Above: modeled global average temperature with business as usual emissions.
Less terrifying, more horrifying. That, more or less, was the between-the-lines takeaway from Friday’s National Research Council (NRC) briefing on abrupt climate change.
The event was part of an announcement of the NRC’s newly released and finalized report, “Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises.”
Several of the scientists involved in the report were present, including James White from the University of Colorado at Boulder, Anthony Barnosky from the University of California at Berkeley, and Richard Alley from Penn State University.
In one of the most shocking statements, Barnosky said the world’s oceans are now undergoing a change in pH and temperature that is so rapid and severe, that if we stay on our business-as-usual emissions pathway, then we will see the most significant degradation in the world’s oceans since 250 million years ago when there was the “end-Permian extinction event.” That was possibly the most extreme extinction event in Earth’s entire history. Over 90% of marine species in the fossil record went extinct.
“Just in the next five or six decades we will see some very major problems,” Barnosky said.
Today, the change in temperature of the ocean is primarily being caused by the growing global energy imbalance resulting from the thickening blanket of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide.
The change in pH of the ocean is primarily being caused by the growing global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, which becomes an acid, carbonic acid, when it dissolves in water. As the methane clathrates increasingly thaw, they will also acidify the water.
On extinction more broadly, Barnosky said that tropical coral reefs and land species in the tropics are first in line for extinction. And coral reefs will disappear in decades on our current emissions path as well. “These are not small effects and again – we’re already starting to see them happen.”
All participants, even Barnosky himself, seemed to be stunned by the details and implications being presented.
Richard Alley made an effort to shore up morale by pointing to some of the massive and abrupt catastrophes we can essentially rule out now. “North Atlantic [ocean circulation] probably will not change abruptly,” he said, and there is “fairly high” confidence in that outlook. However, he added, circulation will change, and probably already is changing – but it just won’t “shut down” like some had worried. At least not this century.
On the topic of amplifying feedbacks, Alley said that “if we warm the world, nature will amplify what we do.” And he added that “often long-term feedbacks are ignored – and so you get optimistic projections of how much carbon we can emit.”
Asked about the feasibility of “going back” after crossing tipping points, Alley said that it depends on the tipping point. In the case of the Arctic sea ice, if we cool the planet back down to temperatures a little below today’s, then we can probably regrow the sea ice he said, adding that on the other hand, if West Antarctica collapses, then the temperature would have to drop much further to start the ice sheet growing again. As for Greenland, the ability “to return” depends on how long the climate remains in a warm state. The longer it’s warm, the harder it will be to “return” he said.
Alley didn’t get into how we might cool the planet back down, although in previous public statements, he has referred to carbon dioxide as being something like a global temperature dial. Also in reference to “returning,” he mentioned hysteresis loops, a trait of some complex systems where returning to the previous state requires following a different path back. Sometimes the return path can be more difficult too.
In other less-terrifying but still-horrifying news, Alley described how – as best he can tell – there do seem to be enough “safety valves” on sea floor methane clathrate deposits to limit its release – but it will still be a chronic problem – rather than the massive “clathrate gun” possibility (where the methane erupts from the oceans so fast that global temperatures spike and essentially a massive ecological upheaval ensues with wildfires, famines, and so on).
Unfortunately, both the clathrates and thawing Arctic permafrost will become significant sources of ongoing greenhouse gases, at least if we stay on our current emissions path. That means to stabilize climate in the future, we’ll need to do more than just stop burning fossil fuels. We’ll also need to mop up the permafrost and clathrate emissions. And, with elevated chronic bubbling of methane from the sea floor, it will also acidify the ocean from the bottom up.
Regarding a possible collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, Alley said he’s inclined to say it’s not terribly likely this century. And, if it does happen, he’s leaning towards it being a somewhat slow process. But there are still processes involved where there just isn’t enough information yet – and so he won’t fully rule out something more rapid.
Jim White highlighted that a previous NRC report (2004) on abrupt climate change was the first time anyone had even looked at the issue in a systematic way. And he added that “calls to action” from that 2004 report have largely gone unheeded thus far.
Early in his presentation, White alluded to food storage as one possible safeguard against increasingly hostile weather and crop shortfalls, but he didn’t go into much detail. The global food system is quite remarkable in how little reserve is stored at any given time. Even without climate change, it seems like a significant crop shortage could put many countries, even developed ones, into a world of hurt.
In response to a question on tipping points in our built systems, White answered that there has been no comprehensive assessment to see how our infrastructure will hold up to climate change. The first step he said, is to identify “what you have at risk,” but that has generally not been done. For example, he cited how it took Hurricane Sandy hitting New York and New Jersey before there was a serious evaluation of what could be done to safeguard against such an event.
