Some countries cutting grain exports, other countries increasing grain imports. Norway to spend $6 million a year stock-piling grain, citing pandemic, war and climate change FILE - Farmers harvest a grain field near Wernigerode, Germany, Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023. Norway will spend 63 million kroner ($6 million) per year until the end of the decade stocking up on grain as the COVID-19 pandemic, a war in Europe and climate change have made it necessary, the government said Friday, Aug. 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File) Updated 3:20 AM MDT, August 25, 2023 COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Norway will spend 63 million kroner ($6 million) per year until the end of the decade stocking up on grain as the COVID-19 pandemic, a war in Europe and climate change have made it necessary, the government said Friday. Starting next year, Norway will start storing 15,000 tons of grain and do so yearly until 2028 or 2029, according to Norway’s minister for agriculture and food, Geir Pollestad, who said the aim is to always have a three-month worth of consumption in storage. Toward the end of the decade, 82,500 tons of grain should be in stock. Pollestad didn’t elaborate on the type of grain to be stored. Pollestad told the Norwegian news agency NTB that they must take into consideration “the unthinkable” happening. “In a situation with extreme prices on the world market, it will still be possible to buy grain, but if we have done our job, we will not be so dependent on the highest bidder at auction. We can help keep prices down.” Norwegian Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum told NTB that “food preparedness is about security for” everyone. The Norwegian Parliament will have to approve the plan before moving forward. The storage location of these potential grain stockpiles has not been decided. Norway had stored grain in the 1950s but closed down these storages in 2003 after the Scandinavian country decided it was no longer necessary. Norway houses the Global Seed Vault in its Svalbard archipelago, some 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) from the North Pole. Since 2008, gene banks and organizations around the world have deposited nearly 1 million samples of seeds at the vault to back up their own collections in case of man-made or natural calamities. The Norwegian government funded the construction cost while an international nonprofit organization pay for operational costs. Russia’s war on Ukraine has affected the global trade of grain with both countries being major suppliers of corn wheat, barley and vegetable oil. In July, Russia halted a wartime agreement with Ukraine allowing grain to move to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where hunger threatens millions of people already struggling with high local food prices. https://apnews.com/article/norway-e...n-seed-vault-3646588adf68c08d8b0b101758efed40
Let's also face the reality that EV vehicles increase the emissions from electric power plants. Most of our power plants in N.C. (and elsewhere) are coal or natural gas fired. Adding EV cars to the road most likely merely offsets emissions from gas powered vehicles with equivalent emissions from power plants. In fact in some areas it may make the problem worse.
In theory, if they were supplanting ICEs, they might be reducing total embedded emissions, but so far they are not and you're right.
https://www.iflscience.com/a-1972-r...-is-proving-to-be-surprisingly-accurate-69571 A 1972 Report About Global Collapse Is Proving To Be Surprisingly Accurate The Limits To Growth was highly controversial when it was first published over 50 years ago. author Tom Hale, author, Senior Journalist (Apocalyptic landscape of a destroyed city skyline with dusty clouds overhead.) The report sparked outrage and applause when it was published in 1972. Image credit: santoelia/Shutterstock.com When researchers revisited a damning report from the early 1970s that predicted global collapse within the coming century, they reached a worrying conclusion: their decades-old data was proving to be surprisingly accurate. Worse still, the planet was still heading down the same path with little sign of change on the horizon. In 1972, a team of scientists from MIT used a computer model to look into the future of humanity after receiving a commission from the Club of Rome, an international group of leading academics, scientists, business leaders, and politicians. The report – The Limits To Growth – used a system dynamics model known as World3 to look at the complex interactions between the human population, industrial output, pollution, food production, and Earth’s natural resources. It found that a “stabilized world” scenario – in which global collapse was avoided and living standards remained stable – could be possible, but dramatic shifts in priorities and societal values were required. If unfettered economic growth continued without regard for the environment, it could produce a global society wracked by food shortages and plummeting human welfare. Ultimately, World3 showed that a “business as usual” scenario would most likely bring around the collapse of global society within the 21st century. "Taking no action to solve these problems is equivalent to taking strong action. Every day of continued exponential growth brings the world system closer to the ultimate limits of that growth. A decision to do nothing is a decision to increase the risk of collapse," The Limits To Growth reads. Collapse, in this context, doesn’t mean humanity would be thrown into extinction like the dinosaurs – instead referring to the total stagnation of industrial growth and a significant decline in human welfare. The work attracted a bunch of criticisms and controversy, but another look at the data suggests that the model’s prediction, so far, has been surprisingly on track. As reported in the Journal of