For the primary time in its lengthy historical past, humanity is in actual hazard of extinction. Maybe
the recklessness of homo sapiens even makes it inevitable.
The concern of the tip of the world has been a part of humanity’s cultural heritage since
prehistoric occasions. Ever since Hippocrates, the connection between local weather variability
and subsequent disasters for individuals has been the topic of study and debate.
The connection between local weather and human actions was a significant political challenge
lengthy earlier than the economic revolution. Two principal questions emerged: have been these
climatic modifications spontaneous? Or did they consequence from the results of human motion?
Among the proposed options could have solely a marginal impact, whereas others
are nothing greater than greenwashing, primarily based on applied sciences that don’t but exist or
which can be tough to implement and harmful. That is the idea of the “power
transition”, “inexperienced development” (together with in electrical autos), and “carbon neutrality” –
proposed for 2050 by the multinationals, that are answerable for 70% of
greenhouse gasses. The most recent IPCC report (February 2022) predicts that
temperatures could have risen by 1.5°C by 2030, an increase that might attain 3.5 to five°C by
2100 if nothing is finished.
For a number of a long time now, systematic research of the local weather and its historical past have
made it potential to reply sure to each questions. There isn’t any denying the common
rise in temperature (+1.2°C) because the finish of the “little ice age” round 1850, and we
are feeling its more and more devastating results. After all, it’s tough to evaluate the
actual proportion of the rise attributable to astronomical causes, as in comparison with
anthropogenic ones. But it’s plain that technical progress, urbanisation,
intensive agriculture and deforestation have all the time had an affect on the local weather –
simply to not the extent that they’ve since 1950. There are three principal causes for
this modification.
Obtain one of the best of European journalism straight to your inbox each Thursday
The primary is that, regardless of the 26 COPs – Conferences of the 197 signatories to the
non-binding 1992 United Nations Framework Conference on Local weather Change
(UNFCCC) – temperatures and greenhouse fuel (GHG) emissions are nonetheless rising. No
nation is assembly its commitments to scale back GHG emissions to beneath 2°C, and “if
potential” (sic!) to 1.5°C, as agreed in Paris (2015) and reasserted in Glasgow
(2022).
The voracity of financial methods and the lure of revenue are the self-destructive
forces of our coercive and plundering societies
The second purpose is twofold: the existence of cascading and suggestions results, and
the great inertia of local weather processes. Even when the suitable choices on GHG
emissions have been taken right now, the results would solely be felt, at finest, in a century. The
relationship between temperature will increase and excessive climate occasions shouldn’t be
linear, however exponential.
The third purpose is that humanity has embarked – with its eyes closed – on the trail
in direction of a completely digital and interconnected society that’s much more interdependent
than it already had been because the industrial revolution. Along with the affect on
particular person freedoms – that of expression particularly – this involution presents
excessive dangers. Within the worst-case state of affairs the brand new civilisation may collapse. In a
higher eventuality, societies may break up between these in management and people who are
managed.
Interdependence and hyperspecialisation
The Covid disaster, after which the battle in Ukraine, give a foretaste of the results
of such interdependence and hyper-specialisation when these are upset by the
disruption of commerce. The ensuing cascades of results and backlashes ought to make
us cautious about transferring in direction of ever-more interdependent societies which can be
depending on anyone invasive and fragile know-how.
Our on-line world depends on bodily infrastructures: DNS servers, routers, cables,
satellites, and so forth. Such infrastructure could be very complicated, tough to handle and defend,
energy-intensive (7.3% of GHG emissions) and requires fixed upkeep. It’s
subsequently prone to systemic failures or damaging assaults that may convey
concerning the wholesale collapse of our societies.
The voracity of financial methods and the lure of revenue are the self-destructive
forces of our coercive and plundering societies. Greed, violence, ignorance,
fanaticism, political short-sightedness, the over-exploitation of obtainable assets
and the competitors between nice powers and multinationals for entry to them –
these are the preconditions of a disaster.
The physicist and thinker Jean-Pierre Dupuy asks the essential query: “Are we
even able to believing what we all know, of envisaging this spiral of collapse and of
appearing to place an finish to it?” As issues stand, the reply is clearly no. Dupuy
concludes: “Misfortune is our future, however a future that’s solely such as a result of males do
not recognise the results of their actions.”
