It's Time for Civilization Collapse Awareness - Pt. II

The continued pursuit of business as usual has made +3 °C global warming unescapable

This is the second part on Earth’s global overshoot and climate change (read the first part here.) I know, it’s not the kind of reading you were looking for the New Year’s Eve. But stepping into the new year with a deeper understanding might be useful to heighten our awareness.

Climate Change and Civil Society’s Resistance

Now that the global overshoot notion has been clarified, you might object by saying that humans are smarter than animals and have always been skilled in adapting. We will find our way out of this by engineering the appropriate socio-political, scientific, and technological measures.

In fact, the annual population growth rate is decreasing, and projections tell us that we might peak at about 10 billion by 2080. Then a decrease is expected to set in. Should we feel relieved? The exponential growth might turn into a sigmoid (see my post on this here) due to education, women’s rights, and access to birth control. But precisely this shows how a Malthusian collapse can be avoided, not by ignoring the facts, doing nothing, and letting Nature take its course but by adopting political, economic, and social measures.

However, we are far from the end of this story. Let us see how the rest of the curve behaves and what will determine it. Will reasonable human policies of self-restraint, or Nature’s brutal means, establish a new equilibrium? I was convinced that we were going along the former route, but now I know that, unfortunately, we opted for the latter. Is there any sign that the human animal is smarter and will soon change its behavior, transitioning to clean energy, limiting its consumerist habits, and adopting a controlled population descent before the total depletion of the biosphere leads to a collapse? All the warning (and warming) signs for decades didn’t lead to the necessary action. We had the opportunity to behave differently but said, “No, thank you. We don’t want that.”

Let me turn back to the climate change issue, looking at it from a different perspective.

Due to its complex and intertwined effects, comprehending climate change is a Herculean task that, in part, is beyond human comprehension. The elusive nature of climate change, invisible and untouchable except in extreme natural calamities like droughts, floods, and hurricanes, has contributed to its prolonged neglect. The intricacies of climate change branch into an array of complex interconnected issues. This multidimensional challenge eludes easy comprehension, often confounding even astute minds. The phenomenon's elusive and intangible nature, largely invisible until it unleashes its wrath in the form of catastrophic events, has masked its urgency and impending cataclysm.

In principle, a post-material, spiritual, and intuitive standpoint would make the comprehension of the dangers and the necessary action to take relatively straightforward. However, science and the human mind are still unwilling to get there. This inherent mix of the complexity of the phenomenon, ignorance, and a civil society unwilling to change its lifestyle allows the propaganda of the fuel industry to manipulate the masses’ thought patterns and make climate change denialism rampant. We could have done something about climate change three decades ago, but we didn’t, and we continue to remain almost inactive.

Even evolutionary biologists and scientists studying global sustainability begin to question whether our species, the homo sapiens, is capable at least in principle to cope with climate change. Characteristic processes of human evolution caused the Anthropocene and may obstruct its global solutions. From the evolutionary standpoint, our survival instincts and genetic predisposition always relied on environmental exploitation, unlimited reproduction, domination, conquest, competition, and the preservation of our selfish interests. If we opted for cooperation and compromised our interests with those of a larger group, it was only to maintain the social cohesion of the group, pack, tribe, and nation, never of the species at a global and collective scale. The ideal of human unity that cooperates towards a common aim that transcends group competition and a merely local fellowship subordinating it to a larger ‘family,’ is something that strongly contradicts our innate biological instincts.

Is it too late?

Keep in mind that stopping greenhouse gas emissions will not bring us back to the natural pre-industrial levels. Cutting emissions to zero would only stop the increase in global warming; it would not cool the planet down—at least not until we can manufacture some sci-fi geoengineering tech that allows us to process the atmosphere. As of this writing, the latest data are reporting that we broke the +1.5 °C global temperature line above the preindustrial average temperature that was set as the limit by the Paris Agreement. Even in the best-case scenario, in which all emissions were miraculously turned off, we would, nevertheless, have to live with this state of affairs for several generations. The belief was that, if we cut carbon dioxide emissions until 2050, we could, perhaps, limit global warming within this boundary. But how realistic were these projections? Did you see 8-10 billion people completely changing their lifestyles, giving up their standards of living and quality of life, and being willing to make economic sacrifices to reach this goal within the next three decades?