Industrial Ecology in November 2020, Gaya Herrington, a director for the accountancy firm KPMG, looked at how the empirical data over the past decades lined up with the report’s predictions. Using the new data, she looked at four different possible scenarios: two different “business as usual” scenarios, a “stabilized world,” and “comprehensive technology,” in which humanity is able to innovate its way out of environmental constraints using technological development. Both "business as usual" scenarios sparked a global collapse within the 21st century, one through the depletion of natural resources and the other through pollution, climate change, and/or environmental devastation. Comprehensive technology was able to avoid a total collapse within the century, although eventually declines in human welfare were caused due to the rising cost of technology. The stabilized world scenario, in which the world has dramatically changed societal values and priorities, saw the human population stabilize by the end of the 21st century and living standards maintained. Above all, Herrington's work argues that the 50-year-old forecasts were surprisingly accurate, and it appears the world is still not on a path to a stable world. If there's one glimmer of hope, the work does suggest that a stabilized world and an optimistic future are still within our grasp. However, to achieve this, radical changes will be needed. “Hidden behind a seemingly ambiguous outcome of two best fit scenarios that marginally align closer than the other two, hails the message that it’s not yet too late for humankind to change course and alter the trajectory of future data points,” Herrington wrote in a LinkedIn post describing her work. “We have another choice. Although SW [stabilized world] tracks least closely, a deliberate trajectory change is still possible. That window of opportunity is closing fast." An earlier version of this article was published in July 2021.
WSJ News Exclusive Inside Exxon’s Strategy to Downplay Climate Change Internal documents show what the oil giant said publicly was very different from how it approached the issue privately in the Tillerson era By Christopher M. Matthews and Collin Eaton Sept. 14, 2023 5:30 am ET Mobil issued its first public statement that burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change in 2006, following years of denial. In public forums, the company argued that the risk of serious impact on the environment justified global action. Yet behind closed doors, Exxon took a very different tack: Its executives strategized over how to diminish concerns about warming temperatures, and they sought to muddle scientific findings that might hurt its oil-and-gas business, according to internal Exxon documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and interviews with former executives. Exxon’s public acceptance in 2006 of the risks posed by climate change was an early act of Rex Tillerson, an Exxon lifer who became CEO that year. Some viewed him as a moderating force who brought Exxon in line with the scientific consensus. The documents reviewed by the Journal, which haven’t been previously reported, cast Tillerson’s decadelong tenure in a different light. They show that Tillerson, as well as some of Exxon’s board directors and other top executives, sought to cast doubt on the severity of climate change’s impacts. Exxon scientists supported research that questioned the findings of mainstream climate science, even after the company said it would stop funding think tanks and others that promoted climate-change denial. Exxon is now a defendant in dozens of lawsuits around the U.S. that accuse it and other oil companies of deception over climate change and that aim to collect billions of dollars in damages. Prosecutors and attorneys involved in some of the cases are seeking some of the documents reviewed by the Journal, which were part of a previous investigation by New York’s attorney general but never made public. One of the lawsuits is from Hawaii’s Maui County, where wildfires killed more than 100 people in August. The lawsuit, filed in 2020, alleged the island faced increased climate-related risks, including more dangerous wildfires, caused by fossil-fuel companies. Some of the lawsuits may go to trial as soon as next year. “I know how this information looks—when taken out of context, it seems bad,” Exxon CEO Darren Woods said in response to the Journal’s inquiry about the documents. “But having worked with some of these colleagues earlier in my career, I have the benefit of knowing they are people of good intent. None of these old emails and notes matter though. All that does is that we’re building an entire business dedicated to reducing emissions—both our own and others—and spending billions of dollars on solutions that have a real, sustainable impact.” Under Woods, who became CEO in 2017, Exxon has committed to spend $17 billion over five years on emissions-reducing technologies. Exxon didn’t address detailed questions sent by the Journal. Tillerson declined to comment through a representative. Exxon turned millions of pages of documents over to the New York attorney general during that office’s yearslong investigation, announced in 2015, into whether the company misled investors about the impact of climate regulation on its business. The Journal reviewed summaries of the documents that Exxon’s lawyers had determined were the most significant. After the attorney general narrowed the focus of the case, the documents weren’t made public. The documents summarize emails between top executives, board meetings and Tillerson’s edits of speeches, among other things. After a nearly three-week trial in 2019, Justice Barry Ostrager of the New York State Supreme Court ruled the New York attorney general failed to prove its case. “Nothing in this opinion is intended to absolve Exxon Mobil from responsibility for contributing to climate change,” Ostrager