A Controversial Assertion on Climate Change

I recently wrote a multi-part series about Turning Climate Change On Its Head.  In this post, I will try to reduce the essence of that series to 30 statements, and a controversial conclusion.  I am dispassionately following the facts where they lead.  You tell me where the logic might be questioned.

The Aanimad Assertion on Climate Change

[It seems that even a single blog post can run a little long for some, so I have added a three-statement summary of my assertion:

A.  Given that life is predicated on growth, biosustainability REQUIRES negative feedback.

B.  Fossil fuels and number-based value systems have resulted in humans neutralizing nature's usual negative feedback mechanisms.

C.  Climate Change IS the missing and required negative feedback.

What follows is the detailed derivation of this assertion.]

1. Climate Change is the process whereby the climate of the Earth is warming up due to the greenhouse effect, which is caused by megatons of greenhouse gases (primarily CO₂) being released into the atmosphere at rates exceeding the rates at which natural processes are able to re-assimilate them.

2. The vast majority of current human-generated CO₂ production is caused by the burning of fossil fuels, which has exponentially increased because of civilization’s exponentially increased use of fossil fuels to provide energy.

3. The energy from fossil fuels has been used to power massive leaps in human technology, survival, and standards of living, including the ability to live in relatively inhospitable climates and to provide food for a hugely growing population.

4. All living things are characterized by a drive for growth and propagation.  Without such imperatives, any species would soon disappear from the biosphere.  Humans are no different.

5. The natural control for unfettered exponential growth of any one species is negative feedback.  ["Negative" does not describe good or bad.  It is used in the scientific sense, as in "feedback in opposite phase with (i.e. decreasing) the input".]  Negative feedback is a necessity for sustainable systems.  [In this case, "sustainable systems" refers to the dynamic balance required to allow a species population to continue to exist.]

6. Negative feedback occurs in two forms: kind and unkind.  Kind negative feedback includes concepts of peak sufficiency, where the organism chooses to alter a behaviour.  ["Peak sufficiency" refers to the peak value, after which more would not be desirable.  It is a maximum, not a minimum.]   Unkind negative feedback includes impacts such as resource shortages, disease, and conflict, which almost invariably arise as a direct result of the growth itself.

7. While physiological concepts of peak sufficiency (as applied to food, sleep, warmth, etc.) have not changed for humans, our knowledge and understanding of science have progressed to the point where, combined with the awesome energy of fossil fuels, we are able to circumvent many of nature’s unkind negative feedback mechanisms, such as disease, food scarcity, and habitat limitations.

8. Having apparently bypassed nature’s unkind negative feedback for population control, humans have followed the natural drives of any species for growth, propagation, and maximal use of all available resources.

9. The rise of agriculture transformed our required food inputs from things found in nature to (mostly) things managed (and therefore ‘owned’) by humans.

10. Since humans no longer felt totally vulnerable to the influence of nature, and saw its resources as boundless, they developed human-centric economic paradigms, independent of natural linkages, consisting predominantly of producers and consumers, where nature’s bounty was simply a given.

11. It is suggested that the evolution of agriculture, trade, and ownership led to increasingly sophisticated numeracy skills, and societies where numbers were used to measure wealth.  For example, trade led to the introduction of some form of money, and ownership led to counting what is owned.  From this arose number-based values, which are different from our innate qualitative values.

12. Number-based values are measures where more is always worth more.  Since numbers are limitless, wealth measured by number is such that More is Always Better, and the negative feedback concept of peak sufficiency does not apply in number-based value calculations.

13. Having removed the concept of peak sufficiency from our predominant measure of wealth, humans eventually created entities (business corporations) who embodied number-based values exclusively, leveraging the intrinsic positive feedback loops of numbers, without being subject to the mortal filters of human qualitative values or even the limitations of human life spans.

14. Adopting value systems which have no concept of peak sufficiency (i.e. kind negative feedback), while bypassing nature’s unkind negative feedback, results in an unsustainable way of life for our species.  (See 5.)

15. Exponential growth of human population and technology transpired over a time that was not long enough for the natural world to evolve adaptations for the changes or processes to deal with the inevitable waste products of exponentially increasing economic activity.

16. As civilization is something that happens with physiological beings (who must live within nature’s complexity on a finite planet), any economic model that does not account for nature’s inputs and waste management is fatally flawed.   (See 10.)

17. One important fundamental need of economic activity and human survival is energy.  Fossil fuels continue to provide the vast majority of cheap energy, so their exponential consumption is tied to exponentially growing economic activity.

18. One impact of relentless economic activity expansion and population growth is (1) anthropogenic climate change.  Other direct impacts include (2) freshwater withdrawals, (3) nitrogen/phosphorus loading, (4) land conversion, and (5) biodiversity loss.

19. Being disconnected from nature, the neoliberal economic models did not effectively address waste management, resulting in (6) chemical pollution, (7) ocean acidification, (8) air pollution, and (9) ozone layer depletion.