Source: link

The argument was that it is ‘physically’ realistic not to overshoot the +1.5 °C target, meaning that there is no physical law preventing us from cutting all CO2 emissions by 2050 provided that there is a political willingness to do so. Well, my answer is that ‘physically’ we could do so even in the next 24 hours by giving up everything and, from now on, living under the bushes. However, joking aside, the point is that no such political will exists, and nothing indicates that it will exist anytime soon. It isn’t only the political will that is missing (one has simply to look at the clown show that was COP28) but also there isn’t sufficient social acceptance. It is not only politics that strenuously refuses to adopt measures to reach such an objective but also civil society. The majority still do not feel climate change is a priority. For example, two-thirds of U.S. adults say the country should prioritize developing renewable energy sources, but only half see climate change as a major threat. Society would never accept the necessarily draconian ‘degrowth’ measures. (Read here about what a ‘degrowth scenario’ could look like.) What these polls never ask is whether the average citizen is willing to give up their consumerist habits, drive less, travel less or not at all, pay more taxes, become vegan, replace their heating system, and pay another $100k for a new energy-efficient home. Something tells me that polls would turn out very differently. We have seen this in Germany. The government passed a law requiring that until 2045 (yes, 2045!) everyone must replace gas heaters with heat pumps. Thousands took to the streets to protest, and the government coalition almost fell to pieces. When the government ended subsidies for agricultural diesel, the biggest cause of NOx pollution, farmers’ protests erupted nationwide, and the government had to quickly take back the draft law.

Therefore, there is no sign of a willingness to go beyond business as usual let alone to actively engage in such a transformation. In the end, no matter what kind of policy governments enact, when these affect our economic security or socio-political status, primitive instincts and raw emotions tend to take the upper hand. It is completely unrealistic to expect, as ecological movements ask for, that governments adopt conservation measures, restructure much of their energy and transportation infrastructure, and completely retool the economy. Politics will not act if it is not backed by a social basis that is willing to accept a severe curtailment of their familiar lifestyles. A willingness to make sacrifices not only for themselves but even for distant nations and future generations, putting aside national resentments, racial discrimination, personal privileges, and extreme wealth inequalities¹, thinking in complex long-term dynamics, and develop a connection with Nature.

Let’s face reality. Humanity is not there yet. We simply aren’t ready for this. At this evolutionary stage, the average Homo sapiens are intellectually and spiritually not mature enough for this. It is a mathematical certainty that this cultural and political transition will not happen in the next two or three decades, at least not peacefully and without dramatic collapses.

Of course, many environmental NGOs and people are waking up to a new spiritual vision of our relationship with Nature, but these remain a minority. The young generation following Greta Thunberg, or active in movements like Fridays for Future, is experiencing a deep sense of frustration and disillusionment because they now begin to see reality for what it is. They can convince neither the political elites (which was quite obvious and something to expect) nor a large part of society that, to the contrary, now tends to distance itself from environmentalism and sympathize with far-right climate change denialism, nationalism, and a culture that has returned to values of selfish tribal self-preservation. The fierce resistance to change and the lack of willingness to make the least sacrifice of the majority is so evident to the remaining minority that it isn't surprising that it causes them to fall into depression and resort to anxiety-related psychotherapy.

It is now obvious that society will continue to resist this transition. Science and politics will, therefore, remain unable to deliver. Whatever political movement or party would seriously try to implement the necessary measures would have no chance of being reelected—if it were even elected in the first place. Meanwhile, green technologies can only delay the crash, not avoid it. The fantasy of ‘green growth’—that is, the concept of environmentally sustainable economic growth—only reflects the bottomless self-delusion of which humans are capable. Unless there is a global cultural renaissance in which we change our habitual way of thinking and feeling and develop a ‘soul-disposition’ in seeing the world and Nature (which could become a social basis allowing us to go beyond a fossil fuel civilization), then technology alone, or whatever good policy-making, will not save us.

Where are we heading?

Meanwhile, there is no sign that greenhouse gas emissions will slow down. Even COVID-19 couldn’t change much. (It led to only a small dip in CO2 emissions in 2020.) The above predictions regarding the reduction of CO2 emissions to zero by 2050 will remain wishful thinking. If we don’t curb our fossil fuel addiction, then all the solar, wind, and other renewable energies won’t make much of a difference. The energy demand satisfied by increasing energy production with fossil fuels (see Fig. 5 in the last post) is growing faster than the energy replaced with solar and wind.

Thus, unless we are hit by another pandemic or by some other (more or less natural or Malthusian-type) global disasters forcing us to turn off our emissions, we can now fairly say that, undoubtedly, we will pump another hundreds of billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere in the coming years and that we will go way beyond the global temperature increase of +1.5 °C above preindustrial values.

This shouldn’t be surprising.

Yes, it is due to the ‘evil’ fossil fuel industry. Yes, we must blame human greed, etc. But it isn’t that simple either.

The exponential consumption of energy could not be otherwise because it reflects the societal addiction to growth, which, ultimately, is the growth of the number of goods and services that need energy to be supported, produced, and delivered. As long as governments and economists continue to pursue the myth of endless GDP growth, the ever-increasing energy production and consumption will remain a physical necessity. It is simple physics, and no political machinery can turn it off.

The chart below shows why.