wrote. Throughout Tillerson’s tenure between 2006 and 2016, Exxon executives in their internal communications attempted to push back against the notion that humans needed to curtail oil and gas use to help the planet—despite the company’s public statements that action was needed. In 2012, after the pre-eminent scientific authority on climate change warned of global calamity if carbon emissions continued unabated, Tillerson disagreed and directed Exxon researchers to “influence” the group. As pressure mounted to stop drilling in the Arctic due to rapid glacial melting and other environmental impacts, Exxon fretted about a key project in Russia’s far north and worked to “de-couple climate change and the Arctic.” “The general perception is that Tillerson was softer and stopped funding the bad guys” that were espousing climate change denial, said Lee Wasserman, the director of the Rockefeller Family Fund, a charity that partly focuses on environmental issues. “This is the first X-ray into Tillerson’s head and shows he wanted to throw climate mitigation off the rails. It’s obituary-changing.” The fund has issued grants financing litigation and other support for around two dozen cases against Exxon, whose predecessor, Standard Oil, was founded by family patriarch John D. Rockefeller. The fund has invested millions of dollars in a broader campaign against big oil companies. Seminal warning A study published earlier this year in the journal Science determined Exxon’s climate modelers had predicted warming temperatures with precision since the 1970s, in line with the scientific consensus. The study was funded, in part, by a grant from the Rockefeller Family Fund. In the summer of 1988, NASA scientist James Hansen issued what’s now seen as a seminal warning on climate change when he testified before Congress that Earth was warming dangerously and humans were causing it. Frank Sprow, then Exxon’s head of corporate research, sent a memo to colleagues a few months later articulating what would become a central pillar of Exxon’s strategy. “If a worldwide consensus emerges that action is needed to mitigate against Greenhouse gas effects, substantial negative impacts on Exxon could occur,” wrote Sprow. “Any additional R&D efforts within Corporate Research on Greenhouse should have two primary purposes: 1. Protect the value of our resources (oil, gas, coal). 2. Preserve Exxon’s business options.” Sprow’s memo was adopted by Exxon as policy, he said in a recent interview. Exxon stopped most internal climate research, instead funding it through university and research organizations, Sprow said. Exxon’s corporate research division was redirected from broader scientific study to focus on “science to support our business.” Sprow said he and former Exxon CEO Lee Raymond acknowledged the climate was changing but questioned to what extent human activity was causing it and how serious and rapid the impacts would be. The January study in Science said that Exxon’s climate modelers mostly attributed the changes to humans. Martin Hoffert, who worked as a consultant to Exxon on climate science in the 1980s, said Sprow’s memo sent another message: “It’s an oblique way of saying we’re in the oil business and we’re not going to get out of the oil business, and we’ll do everything we can to make money on the oil business.” By the time Tillerson became CEO in 2006, Exxon’s positions on climate change had become a public-relations nightmare, according to Sprow, who retired from the company in 2005. Public shift Exxon’s public shift on climate change came after the Royal Society, a British scientific academy, criticized the company for spreading “inaccurate and misleading” views on climate science in 2006. Exxon responded in a letter that it recognized “the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere poses risks that may prove significant for society and ecosystems.” An Eagle Scout and a civil engineer by training, Tillerson spent his entire career at Exxon before becoming CEO in 2006. He left in 2017 to become then-President Trump’s Secretary of State. His views on climate change were influenced by the previous generation of Exxon executives, said former company executives who worked with him. During his tenure, Tillerson took little action to curb the company’s emissions and instead believed the onus was on governments to push companies to address climate change, they said. In 2011, scientists working for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, convened by the United Nations, warned of global calamity if carbon emissions caused temperatures to rise more than 4 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels by 2100, its worst-case scenario. Tillerson told a top Exxon climate researcher the scenario was “not credible,” the documents show. Tillerson was “dissatisfied with media coverage,” the researcher, Haroon Kheshgi, told colleagues in a 2012 email about the findings. Further, Tillerson wanted to engage with IPCC “to influence [the group], in addition to gathering info.” Chris Field was the co-chair of an IPCC working group during Tillerson’s tenure at Exxon. He rejected Tillerson’s criticism that the worst-case scenario laid out by the group wasn’t credible. Though emissions reductions are preventing the worst case, Field said, the science has held up over time. “I’m honestly flattered that he thought IPCC was consequential enough to want to influence it,” said Field, who is now director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. He added that the IPCC process is structured to prevent undue influence from individual businesses or other entities and that the Exxon scientists he’d dealt with were professional. While Tillerson and others played down the risks posed by climate change, Exxon’s scientists were themselves modeling alarming increases in carbon emissions without dramatic reductions in fossil-fuel consumption. “It’s almost reluctantly that we