He also cited Florida, which hasn’t had a major storm surge disaster yet – that is, one where the elevated (and rising) sea level makes the surge potentially worse than ever before.
And White also pointed out that low topographical relief makes it easy for storm surge to push far inland along much of the US Southeast coast.
Fundamentally, the feeling from the conference was that some very decent and hardworking people have identified a very bad set of circumstances headed towards mankind, and the general reaction has been a human one: shoot the messenger and/or ignore the problem and hope it goes away.
In the context of this report, that strategy of denial and rejection has sort of worked so far (by a certain logic anyway). After all, a lot of sudden apocalyptic climate change events have been ruled very unlikely with high confidence, at least for another 100 years or so. But the horror of the situation is that very real chronic problems are growing worse. The odds of those chronic problems going away, unfortunately, is about as close to zero as you can get.
The basic truth between the lines of this press event was that we are facing a world that is becoming increasingly hostile to humankind.
We are literally making the planet into a wasteland like this is some post-apocalyptic science fiction story. It is just shocking. And the most horrifying aspect of it all is that we’ve waited to reduce emissions so long that we’re exiting the win-win field of possible climate responses. We’re now headed into a world of lose-lose. That’s the news nobody wants to convey – or hear. But there it is.
And if past patterns persist (as they often do), then in a few short years we will be looking back on this report as overly-optomistic, and wondering how things got so bad so fast. More and more, this sort of information seems to have an effect similar to a bad highway wreck – we slow down and gawk for a minute, then we’re back up to speed and motoring onward.
According to Newton’s First Law of Motion, “Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.” And that seems to apply to social paradigms as well as billiard balls. Since we can’t generate that external counter-force ourselves, Nature is going to do it for us.
I was prepared to be more horrified by this article than I was, given its title “Less Terrifying, More Horrifying.”
The article suggests that if we were to change course regards emissions levels, breaking far from business as usual, maybe the world isn’t completely and utterly doomed.
I say, let’s try to do just that. And now.
I am really tired of people saying “let’s try harder.” Would you PLEASE watch Thom Hartmann’s video series “Last Hours” in which a number of climate scientists are saying pretty much what Guy McPherson has been saying for years. Let’s take Guy out of the picture and pretend he doesn’t exist. We now have self-reinforcing feedback loops that keep increasing in number and intensity that make climate change absolutely irreversible. I agree that the article in this particular posting isn’t horrifying, but Hartmann’s videos come closer to that description.
“I am really tired of people saying “let’s try harder.””
Me too!
What we need is not “trying harder” but “trying smarter”. If all the Kings horses and men can’t put Humpty together again, why should we attempt to push that rope, or pull that river? Forget about it!
Who are the King’s horses and men? They are the collectors of “frequent flier” miles … who fly off every so many years to gather in great gatherings of Kings Men and Kings horses, attempting to hammer out international agreements between STATES — nation states, governments. So far, measured in most ways — especially in greenhouse gas emissions — they have failed utterly. Year after year after year after decade after decade. They have generated a lot of greenhouse gasses flying to and fro, however. Good on ’em.
When are we going to understand that the King’s business is business as usual? — you know, economic growth, “productivity,” etc….
But no. We don’t really need to try smarter. Try is the wrong word, altogether. What is needed is not trying but “surrender”. Call it wú wéi.
“As trees grow, they simply grow without trying to grow. Thus knowing how and when to act is not knowledge in the sense that one would think, “now I should do this,” but rather just doing it, doing the natural thing.” (Wikipedia, wú wéi)
While the Chinese words, wú wéi, literally translate as non-doing, or non-action, they do not refer to non-activity, pre se. They can be said to paradoxically mean “effortless effort”. To dance with life in a wú wéi way is to spontaneiously follow the Way of Nature, to be in accord with how nature flows.
No, we don’t need to try harder, or even smarter. We need to dance with our own wild nature.
I watched “Last Hours” — which is but one video so far, so far as I can tell. Saw it when it was hot off the presses.
By no means does it — or does Hartmann — suggest that ultimate doom is inevitable already. Only a very itsy-bitsy small percentage of climate scientists, or scientists in other fields with strong climate science knowledge, are saying it’s too late to avert planetary extinction.
Is the situation dire? Certainly! But is it time to give up and stop trying to create change with regard to emissions? Hell No!
Please stop telling people what you cannot know, and do not know. Stop telling everyone it’s too late so you can give up now. You might as well be working for Exxon! Sheesh.
And how about learning some climate science? I don’t think you understand what you’re talking about.
