Great article, Patrick. Thank you for sharing. From what I've read, the second part of climate change that we don't often hear about is solar influences. If my memory serves me right, Kyle Harper pointed out in his book "The Fate of Rome" that solar patterns both created and then destroyed the Roman Climactic Optimum. This makes me somewhat skeptical that humans can completely control the global mean temperature. While we do have some control, we need to be cautious and not assume that we can "cool the earth" when forces such as the Hallstatt Cycle (see link below) are beyond our control and operate in roughly 15,000-year intervals.
So, while I support efforts to reduce carbon emissions, improve water cleanliness, clean up trash from our oceans, and other measures recommended by science to control the rise in global mean temperature, we also need to focus on how we will adapt to a warmer planet. If we follow one logical conclusion, it is that since the end of the Pleistocene, the earth has been getting warmer. Similar to the stock market with its ups and downs, the overall trend is an unstoppable upward march. We see no signs, nor would we even be able to detect one, of a shift in this trend. Therefore, despite our best efforts and even if all of them are successful, I estimate that global mean temperature will continue to rise.
We should invest our efforts in preparing for a warmer planet and rising sea levels. Will we build continental sea walls to protect against the encroaching oceans? Will we develop drought-resistant crops that can thrive in longer and hotter growing seasons? It is reasonable to assume that with rising sea levels, lakes and rivers will expand. So, should coastal towns and cities relocate, or should we focus on holding back the rising waters? The list goes on, but it would be foolish to rely solely on our ability to completely control the global mean temperature.
Lastly, let's consider a scenario where the roles are reversed, and the planet is cooling. How confident are we in our ability to warm it up? Cheers!
Useful perspective. (I appreciate your use of climate change info in your historical podcasts!)
I'm not very sympathetic to the question how you should feel even if I agree pretty much with your answer. Rather the question should be what should you DO? Never before in history have we had the ability to predict the climatic consequences of our actions. We can act to make the climate better or worse for our own flourishing. Likewise, we can act to reduce the harm from the recent changes that we have engendered. And since we can, we should.
Yeah, as much as personal "carbon footprint" turned out to be BS, people latched on to it because it let them feel like they were doing SOMETHING. With politicians willing and able to ignore peaceful protest, scientist's warnings, and even polls, it's hard to feel anything other than helplessness.
As a farmer, I am less concerned about climate change than I am about the government's actions in response. We have better technology and better educated farmers who have experience with their own land, microclimate, etc. We make adjustments gradually based on our knowledge of our own situations and make gradually adjustments to trends in the weather of the most recent years. Some farms faster some slower.
It is when there is central planning that mandates rapid, identical change to our agriculture practices with little regard to individual knowledge, that we see disastrous results. For example: collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union after the revolution or Mao's Great Forward.
"People aren’t leaves on the wind, buffeted by environmental forces beyond their comprehension, prisoners of forces we can neither understand nor control."
Under our current system of nation-state borders and property rights framework, aren't we prisoners of forces we cannot control? A big part of why climate change is so troubling is not that we cannot adapt our societies, it is that we have structured things in a way where instead of adapting, we will put the people who are trying to adapt to the sword without ever realizing how that hurts ourselves.
We're not prisoners; as the next several paragraphs past what you quoted argue, those things shape and channel our range of potential responses - sometimes for the better (channeling resources for extremely large-scale interventions) and sometimes for the worse (short-term profit incentives, barriers to refugee movements, etc.)
I'm more pointing out that what you say subsequently "Ideas, institutions, and politics shape our responses to climate change" is too muted for our modern context. They don't just "shape" our responses. Depending on whose perspective you are talking about (climate refugees for example) the choices are made for us. How is that not a kind of prison? That's the whole neoliberal goal; create institutions that pre-determine responses, with no alternative.
I'm hugely in agreement with your conclusion:
"We have some agency - not all the agency, but some - to decide how bad it gets, who suffers and who benefits, whether those changes are preemptive or a reaction to an ongoing catastrophe. The most vulnerable people don’t have to lose everything so that others maintain or improve their standard of living. Life will go on one way or another, because human life goes on no matter what’s happening around us, but it can be better or worse depending on what we collectively decide to do."
but also really want to emphasize that all those choices are being made by a teeny tiny slice of humanity, and that agency only belongs to a few. THAT is the big difference between past climate adaptation and our future. (well that and concurrent mass extinction)
Yes. Society as whole is capable of changing rapidly, but when there's a large, powerful (and well-funded) group of people who REFUSE to change, we may as well all be stuck in stasis.