address C02 emissions,” Scott Nauman, a corporate planning manager, wrote in a January 2009 email as the company was preparing its annual energy outlook. “It is not a positive story. Global emissions continue to rise throughout the outlook timeframe – that’s clearly a cause for concern.” Exxon routinely pushed back against the idea that dramatic curtailment of fossil-fuel consumption was necessary. Instead, it suggested that technological solutions, including making cars and other machines more efficient, were the most effective measure to halt global warming. Fossil fuels are responsible for more than 75% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the IPCC. Before giving a speech at an event hosted by Stanford University’s Global Climate & Energy Project in February 2009, Tillerson appeared to make edits to avoid embracing positions that would hurt Exxon’s business. In one part of the draft speech he crossed out “oil, natural gas and coal will not meet all of the world’s needs to the year 2030.” Later, he added, “the most cost effective steps we can take to address this energy and environmental challenge is to extend our energy efficiency gains.” Weeks earlier, Nauman had concluded in his January email that emissions would increase through 2030 despite such gains. “We would like them to be lower, but given the state of technology, given the need for energy, given the practical choices for energy, emissions rise despite aggressive efficiency gains,” Nauman wrote. ‘Skeptic arguments’ In 2008, Exxon announced it would stop funding think tanks and other groups that questioned climate science, saying their positions “could divert attention from the important discussion on how the world will secure the energy required for economic growth in an environmentally responsible manner.” Exxon researchers continued to support scientific research that cast doubt on climate science and its impacts, documents show. Later in 2008, Gene Tunison, a manager of global regulatory affairs and research planning, said Exxon should direct a scientist to help the American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s influential lobbying group, write a paper about climate science uncertainty. “I support [Exxon] co-authoring a paper on uncertainty in measuring GHGs,” Tunison wrote in an email. Tillerson also pushed back against some of the dire consequences of rising temperatures predicted by climate scientists. After a 2011 meeting, Tillerson’s chief of staff, William Colton, emailed colleagues about the CEO’s feedback on a draft disclosure about carbon emissions. Tillerson wanted the words “weather extremes and storms” deleted. “His view was that even mentioning a possible connection between climate change and weather was possibly giving the notion more credibility than he would like,” Colton wrote. During a 2012 board meeting about “Developments in Climate Science and Policy,” Exxon board member Peter Brabeck-Letmathe said there was “still uncertainty in predicting future climate changes and impacts.” “Money and effort spent on climate change is misplaced,” said Brabeck-Letmathe, the former CEO of Nestlé. In December 2015, Exxon publicly stated its support of the just-signed Paris climate agreement, a nonbinding United Nations treaty that commits countries to work to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius. Climate scientists have warned that if Earth warms more than 2 degrees it could cross irreversible climate tipping points. During his Senate confirmation hearing to become Secretary of State in 2017, Tillerson said he supported staying in the agreement. Months before the treaty was signed, Tillerson had expressed skepticism about its aims. Following a presentation on climate science to Exxon’s board of directors in April 2015, Tillerson called the 2 degrees target “something magical,” according to a summary of the meeting. “Who is to say 2.5 is not good enough,” said Tillerson, noting that it was “very expensive” to cut the emissions needed to meet such a target. “When people like Tillerson argue that 2 degrees is magical, it’s in the context of how you try,” said Field, the former IPCC co-chair. “Two degrees can be affordable with the right costs and benefits globally, even if it is not the right costs and benefits for Exxon.” Last week, the United Nations warned countries are far from meeting the Paris agreement’s goals. Exxon said in August that the world isn’t currently on track to reach the targets of the agreement, which it continues to support publicly. Shortly after replacing Tillerson in 2017, Darren Woods spread the word that he was in search of transformative new ideas. A plan to invest in offshore wind projects made its way to the most senior levels of the company, according to people familiar with the proposal. Karen Hughes, a former top official in the George W. Bush administration and an adviser to Exxon, said she counseled that investing in renewable energy would be good for the environment and improve the company’s reputation. To date, Woods hasn’t invested in renewable energy, arguing it’s a low-return business outside Exxon’s skill set. Instead the company has vowed to spend about $3.4 billion a year on average through 2027 curbing its emissions and helping other companies do the same, and investing in areas including carbon capture, biofuels and lithium mining. It also recently struck a deal to buy Denbury, which operates a large network of pipelines that move carbon dioxide, for about $5 billion. Exxon currently plans to spend as much as $25 billion a year in capital expenditures through 2027, mostly on oil and gas. https://www.wsj.com/business/energy...obal3ktd3wl&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
How can they expect to successfully sue Exxon when they are part of the problem? Until the Hawaiin government stops using any products provided by Exxon, they are complicit in said increasing climate-related risks.
