Near Term Extinction

The majority of modern society is clustered together in the hope and optimism pavilion, taking deep tokes on the bong of pleasure-filled fantasies (cough!).  At the other end of the spectrum are the Near Term Extinction (NTE) folks.  They profess absolute certainty that climate change will be the final chapter in the human story.  Our current mode of living will disintegrate by 2030, and a few scientists, like Malcolm Light, predict that all life on Earth will be extinct by 2050.  Ecology professor Guy McPherson is a primary spokesperson for NTE.

The NTE thinkers point to many genuine problems that are intensifying every day.  They describe a number of “positive feedbacks,” where one problem stimulates the worsening of other problems, accelerating the overall pace of destruction more and more.  A small disturbance can trigger a large avalanche.  They chastise the big name climate activism celebrities for failing to realize the actual risks these feedbacks, and, consequently, for preaching sermons tainted with false hope.

Rapid heating will destroy agriculture, release fabulous amounts of methane, and blindside every ecosystem on the planet.  The bright white polar ice caps are quite reflective, and bounce away a lot of incoming solar heat, but they are melting and shrinking.  Oceans may become so acidic that only jellyfish remain.

The burning of fossil fuels will fade with the demise of industry, so less incoming solar energy will be blocked by layers of pollution, speeding the warming process even more.  When the power grid dies, the pumps will quit at 440+ nuclear power plants.  So, the cooling ponds for spent fuel rods will evaporate, the rods will burn, and ionized radiation will poison the planet.  And so on.

Acknowledging these sobering ideas is necessary for those who wish to be present in reality.  It is well within the realm of possibility that their predictions will turn out to be correct — but not 100 percent certain, with a double your money back guarantee.  We’ve never destroyed a planet before, so our understanding of this sad process remains primitive.

Many members of the NTE community are highly intelligent, very well informed, and ruthlessly skeptical of every mainstream idea.  This combination of attributes does not result in a merry band of giggly bliss ninnies.  They comprehend the existence of enormous problems.  At the same time, they also comprehend that humankind is largely ignoring these problems.  It’s a heartbreaking disconnect.  The great majority of people simply fail to perceive the presence of great danger, because their lives still seem normal, today.

Extinction would neatly solve every single one of our problems, and would be a great relief for the family of life.  We were certain to go extinct at some point in the future anyway.  Uff!  But what if there are still some humans alive 100 years from now?  Humans, insects, and bacteria are exceptionally adaptable, and a portion of them may have an extended future.  Because of that possibility, I do this work.  The NTE folks shrug and label me normal (still asleep).  So be it.

I’m very happy that I’m not going to live to see the end of the collapse (I hope).  What the survivors, if any, choose to do is entirely beyond my control.  I am not responsible for the decisions they make, but I am responsible for doing what I can to help them understand their history, predicament, and options.  Nothing can change until ideas change.  So, one of the most essential occupations for those living now is to become idea mongers.  This is a path of great power, and there are Help Wanted signs all over the place.

Before we call it a day, let’s jump in our Hummer and take a quick tour of the NTE neighborhood.  Their mosque is called Nature Bats Last, Guy McPherson’s blog.  Click on the Climate Change Summary link.  You’ll learn a lot about a wide variety of subjects.  (The links below are just a tiny sample of the information available on the following issues.)

Global Warming.  Climate scientists have been doing a good job of underestimating the rate at which carbon is accumulating in the atmosphere, and raising the planet’s temperature.  New and improved models generated by the UN in 2010 predicted a rise of 5° C by 2050.  Some believe that warming of 4° to 6° C results in a dead planet, and that this could happen in a decade.

Melting Permafrost.  Melting permafrost will release enormous amounts of greenhouse gases.  There is also underwater permafrost, and it too is melting and off gassing methane.

Tundra fires.  Arctic summers are getting warmer and dryer, and the carbon-rich tundra soils readily burn when dry.  Fire actually burns up the soil, exposing the permafrost below to warmer temperatures.  On the surface of the burned land, dark ash absorbs more solar heat, melting the permafrost faster.

Peat Fires.  Warmer, dryer weather is drying out peat lands, which contain one third of the world’s soil carbon.  Peat fires are often ignited by lightning or passing wildfires, and they are difficult or impossible to extinguish.  Some burn for years, or even centuries.  In 2010 there were huge peat fires in Russia.

Ocean Acidification.  One third of carbon dioxide emissions are absorbed by the oceans, which is increasing their levels of acidity.  Plankton in the ocean provides 50 percent of the oxygen in the atmosphere.  This oceanic oxygen production is now six percent less than it was 30 years ago.  Growing acidity is harmful to marine life and coral reefs.

Ionized Radiation.  There are about 440 nuclear power plants in the world, and they generate lots of radioactive waste that will be extremely toxic for a very long time.  These wastes are stored in cooling ponds, a short-term solution.  There is no long-term solution.  Extended power outages will allow the cooling ponds to evaporate, at which point the fuel rods will burn, and spew radiation to the four winds.

Oceanic Deoxygenation.  Climate change is stratifying oceanic waters, and warming the upper layers.  This will reduce the dissolved oxygen in the water, leading to the expansion of dead zones.  Some regions have experienced significant deoxygenation over the last 50 years, and many expect this problem to worsen, possibly for the next thousand years.

Atmospheric Deoxygenation.  Levels of oxygen in the atmosphere are declining.  Three hundred million years ago, the air was 30 percent oxygen.  Ancient dragonflies had four-foot wingspans.  Today it’s between 19 and 21 percent, and 12 to 17 percent in urban areas.  When it gets to 6 or 7 percent, we cannot survive.  Oxygen is consumed when carbon is burned.