20. The nine impacts listed above are collectively known as Ecological Overshoot.  Climate Change is only one of these serious threats to human civilization and the continuance of our species.  This combination of multiple looming disasters is where the term “polycrisis” originates.

21a. Human civilization got to this point because we adopted a predominant measure of wealth that had no concept of peak sufficiency (reducing the influence of natural kind negative feedback on our consumptive behaviours), and we circumvented nature’s typical unkind negative feedback (which controls population growth).   (See 8 and 12.)

21b.  This is not to say that we abandoned our core qualitative (human) values (like justice, compassion, beauty, joy, integrity, etc.).  Those are hardwired into our brains.  However, we have allowed those values be consistently trumped by number-based values, and created powerful entities (corporations) that do not recognize our human core values.   (See 13.)

22a. Our current economic model of More is Always Better, combined with the absence of integration with concepts of finite resource and waste management, can be directly tied to all nine components of Ecological Overshoot.

22b.  I refer to this situation (where one factor is a key cause of the polycrisis of Ecological Overshoot) as our Value Crisis.  The idea that one factor might be at the root of a polycrisis is where the term “metacrisis” originates.

23. Given that we are in a polycrisis, solving, mitigating, or adapting to Climate Change will likely have minimal impact on any of the other major threats of Ecological Overshoot.

24. However, addressing the metacrisis and correcting the basis of our economic values could indeed mitigate and potentially reverse all of these nine threats listed above.

25. Recent evidence suggests that humanity will not voluntarily comprehensively correct its current way of life and the economic values that underpin that.  I suggest that we are unable to solve the metacrisis on our own.  (See, for example, The Value Change Conundrum.)

26. Any serious attempt to correct our flawed economic values will be vigorously opposed by the massive forces that derive their wealth from those values.

27. Still, Climate Change poses a serious threat to our current way of life.  It is popularly the most pressing (and increasingly visible) threat to our economic activity.

28. Climate Change therefore constitutes one of nature’s most powerful negative feedback mechanisms to the economic values that caused it.

29. The other aspects of Ecological Overshoot will not be far behind, and will have similarly disastrous consequences for human civilization.

30. Unkind negative feedback is never desirable to the targeted species.  We are therefore highly motivated to resist it.  However, the negative outcomes of our poly/metacrisis for the human race are similar, whether Climate Change is ‘solved’ or not.

Concluding Assertion:

a)         The impulse to demand action on mitigating the effects of Climate Change is inevitable for human nature, but that action will not dramatically change the prospects for civilization and our species.   (See 26, 29, 22, 24, 25 and 28.)

b)         On the contrary, given that Climate Change could be the force needed to break humanity out of its flawed economic values, the sooner that happens the better, before the effects of the other aspects of Ecological Overshoot become irreversibly fatal.   (See 24, 27, 21, 23, and 28.)

c)         Climate Change could well be a major part of the solution to our metacrisis.  Our primary focus should be on restoring some precedence of qualitative values to be adopted after systems which rely exclusively on number-based values are no longer working for us, and how to minimize the damage from that transition.

d)         Rejecting the unquestioned precedence of number-based values, acknowledging our interrelationships with nature, and rethinking the definition and role of commercial corporations could be enough to redirect civilization towards a sustainable model.   (See 21, 16, 13, and 5.)

Disclaimer:

? - Am I opposed to citizens demanding action on Climate Change?

No, but only so long as there is a realization that the real challenge is the causal value system underpinning Climate Change.  Our compassionate instincts insist that we do our best to combat the destructive impact of fossil fuel burning, however, I do not accept that any significant gains will be made in the attempt.

If explicit by-products of any climate change action include an increased awareness of the root cause of our multi-part polycrisis (that being a flawed value system), and greater acceptance of our true role within the biosphere, then I have to support that.

If, on the other hand, the proposal is that we can somehow continue our current behaviours and economic model simply under an alternative energy source, then I oppose such delusional thinking.

I also oppose the demonization of the fossil fuel industry.  Those corporations, like all commercial corporations, are acting precisely in the manner that society programmed them and continues to demand them to.

Support for The Aanimad Assertion on Climate Change:

The following scientists and progressive thinkers have signed on as supporters of this Assertion:

John Maskell, PhD - Brockville, ON
Member, Canadian Association for the Club of Rome

Ruben F.W. Nelson - Calgary, AB
Executive Director, Foresight Canada
Member Emeritus, Association of Professional Futurists 

Mike Nickerson - Lanark, ON
Seventh Generation Initiative
Member, Canadian Association for the Club of Rome 
Author of Life, Money & Illusion

Andrew Welch - Alton, ON
Member, Canadian Association for the Club of Rome 
Author of The Value Crisis

#6 - The Conclusion for an Altered Perception of Climate Change

(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)