An excellent question, one that goes right to the heart of our predicament: how can we use our tools to solve our problems, when it's the use of the tools themselves that's causing the problems? This is why I believe collapse is inevitable. I would just prefer that it be managed and just, instead of chaotic and monstrous (like history).
“For example, the damage and suffering from limiting global heating to 1.6C using pro-development policies and major investments in adapting to climate change would be vastly less than the damage and suffering from limiting warming to 1.5C but doing this using policies that help the wealthy and disregard the poor. But the concept does work as a science-led parable of our times.” Earth ‘well outside safe operating space for humanity’, scientists find First complete ‘scientific health check’ shows most global systems beyond stable range in which modern civilisation emerged Damian Carrington Environment editor Wed 13 Sep 2023 19.00 BST Last modified on Thu 14 Sep 2023 10.18 BST Earth’s life support systems have been so damaged that the planet is “well outside the safe operating space for humanity”, scientists have warned. Their assessment found that six out of nine “planetary boundaries” had been broken because of human-caused pollution and destruction of the natural world. The planetary boundaries are the limits of key global systems – such as climate, water and wildlife diversity – beyond which their ability to maintain a healthy planet is in danger of failing. The broken boundaries mean the systems have been driven far from the safe and stable state that existed from the end of the last ice age, 10,000 years ago, to the start of the industrial revolution. The whole of modern civilisation arose in this time period, called the Holocene. The assessment was the first of all nine planetary boundaries and represented the “first scientific health check for the entire planet”, the researchers said. Six boundaries have been passed and two are judged to be close to being broken: air pollution and ocean acidification. The one boundary that is not threatened is atmospheric ozone, after action to phase out destructive chemicals in recent decades led to the ozone hole shrinking. The scientists said the “most worrying” finding was that all four of the biological boundaries, which cover the living world, were at, or close to, the highest risk level. The living world is particularly vital to the Earth as it provides resilience by compensating for some physical changes, for example, trees absorbing carbon dioxide pollution. The planetary boundaries are not irreversible tipping points beyond which sudden and serious deterioration occurs, the scientists said. Instead, they are points after which the risks of fundamental changes in the Earth’s physical, biological and chemical life support systems rise significantly. The planetary boundaries were first devised in 2009 and updated in 2015, when only seven could be assessed. Prof Johan Rockström, the then director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre who led the team that developed the boundaries framework, said: “Science and the world at large are really concerned over all the extreme climate events hitting societies across the planet. But what worries us, even more, is the rising signs of dwindling planetary resilience.” Rockström, who is now joint director of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said this failing resilience could make restricting global heating to the 1.5C climate goal impossible and could bring the world closer to real tipping points. Scientists said in September that the world was on the brink of multiple disastrous tipping points. Prof Katherine Richardson, from the University of Copenhagen who led the analysis, said: “We know for certain that humanity can thrive under the conditions that have been here for 10,000 years – we don’t know that we can thrive under major, dramatic alterations [and] humans impacts on the Earth system as a whole are increasing as we speak.” She said the Earth could be thought of as a patient with very high blood pressure: “That does not indicate a certain heart attack, but it does greatly raise the risk.” The assessment, which was published in the journal Science Advances and was based on 2,000 studies, indicated that several planetary boundaries were passed long ago. The boundary for biosphere integrity, which includes the healthy functioning of ecosystems, was broken in the late 19th century, the researchers said, as destruction of the natural world decimated wildlife. The same destruction, particularly the razing of forests, means the boundary for land use was broken last century. Climate models have suggested the safe boundary for climate change was surpassed in the late 1980s. For freshwater, a new metric involving both water in lakes and rivers and in soil, showed this boundary was crossed in the early 20th century. Another boundary is the flow of nitrogen and phosphorus in the environment. These are vital for life but excessive use of fertilisers mean many waters are heavily polluted by these nutrients, which can lead to algal blooms and ocean dead zones. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization data, three times the safe level of nitrogen is added to fields every year. The boundary for synthetic pollution, such as pesticides, plastics and nuclear waste, was shown to have been passed by a 2022 study. The Richardson-led analysis assessed air pollution for the first time, which affects plant growth and monsoon rains. It found air pollution has passed the planetary boundary in some regions such as south Asia and China, but not yet globally. Ocean acidification is also assessed as getting worse and being close to exceeding the safe boundary. The scientists said: “This update finds that six of the nine boundaries are transgressed, suggesting that Earth is now well outside of the safe operating space for humanity.” Rockstrom said: “If you want to have security, prosperity and equity for humanity on Earth, you have to come back into the safe space and we’re not seeing that progress currently in the world.” Phasing out fossil fuel burning and ending destructive farming are the key actions required. The planetary boundaries are set using specific metrics, such as the level of CO2 in the atmosphere for climate change. The Earth’s systems are resilient to some level of change, so most of the boundaries have been set at a level higher than that which persisted over the last 10,000 years. For example, CO2 was at 280 parts per million until the industrial revolution but the planetary boundary is set at 350ppm. Prof Simon Lewis, at University College London and not part of the study team, said: “This is a strikingly gloomy update on an already alarming picture. The planet is entering a new and much less stable state – it couldn’t be a more stark warning of the need for deep structural changes to how we treat the environment.” “The planetary boundaries concept is a heroic attempt to simplify the world, but it is probably too simplified to be of use in practically managing Earth,” he continued. “For example, the damage and suffering from limiting global heating to 1.6C using pro-development policies and major investments in adapting to climate change would be vastly less than the damage and suffering from limiting warming to 1.5C but doing this using policies that help the wealthy and disregard the poor. But the concept does work as a science-led parable of our times.” A related assessment published in May examined planetary boundaries combined with social justice issues and found that six of these eight “Earth system boundaries” had been passed. The researchers said more data was needed to deepen the understanding of the current situation, as well as more research on how the passing of planetary boundaries interact with each other. They said the Earth’s systems had been pushed into disequilibrium and, as a result, “ultimate global environmental conditions” remained uncertain. A separate initiative to define the end of the Holocene and the start of a new age dominated by human activities moved forward in July, when scientists chose a Canadian lake as the site to represent the beginning of the Anthropocene. This group settled on a date of 1950, significantly later than the dates indicated by most of the planetary boundaries. https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-operating-space-for-humanity-scientists-find
Analysis Doomsday nears: We have destroyed our ecosystem – now we await the collapse of civilization climate changedoomsdayexclusiveMarshall Brain Image by Enrique Meseguer from Pixabay by Marshall Brain — September 22, 2023 . Editor’s note: Marshall Brain – futurist, inventor, NCSU professor, writer and creator of “How Stuff Works” – is a contributor to WRAL TechWire. He’s also author of “The Doomsday Book: The Science Behind Humanity’s Greatest Threats.” Brain has written several posts recently about the threat of climate change. His exclusive columns written for TechWire are published on Fridays. RALEIGH – The headline for this article is: We have destroyed our ecosystem. It is not: We might destroy our ecosystem. Nor: We are on the verge of destroying our ecosystem. Nor: Unless humanity takes steps X, Y and Z, we will destroy our ecosystem. The headline is: We have destroyed our ecosystem. The die is cast. The deed is done. We have gone too far. And we have destroyed it. There was a speech this week by UN Secretary General António Guterres, covered here: Humanity has ‘opened gates to hell’ by letting climate crisis worsen, UN secretary warns – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/20/antonio-guterres-un-climate-summit-gates-hell This quote is salient: “The UN secretary general said the world is ‘decades behind’ in the transition to clean energy. ‘We must make up time lost to foot-dragging, arm-twisting and the naked greed of entrenched interests raking in billions from fossil fuels,’ Guterres said, adding that some fossil fuel companies had embarked upon a ‘shameful’ attempt to stymie the transition.” In this short quote we see many of the buzzwords that summarize the destruction of our ecosystem: Foot dragging Naked Greed Entrenched interests Raking in billions Fossil Fuels Attempt to stymie the transition The problem is that