Agree to the majority however, fear that ending in spieces survival optimism could be a realistic but as well dangerous conclusion. Personally, I believe we as a spieces will survive knowing our history with adaptability in an ever changing climate, even so, our fight to minimize the present climate change should be focused on preserving the lives (not merely human) that already has come to earth. Minimize suffering, death and the unimaginable anguish of seeing you children, relatives and beloved ones die. As Interstellar by Christopher Nolan pointed out, the mere care about spieces survival can become narcissistic and inhuman. It's the belief that the 'holy' or wonderful lies in our DNA rather than in our 'souls' - or whatever now makes us human. Sacrificing so much life but, justifying or excusing it 'because at least our spieces will survive', is not the right way to go, I believe.
Thank you Patrick for always producing such wonderful content both on here and in 'Tides of History'! You make my days, my train rides and line standing so much more enjoyable <3
I hope it's clear that I don't want 95 percent of humanity to perish in a climate catastrophe - that would be a terrible outcome. I've just seen so much doomerism lately about even the possibility of us surviving that I felt a counterpoint was necessary.
The historical record is much smaller scale than the change we have coming, both in degree and speed. Our population density is far larger now, and it is built on an agriculture density that is unlikely to continue, perhaps by an order of magnitude.
So, the migration pressures will be far greater than history has ever seen. Hence the drivers for conflict, access to food and "invaders", will be more intense. There will be conflict.
Now remember that we now have several classes of WMDs that can be extinction level. The pressures will inevitably produce many severe conflict triggers. Ensuring those triggers don't get pulled will be key to getting through this immense change to a new balance point.
I think your analysis, while correct, might lead too many readers to thinking that "it won't be so bad." That is wrong. It will be very, very challenging ... and risky. The more we can do to reduce those pressures for conflict now, the higher the probability for survival.
The quantity of agricultural surplus needed to support an urban center is massive compared to a group of foragers. It isn’t just the legitimacy of the ruling elite that is threatened by sequential bad harvests but also their ability to remain occupied by matters unrelated to resource procurement. Add to this population growth rates during sequential good harvests making the threshold for bad harvests lower, and you’ve got a strong set of incentives to keep surplus going.
I got some very real Jurassic Park vibes from the last paragraph.
I think the rise of solar and battery tech actually make me somewhat "optimistic" our current industrialized world can continue without 95% of the population dying off. But perhaps I'm naive. Either way, I've bought into the "electrify everything" arguments.
Great article, Patrick. Thank you for sharing. From what I've read, the second part of climate change that we don't often hear about is solar influences. If my memory serves me right, Kyle Harper pointed out in his book "The Fate of Rome" that solar patterns both created and then destroyed the Roman Climactic Optimum. This makes me somewhat skeptical that humans can completely control the global mean temperature. While we do have some control, we need to be cautious and not assume that we can "cool the earth" when forces such as the Hallstatt Cycle (see link below) are beyond our control and operate in roughly 15,000-year intervals.
So, while I support efforts to reduce carbon emissions, improve water cleanliness, clean up trash from our oceans, and other measures recommended by science to control the rise in global mean temperature, we also need to focus on how we will adapt to a warmer planet. If we follow one logical conclusion, it is that since the end of the Pleistocene, the earth has been getting warmer. Similar to the stock market with its ups and downs, the overall trend is an unstoppable upward march. We see no signs, nor would we even be able to detect one, of a shift in this trend. Therefore, despite our best efforts and even if all of them are successful, I estimate that global mean temperature will continue to rise.
We should invest our efforts in preparing for a warmer planet and rising sea levels. Will we build continental sea walls to protect against the encroaching oceans? Will we develop drought-resistant crops that can thrive in longer and hotter growing seasons? It is reasonable to assume that with rising sea levels, lakes and rivers will expand. So, should coastal towns and cities relocate, or should we focus on holding back the rising waters? The list goes on, but it would be foolish to rely solely on our ability to completely control the global mean temperature.
Lastly, let's consider a scenario where the roles are reversed, and the planet is cooling. How confident are we in our ability to warm it up? Cheers!
Total gibberish. Not relevant to a damn thing.
Is there a casual? I mean walking around with fossil fuel cock in your throat, 24 seven?
Useful perspective. (I appreciate your use of climate change info in your historical podcasts!)
I'm not very sympathetic to the question how you should feel even if I agree pretty much with your answer. Rather the question should be what should you DO? Never before in history have we had the ability to predict the climatic consequences of our actions. We can act to make the climate better or worse for our own flourishing. Likewise, we can act to reduce the harm from the recent changes that we have engendered. And since we can, we should.
Yeah, as much as personal "carbon footprint" turned out to be BS, people latched on to it because it let them feel like they were doing SOMETHING. With politicians willing and able to ignore peaceful protest, scientist's warnings, and even polls, it's hard to feel anything other than helplessness.
As a farmer, I am less concerned about climate change than I am about the government's actions in response. We have better technology and better educated farmers who have experience with their own land, microclimate, etc. We make adjustments gradually based on our knowledge of our own situations and make gradually adjustments to trends in the weather of the most recent years. Some farms faster some slower.
