Is the End Near?

Professor Cairns' (2010) call for heightened concern is currently reinforced by many prominent scientists whose numbers continue to grow. To quote "Lucasian Professor of Mathematics" Stephen Hawking, of the University of Cambridge: "We are entering an increasing dangerous period in our history. Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet earth are growing exponentially along with our technological ability to change the environment for good or ill… It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next 100 years, let alone the next thousand or million (Hawking 2009)."

Related to the global warming threat, climate scientist James Hansen (2009) states, "We seem oblivious to the danger---unaware how close we may be to a situation in which a catastrophic slip becomes practically unavoidable, a slip where we suddenly lose all control and are pulled into a torrential stream that hurls us over a precipice to our demise." Jane Lubchenco (1998), administrator for The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has also warned, “Never before have human actions so threatened their provision."

Given the history of consistency on unrealized "the end is near" prophecies, one ought to be cautious about the uniqueness of our time in believing this is really it. Caution, healthy skepticism, and constant challenges to science are critical for ensuring that paradigms built on half truths are disproved. On the other hand, the scientists issuing these warnings are not street corner doomsayers but hold the highest degree of scientific training and reputation. Were it not for the fact that such prognostications appear to be supported by a mass of peer reviewed research they would otherwise be relegated to scientific fantasy. Rarely in the history of science have so many reputable scientists sounded an alarm in concert.

Global warming and other human driven changes to the environment realistically raise the question of whether human civilization is drifting close to dangerous anthropogenic forcing (Bradshaw and Brook 2009; Cebellos et al., 2010; Glikson 2009). Given that the tempo of these forces are projected to increase, will these increases destabilize civilization’s capacity to function? Is our very survival truly teetering? "As we hold our meetings and talk of stewardship, Gaia still moves step by step toward the hot state, one that will allow her to continue as the regulator, but where few of us will be alive to meet and talk,” states scientist James Lovelock (Lovelock 2009). Over forty years ago Arthur Koestler warned civilization was approaching an Age of Climax, where the forces outlined by Cairns (2010) and others would jeopardize planetary survival. This climax appears to be in our sights as the probability of reaching a critical mass approaches a statistical certainty.

It is difficult to argue that pressure on the biosphere from burgeoning human numbers combined with residual effects from economic activities has expanded sharply. This pressure does not seem to be abating (McKee 2009; Tonn 2009). That the global population may stabilize remains elusive. However, even if population growth is contained, there is the problem of what some refer to as the golden billion; that is the people currently on this planet that have reached or nearly reached the American standard of living. Behind this cohort is the next billion (e.g. China and India) who have already economically taken-off. Then we have the next billion poised for take-off (Tonn 2009). How can the Golden Billion or 2 billion deny the remaining billions entry to the ranks of the economically prosperous, when economic growth is a central value for Western culture?

Then there is the additional projected 2, 3, or 4 billion who have yet to be born in this century (McKee 2009) and will also aspire to the American gold standard of consumption. Given this planet’s finite resources how will we cope with these demands? Perhaps the attempt to comprehend the exponential curve are similar to conceptualizing infinite space (Joseph 2010), the human mind is simply incapable of either.

Although the threats to our planet are not infinite, to be able to effectively combat them, we first have to assess and identify exactly what they are so as to effectively neutralize them (Cebellos et al., 2010; Jones 2009; Tonn 2009).

Harvard’s economist Martin Weitzman (2008) asserts, "These small probabilities of what amounts to huge climate impacts occurring at some indefinite time in the remote future are wildly uncertain unbelievably crude ballpark estimates, most definitely not based on hard science." His point is that since this small probability cannot be discounted we cannot ignore this outlier. He refers to this as the “mortality risk of a catastrophic extinction of civilization (Weitzman 2008).

The low probability with high consequence event needs to be incorporated into impact assessments (Tonn 2009). "The real Earth changes by fits and starts with spells of constancy, even slight decline, between the jumps to greater heat" (Lovelock 2009). What if the smooth climate transition is wrong and climate change does not behave like a monotonic thermostatic dial? What if the transition is exponential and sudden? If we do not prepare for the worst, will we be condemned to desperate improvisation? If we do not anticipate the worst, will humans be condemned to extinction? Over 99% of all species on this planet have become extinct (Bradshaw and Brook 2009; Elewa and Joseph 2009), with repeated episodes of major extinction events often preceded by climate change (Elewa and Joseph 2009). We should not believe humans are impervious to extinction (Jones 2009).