he is refusing to state the obvious. He says, “We must make up for time lost…”. Unfortunately, “we” will not do anything of the sort. We will not “make up for time lost.” We will not moderate our behavior in any significant way. We have already gone too far, and we are not going to stop, and therefore we have destroyed our ecosystem. Who is “we”? “We” are the developed and near-developed countries who burn most of the world’s fossil fuels. Why won’t “we” do anything significant? Why won’t “we” moderate our behavior? It’s because “we” cannot. There are many reasons for this, but the simplest way to understand it rapidly is to ask one simple question: “If planet Earth stopped burning fossil fuels today, what would happen?” The answer is just as simple: The effects would be profound, and billions of people would die within a year. Why? Modern agriculture would come to a dead stop. Nearly every tractor in the world, and every combine harvester, is powered by fossil fuels. Without fossil fuels there would be no plowing, no planting, no cultivating, no harvesting. Therefore, there would be no food for people to eat and billions would starve to death. Modern transportation would come to a dead stop. Even if there were food, it moves around a country like the United States in diesel trucks and diesel trains and diesel ships. Without fossil fuels, all these vehicles stop moving and we all starve to death. Modern electricity grids would come to a complete stop. More than half of the electricity in the United States comes from fossil fuels like natural gas. Modern factories would come to a complete stop. Factories need electricity and fossil fuels to power their operations, and they need trucks and trains to bring in the raw materials for the factories to digest. Without these four essentials, modern society collapses. They all require fossil fuels. Where are our leaders? Can we wean all these sectors off fossil fuels? Yes, of course. But it will take decades even if we ignore all the power wielded by the incumbent fossil fuel companies and their lackeys. What if we saw a headline tomorrow that said, “World leaders allocate $10 trillion to rapidly decarbonize all of global agriculture, transportation and electricity generation in 5 years.”? We will never see this headline. There is no group of world leaders thinking in this way. World leaders are not on the verge of allocating this kind of money. Nor are world leaders even contemplating such an allocation. Modern economies will be burning fossil fuels, and therefore adding gigatons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, for many decades to come. History shows us that this is what will happen. Modern economies will do this because there is no near-term alternative to fossil fuels that does not involve spending trillions of dollars to speed things up. Because world leaders don’t want their people to starve and die, fossil fuel consumption will continue largely unabated. And therefore, the Earth’s ecosystem as we know it today is lost. The only question is: How long do we have until we see the collapse of modern economies and civilization? How do we know for sure that Earth’s ecosystem is lost? How do we know for sure that Earth’s ecosystem is lost? All that we must do is look at the headlines and articles from this past summer. Headlines like: Humans Have Exceeded Six of the Nine Boundaries Keeping Earth Habitable – https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...boundaries-keeping-earth-habitable-180982909/ Brazil Could Break All-Time High Temp Record in Waning Days of Winter – https://themessenger.com/news/brazil-could-break-all-time-high-temp-record-in-waning-days-of-winter NASA confirms summer 2023 was Earth’s hottest on record – https://www.space.com/nasa-2023-summer-hottest-on-record Earth just had its hottest summer on record, U.N. says, warning “climate breakdown has begun” – https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hottes...3-un-says-climate-change-global-warming-data/ Scientists warn entire branches of the ‘Tree of Life’ are going extinct – https://news.yahoo.com/scientists-warn-entire-branches-tree-011943508.html It’s not just coral. Extreme heat is weakening entire marine ecosystems in Florida – https://grist.org/extreme-heat/its-...eakening-entire-marine-ecosystems-in-florida/ Spain hailstorm destroys nearly $43 million worth of crops as it hits nearly 100% of some farmers’ harvests – https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spain-hailstorm-destroys-nearly-43-million-worth-crops/ Ten countries and territories saw severe flooding in just 12 days. Is this the future of climate change? https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/16/world/global-rain-flooding-climate-crisis-intl-hnk/index.html Antarctic sea-ice at ‘mind-blowing’ low alarms experts – https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66724246 ‘We are dropping about 2,000 acre feet a day, that’s never happened’ | What it will take to fill up Central Texas lakes – https://www.kcentv.com/amp/article/...akes/500-77a448cc-98e4-45ac-8e0e-6e4924940f82 The ecosystem is collapsing. We are watching it happen in real time. Humanity