Things are bad. But not Give Up bad.
You watched only one video in the “Last Hours” series: http://lasthours.org/. Apparently, you are waiting for the high priests of science to confirm that near-term extinction is happening at a dizzying speed. By all means. Keep waiting. In fact, you are IGNORING the most dire aspects of climate science and saying it’s not yet time to give up because you simply can’t go to the place of surrender which is very different from giving up. When you understand that difference, you’ll be able to go anywhere and confront anything. My wish for you is that you will come to understand that difference very soon. Until you do, it’s pointless for us to argue about the science.
“You watched only one video in the “Last Hours” series: http://lasthours.org/.”
I now understand my confusion, and yours, about this “series” you were intending to point me to. You see, I had heard on Hartmann’s radio program that the film found at http://lasthours.org is the first in a series of such films. And when I go to that web page I see that there is but one film, per se, yet completed in the series and available to the public at that site. Thus the message–in bright orange–“watch video” (film) on the opening page. This “video” is the first in a series, with the others not yet completed.
However, at http://lasthours.org/dive_deeper/ , we find a series of another kind altogether — a series of interviews of scientists. Yes, I’ve watched many or all of these some months ago. What I got from them is that things are pretty screwed up, a lot of damage has been done already, and TIME IS SHORT for ending the fossil fuel era, lest we push the world into a much more catastrophic condition than the one we’re heading into already.
“In fact, you are IGNORING the most dire aspects of climate science and saying it’s not yet time to give up … ”
Not true. I’m not ignoring anything. I’m examining all of the available data and interpretations quite widely, within the limitations we all face (there are a billion tons of this material and no one has the time to read it all).
” … because you simply can’t go to the place of surrender which is very different from giving up. When you understand that difference, you’ll be able to go anywhere and confront anything.”
How condescending your words are here. Sheesh. Didn’t you notice that the Hartmann film and videos and web site you pointed me to is shouting about the urgency to act on emissions? It’s not saying, “You know, giving up and surrender are two different things altogether, so go ahead and accept that near term extinction is unavoidable because you can then begin to surrender, which is a much more peaceful state of living, far less stressful, bla bla bla.”
I can live with both a feeling and sense of urgency on action AND be “surrendered” to life / reality as it is. I can accept things AS they are AND work to change things.
How about you? I doubt you can stand the tension between these. So you, in fact, do “give up”. And you invite others to do the same. I suppose so that you can relieve the tension, the stress….
This will not be my approach. I’ll “surrender” to the tension. I’ll not make it my enemy.
My wish for you is that you will come to understand that difference very soon.
Thom Hartmann has shown more courage than most on this issue, and I’m waiting for him to invite Guy McPherson on his program. In fact, I have sent a long email to Thom’s agent to that end, pleading for them to do so since Guy’s message is very similar to Dr. Thomas Mann’s message, and Thom had Mann on the program last year. When Thom invites Guy on for a solid discussion of what the facts actually point to, I will then perceive Thom as the most courageous commentator I know. Until then, I can only consider him moderately courageous.
I have spent most of my adult life working on holding the tension of opposites, and it’s nothing less than emotional and spiritual hell. And no, I haven’t “given up,” but I do surrender daily to the reality of near-term extinction. Were you to read my recent articles thoroughly, you would have a clearer sense of the difference between surrendering and giving up and you would not tell me that I “in fact” have given up.
“I have spent most of my adult life working on holding the tension of opposites, and it’s nothing less than emotional and spiritual hell.”
….
“If you are going through hell, keep going.” ~ Winston Churchill
“Religion is for people who fear Hell. Spirituality is for people who have been there.” ~ Anonymous (most quoted guy I know)
I’ll read some of your recent posts in hopes of discovering more about the distinction between “giving up” and “surrender” in your usage. And whether you’ve “given up”…. But I must say that I cringe whenever you encourage your readers to presume that we’re inevitably heading toward, and will end up in, Near Term Extinction. I simply do not believe this is inevitable. I’ve examined the scientific story. It is diverse in its prognoses, and so we all have to decide for ourselves what to make of it. But I don’t believe we’ve crossed over into NTE as an inevitability. Rather, I believe that ONLY IF we dramatically reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions VERY SOON, we can avert that scenario.
That’s why I “push back” against your claim about NTE. I worry about the self-fulfilling prophesy aspect of the NTE prognosis.
But I’m not worried about my worry. I’m not troubled about my being troubled. I add no — or very little — insult to injury. I try as best I can not to pour salt in the wound. But it is a wound. No mistaking it.