It appears that climate history, not modeling, is our best source of information for determining climate sensitivities, vulnerabilities and thresholds. Although the historical record remains inconclusive, evidence from the past suggest that climate appears to be surprisingly sensitive to small perturbations (Steffensen et al. 2008; Hansen 2009). The resolution of paleoclimate data has sharpened in the past decade with evidence that justifies concern (Hansen 2009). This record indicates that ice sheets can and have responded rapidly within a century (Broecker 2003; Broecker and Kunzig 2008). Natural climate regime shifts are rarely plodding but are generally dotted by abrupt transitions once specific, sometimes unknown, conditions are met (Broecker and Kunzig 2008). Lacking knowledge of these prerequisite conditions requires us to proceed into the future with notable discretion. We are progressing into this century lacking sufficient knowledge for knowing the answers to critical questions such as how many people can Earth support? When will methane from the deepest reaches of the seafloor or tundra begin a vigorous ascent into the atmosphere once the world warms by a certain threshold? Is the trigger for abrupt climate change found in the ocean or atmosphere (Glikson 2010; Singer 2010)? When will CO₂ sinks become sources? Or what is the greenhouse gas load capacity for the atmosphere before we precariously approach dangerous and irreversible anthropogenic forcing? These are only some of the critical scientific questions that, in spite of the monumental thrust in computational powers and modeling, remain unanswered. Lacking answers to these questions, can we rationally, responsibly and ethically proceed under the current business as usual pace?

Scientifically, we have treated the probability of reaching a disastrous collapse from climate change as being so low as to be almost negligible. It is not what we know which should concern us the most; it is what we do not know particularly in the realm of climate sensitivity. What lurks beyond the realm of yet to be published scientific knowledge related to carrying capacity? What components of the climate system remain unobserved, particularly the interactive dynamics of ocean, atmosphere and ice physics that have yet to reach our scientific consciousness (Glikson 2010; Singer 2010)?

Climate inertia, as climate scientist Jim Hansen (2009) attests, has“…lulled us to sleep, and we did not see what was happening. Now we have a situation with big impacts on the horizon, possibly including ice sheet collapse, ecosystem collapse, and species extinction…" We are already cataloguing the disappearance of Arctic sea ice and glaciers that are retreating across all continents (Comiso et al., 2008; Hansen 2009; Notz 2009). We are witnessing the northern migration of the subtropical zone. Based on IPCC projections (Soloman et al., 2007) these observations can only reflect the earliest and most innocuous phase of impacts.

If the near future were to follow a rapid warming, it is likely that mitigation efforts would be initiated rapidly without an adequate assessment of consequences. The apparent limits of climate models that dot all IPCC assessments marked by gradual shifts in temperature, greenhouse gas increases, sea level rise, etc. implicitly assume that climate regime shifts will be well behaved and graceful (Hansen 2009). Few, if any, impact assessments take into account non-linear jumps in trajectories.

The failure to model this key component into impact assessments, however feeble, risks overlooking large damages under short time horizons; it risks major unforeseen surprises. Irrespective, inertia in the climate system would lead to only a slow response to mitigation treatments and guarantee that future warming would still be notable, perhaps catastrophic. Punctuated equilibrium is not just a theory of macro-evolution (Eldredge and Gould 1972; Joseph 2009), it is a prevailing observation in the physical and social sciences that are often marked by thresholds, critical mass, and non-linear transformations.

The longevity of atmospheric CO₂ perturbation, including attendant warming of the world will continue even if we can creatively sequester huge volumes of CO₂ from the atmosphere (Glikson 2010; Singer 2010). Once the atmosphere is loaded there is a risk for it to be irreversibly locked (Glikson 2010; Singer 2010). Efforts to slow the pace of warming will prove nearly impossible within the time frame needed to avert sizable consequences. To quote Susan Soloman et al., (2009) who currently co-chairs the IPCC (working group I), "We have shown that this assumption (to reverse the effects of CO₂) is incorrect for carbon dioxide emissions, because of the longevity of the atmospheric CO₂perturbation and ocean warming. ” Once warming levels reach a threshold the whole of civilization is at risk for being atmospherically entrained for decades perhaps centuries (Soloman et al., 2009) The ocean’s conveyer circulation once altered from a freshening up of the Atlantic by Greenland’s melting ice sheets will be difficult, if not impossible, to reverse (Broecker and Kunzig 2008). Short of some unexpected technological solution, all these forces would otherwise constrain the degree of freedom for us to shape our future and control our own destiny well into the current millennium.

The surprise in climate change should not be a jump in trajectories but a scientifically expected outcome, even when that outcome remains highly uncertain and difficult to predict. Over the course of the last 100,000 years climate change under natural conditions, irrespective of our full understanding of causation, suggests that abrupt transition is the norm, not the exception (Hansen 2009) The rate the atmosphere is being charged with greenhouse gases is unprecedented (Singer 2010). To assume that the dance will be one of grace is a high risk adventure; the lamb may start behaving like a beast.

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