Polar
ice and arctic permafrost are melting much faster than predicted.
That means the amount of additional carbon dioxide is already
sufficient to upset the previous balance of temperatures between
winters and summers. Both have warmed up and are disrupting global
weather patterns. The oceans and the atmosphere, carrying heat from
the Tropics to the Poles, are hotter than they were. And the warming
of air and sea currents has necessary consequences. Those extra
calories melt ice, but they also result in more evaporation and
increase the air’s capacity to retain water vapour. Denser clouds
bring more rain and thunderstorms. Clouds maintain hot air in the
lower atmosphere, but they have an albedo effect and partly reflect
incoming sunlight. Storms, hail and torrential rain are being
experienced more frequently with greater intensity, as are
suffocating heat and drought. Cloudless skies for long periods are
also plaguing parts of the planet.
Climatic
conditions are changing everywhere, with catastrophic results.
Wildfires are burning, rivers are bursting their banks and crops are
failing from too little or too much water. This is no longer a
forecast for the end of the century, it is happening right now,
relentlessly. As nothing has been done to stop, or even curb,
greenhouse-gas emissions – the consumption of coal, oil and gas is
in fact still increasing – the planet is becoming a disaster zone.
Ultimately, no one will be spared. The lifestyle imagined and
constructed during the 19th and 20th centuries
is proving to be a mistake that is destroying life on Earth at an
accelerating rate. Some species may survive the combined disruption
of humanity’s toxic trash, from gases and plastics to
radioactivity, and humans, with their capacity for adaptation thanks
to technology, will probably be among the last survivors. After all,
with rudimentary tools and weapons made from native materials, homo
sapiens managed to live comfortably in the Tropics, around the Arctic
Circle and in the space between them, in forests and steppes, up
mountains, down valleys and on seashores. Animals and plants are not
so adaptable. They need time to evolve, as they cannot mediate their
environment with clothes and shelters, weapons and tools. And, if
plants and animals disappear, humans with all their technology will
probably not survive either.
With
a few exceptions, humans are completely dependent on infrastructure.
Road and rail, airways and sea routes, pipes, cables and wires make
life possible. This complex network does not resist well to extreme
weather conditions. As these increase and multiply, repairing the
damages will be harder and harder to insure. When a snow storm makes
roads impracticable and brings down power lines, rural populations
manage to hold out until the roads are cleared and the supply of
electricity is restored. As this happens frequently they are
prepared. They have stocks of food and fuel, and a generator. Cut off
from the world and without electricity, an urban population would not
last long. As stocks are replenished on a daily basis, they would
quickly run out and the city would plunge into chaos or come under
the rule of martial law. And if no relief was forthcoming most would
die. When infrastructure breaks down, towns and cities are the most
vulnerable. But, in the developed world, even rural communities are
largely dependent on outside supplies. The Amish would fare better
than most.
How
much of the destruction by elemental forces can continually be
repaired? As the frequency and extent of the destruction increases,
some places will become uninhabitable. This has already been
happening in the subtropical regions because of repeated, prolonged
droughts and floods, has resulted in migrations. This, alongside
numerous armed conflicts, is multiplying refugees who are facing
increased difficulties in finding safe havens. So far this has been a
rural exodus from fairly sparsely populated regions, and has largely
increased the numbers of urban poor. But what will happen when towns
and cities are no longer supplied, and where will those refugees go
to? As the planet becomes less hospitable and transport systems break
down, sustaining urban concentrations will be increasingly difficult.
Their vast daily intakes of food, fuel, electricity and water cannot
be interrupted without dire and immediate consequences. Because of
their artificiality, cities are particularly vulnerable to
disruptions in supplies. So far rural communities have suffered the
most from flooding, wildfires and drought, whereas the flows in and
out of cities have barely been perturbed. But ever more extreme and
violent meteorological events will change that. And the warning is
out, the change could be quite sudden. All complex systems have a
tipping point. For atmospheric temperatures and carbon dioxide
levels, absorption by the oceans is reaching the critical stage where
heat is still absorbed but the sea’s increased surface temperature
reduces its capacity to dissolve carbon dioxide, some of which goes
back into the atmosphere.
Life
on planet Earth is being battered by storms, swept away by floods and
roasted by intense heat waves, and 477 of the world’s largest
investors (1) are asking governments to insure their profits. They
have spent the last decades profitably destroying the environment,
with considerable public subsidies, and now that things are turning
nasty they are demanding more public assistance. It seems the
taxpayer will contribute ever more generously to private
profiteering. This plea from Big Business is a sign that climate
disruption is beginning to impact profit margins, and insurers are
probably the first concerned. As usual, corporations intend passing
the bill for the clean-up to governments. But governments are not
just broke, they are heavily in debt and are in no condition to pay.
What they can and should do is oblige those 477 and all the others to
supply the means for a turn around that may be able to avoid the
worst predicted outcomes. Except that governments are accountable to
those people and – apart from elections when even pies in the sky
are promised – have little if any interest in the people they
govern. That will have to change before anything else does. If the
planet and its inhabitants are to be saved, people will have to take
control of their destiny, and not leave it in the hands of a cluster
of freebooters. What is far less certain, however, is the capacity of
plastic and fossil fuel addicts to bring about such a revolution. As
they are also addicted to video screens, they are more likely to
follow some vociferous demagogue off a cliff.
