For most “moderns” the role of economic growth in assuring human progress appears necessary, whatever problems it may cause. Yet, the evidence has grown to such undeniable levels that continued economic growth, at least as we practice it now, is simply unsustainable on this small planet. Climate scientists, ecologists, environmentalists, and Earth system scientists have accumulated and analyzed a steady stream of data that clearly point to the accelerating destabilization of the entire Earth system.
Emissions of greenhouse gases continue unabated, produced by a globalized techno-industrial growth economy. Meanwhile, corporate CEOs, corrupt politicians, pundits of denial, and dreamers of wealth and fame fight over who gets more of the pie that is already burning, still in an overheated oven. Nobody is willing to turn down the heat.
No Time for Illusions
Even more important, time is running out. For too long, most of those who even noticed have treated climate change as some future problem to deal with later. It is certainly not something I should have to do anything about now. The ordinary citizen is in no position personally to do anything significant about a global problem that international negotiations struggle to come to terms with.
As I have said in other posts, every report from the IPCC has shown that predictions of previous reports seriously underestimated the changes they analyzed. The IPCC is an inherently conservative international body. All the governments that support it must approve the content of its reports. Until now, IPCC reports on current understandings of climate change have made certain optimistic assumptions about potential technological developments, such as geo-engineering, which are simply not justified. Things are not as bad as the IPCC would have us believe; they are far worse.
So far, political and business elites have constrained all international, as well as national, discussions of climate action within the assumption that responses can effectively reduce carbon emissions within the context of continued economic growth. So-called leaders have assumed that “technology will save us.” We have plenty of history to look back upon where new technology solved many problems of industry and commerce. That has usually allowed continued economic growth, creating new jobs while destroying old ones. Henry Ford hired many workers to build his cars while the makers of buggy whips went out of business. But that old logic no longer applies.
Cautious Science Reaches Critical Mass
A new special report by the IPCC has begun to face the hard facts of Earth system disruption and necessary human response. An Oct. 7, 2018, New York Times article By Coral Davenport summarized the situation by saying: “The authors found that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate, the atmosphere will warm up by as much as 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels by 2040, inundating coastlines and intensifying droughts and poverty.”
Now, even that was an understatement. They might have said, more accurately, “if we reduce emissions of greenhouse gases enough to keep global average temperature to no more than 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels by 2040, sea rise inundating coastlines, intensifying droughts and superstorms disrupting agriculture and causing poverty worldwide, may be slowed enough to allow human survival.” The IPCC is, after all, a conservative organization.
Nevertheless, the IPCC took a major step in recognizing the social implications of significantly reducing global carbon emissions. From its Summary for Policy Makers, it is clear that industrial nations need to achieve almost unimaginable economic contraction to minimize the most serious damage and irreversible trends toward complete climate chaos. Industrial nations would have to transform the world economy drastically in the next few years. What national leaders are talking about that?
Politicians Prevent Progress
Of course, U.S. President Trump has mocked climate science and vowed to withdraw from the Paris agreements to reduce carbon emissions. He wants to increase coal production and use. Extreme right wing candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, the likely winner in the Brazilian presidential election, has also said he would withdraw from the Paris climate accords. The IPCC report concludes that what is necessary to mitigate climate chaos appears politically impossible.
To quote the Times article again, in summary: “To prevent 2.7 degrees of warming, the report said, greenhouse pollution must be reduced by 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, and 100 percent by 2050. It also found that, by 2050, use of coal as an electricity source would have to drop from nearly 40 percent today to between 1 and 7 percent. Renewable energy such as wind and solar, which make up about 20 percent of the electricity mix today, would have to increase to as much as 67 percent.” The facts require extreme economic contraction and therefore societal transformation, which political demagogues and economic plutocrats proactively deny.
Conventional notions of progress as economic growth are no longer physically viable, yet they persist politically worldwide. Discussions of how to mitigate climate chaos and the devastation, poverty, and death it will surely bring within the next couple of decades, must now shift to focus on societal development by shrinking the technosphere and reallocating resources to human needs rather than capital accumulation by financial elites. That seems impossible within the current political context. But the necessity for survival will soon motivate large numbers of people to mobilize to form a very different kind of society in order to survive.
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 