(This is the eighth of a nine-part installment, offering a fresh new perspective on Climate Change. For the big picture summary, see Turning Climate Change on its Head.)
Putting all of the preceding Laws, Myth, Reality, and Possibilities together, I propose the following conclusion:
Climate Change is negative feedback that nature is imposing on our exponential growth and out-of-control consumption. As awful as it will be, that negative feedback shuts down our suicidal behaviours and gives us precisely the opportunity we need right now to survive into the distant future. Climate Change is therefore a critical part of the solution for the continuance of the human species - a force strong enough to cause us to question our value systems and change course with whatever is left of civilization.
Climate Change is the most effective kind of negative feedback, with both of the characteristics we discussed earlier: Firstly, it is a force that becomes stronger as a consequence of the force it's counteracting getting stronger. The impacts of Climate Change do indeed have the potential to halt exponential economic growth (and even, tragically, exponential population growth). In doing so, it will also address our out-of-control consumption of resources. Secondly, climate change, at this point, will happen faster than our species can adapt to it. We have already seen the debilitating effects of forest fires, flooding, weather extremes, and more around the world. Those will get worse.
Some readers will be appalled that I could think of this as a positive force. The critical point to keep in mind is that I am thinking in terms of the survival of our species and of the possibility for the best elements of human civilization to continue into the future. As bleak as the picture I paint might be, my key argument is that the alternative would be far, far worse.
My specific area of interest is in human value systems. I believe that a value crisis is at the core of our most dangerous pending global disasters. When considering the impossibility of effective climate change action, I presented my Value Change Conundrum, repeated here:
You won't change your predominant value system until you see the benefits for doing so.
And yet the benefits may only be apparent after you have made the change.
There is a way out of that dilemma. When your existing predominant value system is no longer working for you, when the rug is pulled out from under the house of cards and the dominoes all go down, then you have the possibility of changing that system to something else. Climate Change could easily be that force.
This is a radical thought but hear me out. Will a climate emergency signal the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it? Yes, and that is actually our objective - civilization as we know it isn't working. Will much of our modern techno-industrial society infrastructure be destroyed beyond repair? Probably. Will there be chaos and anarchy and deadly conflict as fights erupt over dwindling resources? Without question. Will there be suffering and tragic death rates? I fear so.
No species likes nature's negative feedback. The snowshoe hare does not look at the growing population of hares in its territory and pray for a food shortage or deadly disease outbreak. The more we, as humans, denied the legitimacy of natural forces as being important to our own ways of life, the more our negative feedback is going to hurt when it finally arrives.
Was all of this inevitable? I'm not sure. Given the nature of exponential curves (and where we are on them now), I suspect that much of our current poor prognosis could theoretically have been avoided had we taken action 20 or 30 years ago, if our predominant value system had allowed that. However, that is, of course, water under the bridge.
Is there an alternative today? Yes, I suppose we could convince ourselves that climate change (i.e. nature) is a force to be battled with in the hopes of mitigating its overwhelming power and keeping our status quo economy going. Again, I suggest that alternative would be catastrophically worse.
Consider: If negative feedback is an imperative, and it isn't climate change, what will it be?
NOTE that I do NOT suggest that we do nothing - not at all. There is much work to be done, right now. We'll explore that in the final part of this series of blog posts.
Perhaps the outcome that I describe is unthinkable. What does that mean? Does that mean we can’t think of it, or won’t?
(Continue to part 9 of 9)