The Buddha said:
“When touched with a feeling of pain,
the ordinary uninstructed person
sorrows, grieves,
and laments, beats his breast,
becomes distraught.
So he feels two pains,
physical and mental.
Just as if they were to shoot a man
with an arrow and,
right afterward,
were to shoot him with another one,
so that he would feel
the pains of two arrows…”
In Tara Brach’s beautiful book, Radical Acceptance, there is frequent mention of “the second arrow,” a term referring to our tendency to cause suffering for ourselves in the act of refusing to accept things as they are — including ourselves, and even our own natural responses to things in this world and life.
By choosing not to injure oneself with “the second arrow,” we are often saying yes to painful things, while refusing to cause ourselves unnecessary and avoidable suffering.
Pain, Buddhist teachers often say, is unavoidable. But suffering, they insist, is avoidable.
This is why my practice is to allow my worry, my trouble, my pain … while being mindful of the possiblity of its passing through my experience without being caught, trapped in my psyche or my flesh. By accepting pain I release suffering. But it takes practice!
Is this what you mean by “surrender”?
In your previous comment you mentioned that you cringe when I talk about the inevitability of NTE. I think that cringe is extremely important, and since you are someone who practices awakeness, I encourage you to sit quietly and stay with the “cringe” as much as possible. Allow yourself to go deeply into all of the emotions that attend the possibility of NTE. I could be very wrong about the certainty of NTE, but that isn’t what matters. What matters is not how it will turn out in the end but what happens to us when we contemplate the ways it could turn out. My work is all about noticing the feelings and staying with them. Or, if you prefer Rumi’s adage: Die before you die. I notice when I work with folks in workshops or one-on-one and gently walk them through their own death and all the attendant horrors of it, they come back from the experience saying, “Wow, I feel so much more alive, and I also feel much more able to talk about near-term extinction.” This is what I mean by surrender. You may gloriously celebrate your 100th birthday, but can you practice “Radical Acceptance” by letting yourself feel the pain of NTE? That doesn’t mean wallowing in it or taking up residence in it, but it does mean, practicing at least once, the total embrace of it rather than pushing back. That is what I mean by surrender, and that is 1000 miles from “giving up.” Please consider my upcoming webinar: http://www.synchcast.net/#!befriending-the-dark-emotions/c1vhp
” … but can you practice “Radical Acceptance” by letting yourself feel the pain of NTE?”
No, I cannot. NTE is, at most, a hypothesis about the future.
Can I practice “Radical Acceptance” of my tendency to cringe in the face of people like yourself, Guy McPherson and Malcolm light, when they are blowing their trumpets of inevitable NTE?
Yes.
But then what I’d be practicing acceptance of/toward would not be NTE, but two other things altogether.:
(a) I’d be mindfully aware-ing (embracing, seeing, experiencing) my pain, fear and worry concering the potential self-fulfilling prophesy of the NTE *hypothesis* (prognosis) of yourself, Light, McPherson.
(b) I’d be mindfully aware-ing the fact of my infinite, unbreakable love and commitment of service to EarthLife, and the pain of acknowledging that it is *possible* that McPherson, yourself, and Light *could* be correct in your interpretation of the available science. (This would be–and is–blended with my real and presently existing grief about the harm climate catastrophe is already bringing about and will inevitably bring about, regardless of the accuracy of the NTE hypothesis. So I continue to turn into and face this grief.)
The Buddhist tradition, which is my principal spiritual inspiration (not the only one), encourages us to avoid the pitfalls (or “three poisons”) of ignorance, attachment, and aversion. It’s up to each of us to meet these three terms with their due nuance and interrelatedness. Aversion can show up wearing the mask of “acceptance,” when in fact there is a failure of courage in facing difficulties or challenges. There is little virtue in such pseudo-acceptance, which is really just aversion.
Clive Hamilton, author of “Requiem for a Species,” has been quoted as saying,
“It was only in September 2008, after reading a number of new books, reports and scientific papers, that I finally allowed myself to make the shift and admit that we simply are not going to act with anything like the urgency required… The climate crisis for the human species is now an existential one. On one level I felt relief: relief at finally admitting what my rational brain had been telling me; relief at no longer having to spend energy on false hopes; and relief at being able to let go of some anger at the politicians, business executives and climate sceptics who are largely responsible for delaying action against global warming until it became too late…”
It’s not for me to decide whether Hamiton chose a belief in order to have a relief. (Aversion toward the pain of unknowing, of not knowing what to do…, or…?) I’d not judge him. He might be right. Who konws? But I’ve been in the discussion on this issue enough to observe that many people experience a great sense of relief in embracing the NTE hypothesis. No longer do they have to sit in the fire of uncertainty, or the anguish of facing our terrible lack of appropriate responsiveness as humans, etc….