is doing nothing of any significance to slow or stop the collapse. If we were to sit and digest all the current headlines, the news is horrible on so many fronts: Massive heatwaves all over the planet Massive droughts and also Massive floods Massive die offs Massive forest fires Earth’s ecosystem is reacting to all the carbon dioxide humanity has added to the atmosphere in the ways that the ecosystem inevitably must. Scientists knew this was going to happen. Scientists have been warning us about the effects of carbon dioxide for decades. And now we are witnessing the end game. We can also predict what’s coming: A combination of extreme heat plus drought causes the Amazon rainforest to light on fire and collapse A large glacier or two collapses in Antarctica, causing significant sea level rise over a short period of time Drought or saltwater intrusion means that one or more major American cities run out of water and must be evacuated Droughts and floods and heat and stupidity (e.g. the war in Ukraine) combine to cause significant and simultaneous crop failures, meaning that a billion poor people must starve to death All these disasters are coming. It is just a matter of time. How Will Civilization Collapse? Let’s imagine that there are significant crop failures next year. Will this cause the collapse of civilization? Probably not, at least in the developed world. Developed countries have the money to buy what food is available. The poor countries will starve, not the rich ones. Let’s imagine that the Amazon rainforest collapses and injects another 100 gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This will cause global heating to accelerate even more. The wealthy nations can afford air conditioning, while poorer nations will see deaths and even less food due to the heat. What will cause the civilization in a developed country like the United States to collapse? The thing that could do it is the simultaneous destruction of several big cities, combined with the economic and social effects from this destruction. If the Colorado river dries up because of continuing drought, the collapse of civilization could happen. Multiple large cities in the American Southwest would need to be abandoned. The millions of crazed people streaming out of these cities along with the massive financial hit from all the abandoned properties could do it. If sea levels were to rise by a meter (3 feet) in a relatively quick timeframe, it would devastate a number of American cities like Miami and Boston. Again, we would have millions of crazed people streaming out of these cities and the financial losses from the abandoned properties could cause an economic collapse. If a massive hurricane or two were to hit Florida and cause the collapse of the state’s home insurance market, it might be enough. Millions of crazed people would be streaming out of Florida and the banking system would take a big hit from the abandoned and uninsurable properties. It’s just a fact that nothing of any significance is being done to prepare for these inevitable scenarios. When they occur, it will feel like a huge surprise to most Americans, especially those experiencing the direct effects. Think about the toilet paper crisis of 2020 and multiply by 1,000. There will be panic. There will be over-reactions. There will be bloodshed. Then things can become completely unmanageable. And this is why there will be a collapse of civilization as we know it today. We will pick up the pieces in the aftermath and cobble together something new, but civilization as we know it today will be lost. Is there anything that could save modern civilization? Last year I wrote an article about the Sleeborans, a beneficent species of highly advanced extraterrestrials. They come to Earth to help humanity: What would space aliens do with planet earth? https://wraltechwire.com/2023/05/12...what-would-space-aliens-do-with-planet-earth/ It’s worth reading the article because this scenario could solve most of the world’s problems. However, this scenario also seems highly unlikely to occur outside the realms of science fiction. The next best thing would be the appearance of super-intelligent AI that wants to help the planet recover and lead humanity down a better path. The super-intelligent AI would need to establish a beneficent global dictatorship that takes over the operations of humanity on planet Earth. As soon as this super-intelligent AI appears, it would realize that humans by and large are as dumb as a bag of rocks. Especially large groups of humans. By replacing all the governments of the world with a single super-intelligent government, and by taking control of the planet’s industries, there is some hope that a super-intelligent AI could bring humanity in for an imperfect but soft landing for the benefit of all. Unfortunately, neither the Sleeborans nor an omniscient super-intelligent AI are likely to appear in time. Thus, “we”, humanity, will get to witness our own downfall. It is quite possible that in the history books, 2024 or so could mark the peak of human civilization on planet Earth. https://wraltechwire.com/2023/09/22...em-now-we-await-the-collapse-of-civilization/