Unless CO₂ emissions are significantly reduced very soon, it is inevitable that the effects of disaster will exceed many (and ultimately all) societies’ mitigation capacity. Compounding unmitigated disaster effects will slowly but surely push a society towards collapse. Because no part of the planet is safe from the increase in natural disaster intensity and because some of the effects of disasters – such as refugees and economic decline – spill over boundaries, this will eventually lead to global societal collapse. Furthermore, just...
Michael Mann versus the “Doomists”
Last month, Breakthrough Australia published a paper by David Spratt and Ian Dunlop that claims that “climate change now represents a near- to mid-term existential threat to human civilisation”. Climate scientist Michael Mann was quick to put down the paper as “overblown rhetoric”. He was quoted as saying that “I respect the authors and appreciate that their intentions are good, but as I have written before, overblown rhetoric, exaggeration, and unsupportable doomist framing can be counteractive to climate action.” The quote by Mann raises a number of questions. Is the report by Spratt and Dunlop “overblown rhetoric” indeed? Does Mann...
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...
Crisis and Inertia (5) – Derailing a Speeding Train
(This is part 5 in the “Crisis and Inertia” series.) In the first episode in this series I argued that societies and other social “objects” (cultures, beliefs, institutions, ideas, ideologies, and so forth) are as inert as physical objects. Social “objects” resist change – if they are moving in a certain direction, they resist a change in direction. The second notion in the tile of this series is “crisis”. A crisis is an event that changes a social object’s momentum – that is, it’s path, speed, or direction. Crises come in several kinds. A minor crisis produces a (nearly?) immeasurably...
Crisis and Inertia (2) – Climate Change
(This is part 2 in the “Crisis and Inertia” series.) Surprisingly many people seem to be under the impression that climate change won’t really affect them. “Sure, it will get a little bit warmer, but that’s what air conditioners are for, and sea level rise doesn’t really affect me because I don’t live on the coast and it is slow anyway.” Something like that appears to be general idea. Unfortunately, that idea is wrong. Very wrong. Climate change will have much bigger effects than air conditioners and coastal protection can fix. The exact nature of those effects is uncertain, however,...