My task is to become as comfortable with the fire as I can be. Because the truth remains — we can’t be certain what the outcome will be. And our choices — to respond, how to respond? not to respond … — belong to us.
You, McPherson, Light… may be right. But I doubt it. It’s not over yet.
And while you may be right, the nearest thing to certainty we can know is that you are all quite wrong. You don’t know how the future will turn out. Nor do I. Nobody does.
This lets no one off the hook.
Opening to the pain of NTE is no different from opening to the pain of any other final demise. No matter whether we believe that NTE is false or true, we could be wrong. NTE is HARDLY a relief in any way shape or form for me. It forces me to open to the pain of death—my own and the death of the planet. AND…I could be wrong. Nevertheless, I need to open to that pain for a 1000 other reasons that have to do with the demise of myself and countless other people/things—even if NTE is totally false. Embracing the reality of NTE doesn’t let me off the hook for any reason at any time. In fact, it keeps me more “on the hook” than I’ve ever been. If you had any familiarity with my work at all, you’d know that I regularly rail AGAINST certainty. I am fond of quoting Page 15 of Margaret Wheatley’s beautiful book “Perseverance” for that very reason. I have repeatedly told you that I’m not certain of anything, so I’d appreciate it if you would hear me and stop accusing me of “certainty.” “Relief” in NTE? Not for me or anyone I know who agrees that it is likely. Rather, it is a torture to the soul. If anyone is looking for “relief,” that’s not the place to look. No “certainty” there any more than anywhere else. Nor does the reality of NTE minimize my ferocious commitment to the earth and protecting as many beings as I possibly can in every way I can. In fact, the reality of NTE has increased that commitment exponentially.
I’m glad to hear that you are grieving. NTE or not, we aren’t about to run out of things to grieve about anytime soon, and grieving is one of the most valuable things we can do.
“Nor does the reality of NTE minimize my ferocious commitment to the earth and protecting as many beings as I possibly can in every way I can. In fact, the reality of NTE has increased that commitment exponentially.”
You keep saying “the reality of NTE,” but — as I said — NTE is not a reality. It is a hypothesis.
It stands for “near term extinction” — meaning, as Guy McPherson frames it, in the next several decades, maby by midcentury or so. This is an HYPOTHESIS, at best.
You say embracing this hypothesis as a “reality” does not minimize [your] ferocious commitment to the earth”. But I cannot see how it could not reduce your commitment to minimizing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. And I don’t just mean this in the narrow sense of your own personal behavior. You see, it seems to me that if we are going to prevent a major extinction event of the most utter and horrible kind (there are — and will be — ongoing extinctions, but it could be much worse!) it will require a collective response, even if “politics as usual” can’t be that response.
As a writer and publisher of books (and this web site), you are a public person. You are influential. What you say sends ripple effects into the wider world beyond your direct fossil fuel habits. So when you encourage your readers to believe in or accept NTE, personally, I think you’re doing harm to our chances of averting the worst. These chances may be slim, but hey, let’s “surrender” to them.
I don’t need to do much convincing. Most of my readers have already come to embrace NTE without my help.
I am confused by the need to surrender to a possibility even if the math says NTE is an inevitable event. As a native person i have learned that being a warrior means to never give up, right to the last second, we never give in or give up. My tribe, the Omaha never did and either did the Lakota,Nakota, or Dakota nations, or my adopted tribe the Kiowa. None of them, ever, surrendered even against all odds,my tribe lost all but 300 of our (at the time) 6,000 people to small pox, but they didn’t surrender,so we survived as a tribe. I don’t get it then, we don’t know all of the possibilities and our science has not yet discovered but a small portion of all what our world has to learn, so surrender prior to the event may prevent the possibilities of our survival from happening. I don’t know why Michael left us, I understand his desire to offer himself and it is his private choice, I don’t need to understand. Just saddened, and I will not surrender ever.
Daniel…In all spiritual traditions, there is one unchanging law: There is a time to fight forever, and there is a time to surrender. The spiritual warrior learns through great suffering and purification how to tell the difference. If you listen to Mike’s words in the last two years, he NEVER told us to fight against climate change. He completely accepted (surrendered) to it. For him, and for me, our job is to surrender to climate change but live as spiritual warriors who express radical compassion and love and who dedicate our lives to serving all our relations. Michael says that his own death was a surrender and a gift. The legacy of work he left us can help us discern when it is appropriate to fight forever and when it is appropriate to surrender for the well being of all our relations.