It is when there is central planning that mandates rapid, identical change to our agriculture practices with little regard to individual knowledge, that we see disastrous results. For example: collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union after the revolution or Mao's Great Forward.
"People aren’t leaves on the wind, buffeted by environmental forces beyond their comprehension, prisoners of forces we can neither understand nor control."
Under our current system of nation-state borders and property rights framework, aren't we prisoners of forces we cannot control? A big part of why climate change is so troubling is not that we cannot adapt our societies, it is that we have structured things in a way where instead of adapting, we will put the people who are trying to adapt to the sword without ever realizing how that hurts ourselves.
We're not prisoners; as the next several paragraphs past what you quoted argue, those things shape and channel our range of potential responses - sometimes for the better (channeling resources for extremely large-scale interventions) and sometimes for the worse (short-term profit incentives, barriers to refugee movements, etc.)
I'm more pointing out that what you say subsequently "Ideas, institutions, and politics shape our responses to climate change" is too muted for our modern context. They don't just "shape" our responses. Depending on whose perspective you are talking about (climate refugees for example) the choices are made for us. How is that not a kind of prison? That's the whole neoliberal goal; create institutions that pre-determine responses, with no alternative.
I'm hugely in agreement with your conclusion:
"We have some agency - not all the agency, but some - to decide how bad it gets, who suffers and who benefits, whether those changes are preemptive or a reaction to an ongoing catastrophe. The most vulnerable people don’t have to lose everything so that others maintain or improve their standard of living. Life will go on one way or another, because human life goes on no matter what’s happening around us, but it can be better or worse depending on what we collectively decide to do."
but also really want to emphasize that all those choices are being made by a teeny tiny slice of humanity, and that agency only belongs to a few. THAT is the big difference between past climate adaptation and our future. (well that and concurrent mass extinction)
Yes. Society as whole is capable of changing rapidly, but when there's a large, powerful (and well-funded) group of people who REFUSE to change, we may as well all be stuck in stasis.
Agree to the majority however, fear that ending in spieces survival optimism could be a realistic but as well dangerous conclusion. Personally, I believe we as a spieces will survive knowing our history with adaptability in an ever changing climate, even so, our fight to minimize the present climate change should be focused on preserving the lives (not merely human) that already has come to earth. Minimize suffering, death and the unimaginable anguish of seeing you children, relatives and beloved ones die. As Interstellar by Christopher Nolan pointed out, the mere care about spieces survival can become narcissistic and inhuman. It's the belief that the 'holy' or wonderful lies in our DNA rather than in our 'souls' - or whatever now makes us human. Sacrificing so much life but, justifying or excusing it 'because at least our spieces will survive', is not the right way to go, I believe.
Thank you Patrick for always producing such wonderful content both on here and in 'Tides of History'! You make my days, my train rides and line standing so much more enjoyable <3
I hope it's clear that I don't want 95 percent of humanity to perish in a climate catastrophe - that would be a terrible outcome. I've just seen so much doomerism lately about even the possibility of us surviving that I felt a counterpoint was necessary.
If you live long enough , you will see your optimism is sorely missed placed
Sorry, here's a link to a paper on the Hallstatt Cycle.
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2016/03/aa27295-15/aa27295-15.html
I'm taking the title as very literal. This is a way to start thinking instead of angsting about climate change. Very effective actually
Great post. Thanks.
The historical record is much smaller scale than the change we have coming, both in degree and speed. Our population density is far larger now, and it is built on an agriculture density that is unlikely to continue, perhaps by an order of magnitude.
So, the migration pressures will be far greater than history has ever seen. Hence the drivers for conflict, access to food and "invaders", will be more intense. There will be conflict.
Now remember that we now have several classes of WMDs that can be extinction level. The pressures will inevitably produce many severe conflict triggers. Ensuring those triggers don't get pulled will be key to getting through this immense change to a new balance point.
I think your analysis, while correct, might lead too many readers to thinking that "it won't be so bad." That is wrong. It will be very, very challenging ... and risky. The more we can do to reduce those pressures for conflict now, the higher the probability for survival.
I learned a lot from this article. Thank you!
The quantity of agricultural surplus needed to support an urban center is massive compared to a group of foragers. It isn’t just the legitimacy of the ruling elite that is threatened by sequential bad harvests but also their ability to remain occupied by matters unrelated to resource procurement. Add to this population growth rates during sequential good harvests making the threshold for bad harvests lower, and you’ve got a strong set of incentives to keep surplus going.
I got some very real Jurassic Park vibes from the last paragraph.
I think the rise of solar and battery tech actually make me somewhat "optimistic" our current industrialized world can continue without 95% of the population dying off. But perhaps I'm naive. Either way, I've bought into the "electrify everything" arguments.