I came across these two articles recently. They paint a very bleak picture of the coming 2-3 decades.
The thing is, these articles are milder compared to some of the research papers out there that are genuinely depressing. These charts are based on the papers.
Building an off-grid commune or creating pockets of wilderness is definitely a step in the right direction. But my fear is whether these efforts will even last when things start going south.
What options are we left with? What can we do to reach the speed and scale to address this in an effective manner? Is it even worth trying anything as an individual?
Any outcome is a combination of skills (controllable) and Luck (uncontrollable). And like most of humanityâs problems - we should just do our controllable part and let the uncontrollable portion play its part.
TFS. In many ways, itâs really that bad, or could get there rapidly.
Sure, humanityâs faced crises earlier. But rarely one where there was planetary scale ecosystem loss regression - you had something to rebuild on. Else tech and social organization fixes tend to not have anything to run on.
Having said that, nature recovers faster when/where we allow it to. Iâve lived in Coorg for 10 days without power and in extreme rains, and while that isnât 20 years with the panels, there were glimpses of what simplification might look like. At least in more tropical and temperate environs, we could rebuild local resilience and imagine simplification. We might have fallen off the cliff, but itâs still important to flap your arms and try grab something or even learn to fly!
Finally, the best investments are skills and in people - who you know and depend on matters most in tough times.
This is absolutely true! But what we are noticing is that when the climate system starts becoming too chaotic, even nature has a tough time with recovery.
I really, really hope we havenât fallen off the cliff yet. Probably, a few might get lucky, but imagining what will happen to billions of human and animal lives horrifies me.
Wouldnât it be an equally good, if not better, investment in people and in skills that help prevent getting into tough times in the first place?
But in either scenario, what are these skills? And more importantly, what can we do to make more people learn these skills and use them to build/rebuild a better world? Can individuals like myself and anyone reading this be part of this process?
@Suman_Jile, I would like to hear your answer to the above questions as well. And yes, I do agree that luck plays a role, but I do not feel it is completely an uncontrollable factor.
What I believe is we need to double down on the skill set, spread, and application so that the outcome is in our favour.
I also went through your essay and loved the perspective. Whether the Haber-Bosch process and chemical farming in general truly saved us or doomed us, is up for debate though.
Okay, letâs forget climate problems for now. If a potential uncertain future horrifies you, shouldnât the certain present horrify you as well?
On Humans
100 millions+ preventive deaths in the absence of affordable Healthcare, each year?
millions of preventive deaths due to road accidents
millions of preventive deaths due to hunger
On Animals
Between 250 to 1 billion birds die each year from electrocution by power lines.
100s of millions of animals get slaughtered each year
Please forgive me, I never wanted to write any of the above data points. But these are the real facts. This means if an uncertain future event horrifies you, this should horrify you as well, no?
Remember things are bad, but in this case, we have two options
Cry - this is bad, that is bad, this future horrifies me etc etc etc.
Work hard and fix the problem - and I would like to allocate every single cell of my body for option two.
The bottom line is that I donât know whether we have fallen off the cliff or not. In fact, I donât want to know. What I really want to know is what can I fix.
I writing on my computer - runs by a combination of hardware whose components have been arranged from multiple countries, and software has been distributed from the same - on Google Chrome - which is connected to a Wi-Fi that runs on 24/7 electricity transmitted from miles and miles distance - on the Grove platform which is connected to the internet hosted on a cloud service, powered by 24/7 energy, The sources might be Coal, Hydro, solar etc. And entropy of all these is also responsible for the climate problem. (I must have missed multiple variables)
The same would be true for almost everyone who will read these lines. Therefore, control can only be attributed to the individual level.
By definition Luck is uncertain and more luck does not mean certainly rather it is a minimization of uncertainty. Hence we should focus on what we can control - our individual/group affords (hard work) and let luck play its part.
Also, every individual human action is up for debate. Even though I know writing all these might create a net negative on the climate - I am still writing.
I believe with all these we as a civilization are still creating net positives and hence still discussing solving our problems otherwise - we could have long gone.
Thank you for taking the time to write the replies, @Suman_jile. My apologies for the delay in the follow-up!
Every point you mentioned horrifies me. However, the 2 main reasons why climate change horrifies me the most, and hence makes me want to work on it, are:
The final and all-encompassing nature of climate change. If we fail to mitigate climate change, it could lead to the extinction of millions of species. While humans as a species might survive, our civilization might not. Along with that, we would lose all our collective efforts, stories, and dreams.
Climate change is a super-set or ultimate manifestation of nearly every problem we face as a society. If we successfully address climate change through a transition to sustainable and equitable lifestyles, we would inherently be tackling many other interconnected issues.
Consider the example of
What are the reasons that are causing these deaths?
Many of these risk factors are the result of the consumeristic society we have constructed, which enforces specific lifestyles and creates unhealthy environments that lead to diseases/ailments and ultimately death.
(From the article - By 2030, 500 million people and by 2050, 1.3 billion will be suffering inescapable heat, causing heatstroke and damage to the heart and kidneys, resulting in illness or death)
We are already witnessing this happening -
One hundred percent agree! Thatâs precisely why I have been working on this for the past couple of years while juggling my full-time job -
It never received any replies, which made me wonder if my approach was right at all, and if not, what other ways I could contribute to the climate action effort â which led to this topic.
This situation probably reflects the truth in your point
The candle doesnât know itâs going to run out of wax so it burns and illuminates till the last minute. If it had a brain and could comprehend its surroundings then it might loathe in its eventual demise and wonder if it has to burn at all!
There is an end game to everything we know, our planet and even our sun. Earth will still have life long after we are gone and might still manage to pull off a comeback in terms of diverse life, the fact that this is not the first mass extinction gives us that hope. That doesnât mean we have a license to turbo boost mass extinctions which we collectively as humans seem to be doing.
All we can do is, find something thatâs worth protecting as long as we are here. Be the candle
Would love to hear more about your work in agri-tech on the other thread.
This has to sink in. The scale at which we continue to ignore that itâs actually happening and the lack of ack that drastic responses need to scale rapidly is frustrating.
The solution I talk about in the update probably isnât a drastic response but I think it can scale rapidly and probably have some positive social and ecological effects at local levels. Please do check it out!
@Suman_Jile, Thanks for the input through the very nicely put essay! Looks like I fell for the classic âcurse of knowledgeâ bias. I have tried to explain it better this time. Please feel free to ask any questions you have!