Methane Catastrophe.  This report, written by Malcolm Light, is not intended for the general reader.  The first paragraph includes this jarring sentence: “This process of methane release will accelerate exponentially, release huge quantities of methane into the atmosphere and lead to the demise of all life on earth before the middle of this century.”

What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been

I’ve been living like a hermit for 19 months now, reading dozens of powerful books, and writing weekly blogs.  I’m not the same person I was when I started.  My perception of reality has gone through some changes.  I’ve been sharing what I learned with the world.  I hope that seekers will find it, and I hope that my work will be helpful to them.  I’ll be publishing this material in book form shortly.

Genuine sustainability, of course, is the holy destination — a way of life that is healthy, satisfying, and has a long-term future.  Getting there, of course, will be an enormous challenge, requiring enormous changes, enormous wisdom, enormous luck, and probably a century or three, at least.

What we are today is the result of many choices and changes — stone tools, projectile weapons, fire, complex language, consciousness, directed thinking, cultural evolution, civilization, industrialization, the domestication of plants, animals, and minerals, and so on. 

At the time of the Great Leap Forward, 40,000 years ago, the megafauna were still abundant, and perhaps we were still sustainable.  But these cave painters were quite different from the far simpler hominids who roamed in Africa 500,000 years ago.  The high-tech cave painters were much more vulnerable to falling out of balance, which is exactly what happened.  Infants born today are still pure wild animals, ready to grow up in an advanced tribe of cave painters, or a primitive tribe of early Africans.  As Prince Charles says, we are what we are surrounded by.

Obviously, the safest and most conservative ideal would be to return to tropical regions.  Back in Africa, we didn’t need clothing, fire, shelters, or tools.  We lived much like chimps.  Food was readily available year round.  People enjoyed abundant leisure, and good health.  Perhaps climate change will come to our rescue here, by expanding tropical regions, and dealing a deathblow to agriculture.

But some predict that climate change will be the final chapter in the human story.  Those who foresee near term extinction (NTE) perceive me to be a delusional moron for contemplating the possibility that any humans will exist 100 years from now.  Rapid heating will destroy agriculture and blindside every ecosystem on the planet.  Oceans will become so acidic that only jellyfish remain.  Coal burning will cease with the demise of industry, so less incoming solar energy will be deflected by pollution, and the warming process will accelerate.  When the power goes out, the cooling ponds for spent fuel rods at 430+ nuclear power plants will evaporate, the rods will burn, and ionized radiation will poison the planet.

Extinction would neatly solve every single one of our problems.  We were certain to go extinct at some point in the future anyway.  Uff!  But what if there are still some humans alive 100 years from now?  I’m very happy that I’m not going to live to see the end of the collapse.  What the survivors choose to do is entirely beyond my control.  I am not responsible for the decisions they make, but I am responsible for taking action to protect their wellbeing, to the best of my ability.  We all are.

Collapse will blow away many obstructions that currently block our return to sustainability, but not all of them.  In theory, we are smart enough to choose a new path, and deliberately strive to return to a sustainable way of life.  What we do today to encourage this return, before the lights go out, may make a big difference in the coming years.  It feels right to try.

Five hundred years ago, large portions of the planet were still inhabited by humans living in a relatively sustainable manner.  Four thousand years ago, even more.  But these nature-based societies had no long-term future because there were pockets of dark energy emerging on the planet, something like cancer tumors, and their plan was perpetual growth, by any means necessary.

In his parable of the tribes, Schmookler warned us that once a bully entered the playground, the fun and games were over.  Only power can stop power.  He believed that this problem could be cured by creating a global civilization that was guided by wisdom.  Jack Forbes called it the cannibal disease, and he thought that this disease could be eliminated by spiritual rebirth on a global scale.  There is no fast-acting, silver bullet cure for the growing predator energy.  It’s a formidable challenge to the healing process.  In theory, we can outgrow it.

Another serious problem is a lack of foresight.  I could be gazing at a group of wooly mammoths right now, if only the inventor of the stone-tipped lance had the foresight to imagine the consequences of giving weapons of mass destruction to a gang of scruffy-looking illiterate longhaired rednecks.  Lions and tigers and bears don’t have this problem, because they hunt with tooth and claw, and this works just fine. 

Dilworth, Crosby, and Wright changed the way I think.  I used to believe that our problems began with domestication.  They taught me that our problems began with tool making.  Imagine what a paradise this world would be if prehistoric toolmakers had had foresight, immediately abolished their dangerous profession, and pursued careers in singing, dancing, and storytelling. 

At the dawn of the last century, there was loud and abundant opposition to automobiles, but the wise voice of conservatism was foolishly ignored — a huge mistake!  Two centuries ago, we failed to listen carefully to the ultraconservative Luddites, and what a mess we have now, Lord Almighty!  The problem really isn’t a lack of foresight, it’s a lack of stability.  Stable species have no need for foresight.  They live entirely in the here and now, and do so beautifully.  Domesticated humans are the exception.  We’re the loose cannons of the animal world.

Likewise, Shepard, Wells, Ehrlich, and Livingston warned us about the dangers of cultural evolution.  This is the same problem: a lack of stability.  Culture does not become toxic until it falls out of harmony with wildness, freedom, and the laws of nature — until it crosses the line and becomes unsustainable, a dead end.

It all boils down to remembering who we are, and how to live like human beings.  It’s about living as lightly as possible, and contributing the healing process to the best of our ability.

Thank you!  This has been fun!  Have an honorable life!  Best wishes!