About 80% of the world’s energy production comes from oil, coal and gas. Only 20% comes from renewable and nuclear power plants. The world’s technological and industrial complex is light years away from replacing the former with the latter. Also, if we go all in with nuclear energy (which, by the way, takes longer to build and furnishes energy at higher costs than solar or wind and tends to displace them), this won’t do the trick because it can only produce electric energy and can’t replace most of the other 80% conventional non-electric energy-consuming processes.

Of course, we are entering an era of fossil decline, and the complete electrification of all transportation systems, heating, and production lines is the ultimate goal. However, it will take decades to convert all cars, airplanes, and ships, the steel industry, etc. to electric power or green hydrogen.

But these are only minor issues. The vision of billions of electric vehicles converging on a grid powered exclusively by renewable energy produced by millions of solar modules and wind turbines would require an unparalleled mining scale of mineral extraction (especially of rare earth metals like europium, indium, and neodymium, sourced through destructive practices like strip mining). During the next decades, the so-called ‘Green New Deal,’ with its development of renewables, will inevitably remain intertwined with the emission of greenhouse gases and the destruction of the environment. The so-called ‘green energy’ will have to rely for a long time on fossil fuels. For example, the production of wind turbines and solar panels still requires fossil fuels. Oil is crucial for extracting materials used in constructing these technologies, the diesel trucks transporting these materials, and all the machinery necessary for their installation. And these seemingly green technologies rely on components made from fossil fuels.

Ironically, a cessation of fossil fuel usage would trigger a collapse in renewable production.

The same holds for computers, phone devices, civil infrastructures, housing, etc., all of which require copious amounts of metals and crucial components like cement, steel, concrete, and plastic that rely on fossil fuels and the ruthless exploitation of so-called ‘human resources.’

Another example is the production of fertilizers. Without the massive use of fertilizers on crops, the global population would have never reached the present size, or, conversely, today’s global amount of food production would immediately collapse and cause billions to starve. Our 8 billion-strong civilization depends on fertilizers no more and no less than it does on fossil fuels. The problem is that to produce fertilizers, one needs fossil fuels.

Yes, we will, one day, break this vicious cycle and build a more healthy and sustainable cycle in which all industrial production methods and power-consuming devices are built and powered with carbon-free energy and green materials. The path to an authentic self-sustaining green society necessitates a holistic approach that confronts and mitigates the environmental trade-offs inherent in our quest for a sustainable future. However, that day is still far from being visible on the horizon. Humanity has no long-term conception of its own development and impact on the environment let alone a holistic understanding of its actions. This has locked us into the paradoxical situation that if we want to go ahead with renewables and close that 80% fossil energy consumption gap, we must continue for a long time with fossil fuel emissions. If humanity had started this process 30 years ago, we could have kept global warming within the limits of a +1.5 °C temperature increase. We had the means to do something about it, reasonably, scientifically, and technologically, and prevent the worst. But we’ve missed that opportunity.

So, what does this mean? How far will the temperature rise?

Of course, nobody knows exactly, but while reducing fossil fuel dependency remains pivotal, the bitter reality is that surpassing the +2 °C warming threshold is inevitable. Certainly, we are now entering uncharted territory, while a UN report predicts that Earth is headed for a nearly three-degree global temperature increase by the end of the century (green dotted line in the graph). Keep in mind that in the past, most of these reports underestimated the acceleration of climate change. It would not be surprising if we went beyond the +3 °C mark at the end of the century or reached it much earlier. James Hansen, one of the world's leading climatologists, who warned in 1988 the US Congress of the risks of global warming, and rightly predicted what we now see (see a historical reconstruction here,) thinks otherwise. We are in a phase of accelerated warming and, as the graph shows, will reach +2 °C most likely by 2045 and + ° 3C by 2080.

From: Global Warming in the Pipeline: link.

Whatever the case, to make a long story short:
a) The absence of a collective social and political willingness to adopt the necessary countermeasures in the last few decades led to a missed opportunity to avoid the worst.
b) The ideal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 has nothing to do with reality.
c) The goal of the 1.5° C Paris Agreement is dead, while the acceleration of global warming still isn’t met with any countermeasures.
d) In a state of ecological global overshoot, renewables will not be sufficient to avoid further global warming.
e) We must begin to prepare for a world and a society that has to deal with a global warming increase of 3° C.

In the next and last part, I will discuss what a +3 °C world looks like and will draw some conclusions.

1. Social research shows that living standards and material wealth do not correlate with mental well-being. Very rich countries have a lower ‘happiness index’ than other countries with a lower living standard. Of course, they don’t correlate with poverty either. Whereas happiness and mental well-being in a society correlate with lower inequalities and fairer distribution of resources. Interesting insights come from R. E. Lane’s book “The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies,” and R. Wilkinsons’s and K. Pickett’s book “The Spirit Level.”