Global Warming: An Impending Catastrophe?
Global Warming: An Impending Catastrophe?
You would think that someone who made a major preoccupation out of watching ice melt must be in dire need of a life. That might indeed be the case, but in fact watching the ice melt in the Arctic is surprisingly dramatic and exciting. It is more dramatic and more significant than 9/11. 9/11 is dwarfed in significance and in drama by what is happening in the Arctic Ocean on a daily basis right now. Reading blogs like the Arctic Sea Ice Blog1 is riveting and addictive. It is like an reading exciting mystery where you can't wait to turn the page to see what happens next.
What gives it its drama and intensity is the meaning and importance it has to all of humanity. These bloggers who have made watching the ice melt in the Arctic Ocean their central concern have found in their strange fascination a profound connection to all humankind. You think melting ice floes in the Arctic Ocean don't affect you? Think again. The melting ice in the Arctic is the spearhead, you might say, of an array of visible developments that could render most of the earth's surface uninhabitable in a relatively short time -- we're talking a few decades, not centuries or millennia. It's a stunning thought, isn't it? Your first reaction is to just dismiss it. "Oh, this guy is really crazy. Such a thing can't possibly be true. It's unthinkable. What nonsense to even entertain such a thought in public." Gloom and doom forecasts are as old as the world. People enjoy imagining that the world is going to end.
I hesitate to share this, actually, although all of the information is publicly available. There is no secret knowledge being conveyed here. I derive no perverse satisfaction from being the bearer of unbearable news. The reason that I am writing about this and making it public is that I haven't been able to think about much else for the last several weeks, when the implications of things I had already been aware of came to my attention. I haven't been sleeping well. Sometimes writing something down helps me put it out of my mind. I'm not sure it's going to work this time.
I have been interested in the process of global warming for many years. I've read books about it. I've followed developments in the news media, particularly about the warming and ice melt in the Arctic. It has not been a central interest of mine. My central interest is cultural history and the relationship between civilization and "human nature." Most of human history has taken place in an uncivilized state. Human nature has been formed and shaped under thousands and thousands of years of uncivilized conditions. Civilization has been only recently overlaid on this essentially uncivilized beast in the last 6000 years or so, but how much have we actually changed in our basic nature and how well does civilization "work"? These kinds of questions have preoccupied most of my research and thinking in my adult life. I have often wondered how long civilization can last and how long it will be before human culture returns to its essentially uncivilized essence. Global warming is related to these interests because it is a threat to civilization. It could bring the civilized era of human history to a close, but long in the future, of course. How long I've often wondered. Centuries? Millennia?
I came across a news report back in December that stopped me in my tracks.2 Russian scientists studying the Siberian Arctic Shelf found vast plumes of methane pouring from the ocean floor into the atmosphere on an unprecedented scale. They said they were blown away by it. They couldn't believe what they were seeing. Are they telling the truth? If this is true, the implications are alarming. I knew that at the time, but I didn't realize how dire the situation might be until very recently when I came across this blog of Sam Carana of the Arctic Methane Emergency Group3 that projects the possibility of human extinction within a single generation based on the volume of methane being spewed into the atmosphere from the Siberian deposits. It is not the methane itself that is going to kill us. It is the heat, the famine, the illnesses, the unimaginable turmoil that will result from the sudden collapse of civilization brought on by drought and unbearable temperatures and a host of related calamities. Methane has a vastly greater global warming potential than carbon dioxide. All of the projections about the affects of global warming thus far have been calculated on the basis of CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Nobody has been giving strong consideration to methane. One finds different figures for the warming effect of methane. The conservative figure of 20 times the effect of carbon dioxide is based on an average over a century. But methane's life in the atmosphere is only 8-20 years. It's most potent impact will be felt in the short term, and it could be 50-130 times as great as CO2 over a period of a couple of decades. This means that a vast infusion of methane into the atmosphere could precipitate a spike in global temperature that might be short lived on the geological time scale, but would be enough to kill all of us in the immediate future. It is a real possibility. It is keeping me awake at night.
I've been looking at websites and following blogs for the last several weeks, losing sleep, but not telling anybody what I have been discovering. People will think I'm crazy, and no one likes to hear depressing, hopeless news. What it comes down to:
Ultimately temperature. How much is the earth warming up? In particular, how much is the Arctic warming up? The answer for the Arctic is quite a bit.
How much methane is actually in the atmosphere and how much more is getting into the atmosphere? There is more methane in the atmosphere now than there used to be and it is increasing dramatically, especially in the Arctic.
How much methane is there is the Arctic tundra and beneath the Arctic Ocean? Is there enough supply of methane in the ground to actually heat the earth enough to cook us all? No one seems to know exactly how much methane might be in the Arctic tundra and under the Arctic Ocean. There are varying estimates, but everyone agrees that there is more than enough to fry us if even an insignificant portion of it were to be released all at once.
Will the warming of the Arctic actually lead to the release of the methane that is in the ground? The permafrost that is acting as a lid on the methane is indeed melting, and numerous reports from the Arctic document that methane is escaping from both the ground and the ocean floor in amounts significantly greater than previously imagined. The Russian report on Eastern Siberia is of grave concern.
My research indicates that the answers to all of these questions are extremely dire. Rather than summarize all the results, I invite you to pursue the matter yourself, if you are so inclined. I have indicated some websites in the notes where you can start.4 Many of the sources are governmental agencies. If the information I have been looking at is accurate, we may indeed be toast in the near future. This troubles me very much. It renders my whole life irrelevant. Much of my life's work aims at objectives and hopes that extend far beyond my own lifetime. Cultural history and cultural change take a long time and must be conceptualized from a long perspective. The assumption that has always underlain my research, thinking, and direction in life is that American society will continue in a more or less evolutionary fashion for quite a long time to come and that knowledge and accomplishments and social gains will build upon one another and contribute toward an edifice of progress envisioned over a long period of time. I have always believed that there is such a thing as progress. It is one of the benefits of civilization. However, if we are on the precipice of a cataclysmic collapse of civilization and all human life may well be extinct in as little as twenty-five years, then what is the point of analyzing these movies, and reading books, and thinking about relationships and sex? If these scenarios of doom prove correct, then the generation being born now will be the very last one, and they are destined to die almost as soon as they come of age, and probably not much beyond my own lifetime. So what is the use of trying to help them? Nothing I have to offer would apply in a world where civilized societies are gone and people are dying by the billions.
We are standing on the deck of the Titanic. We've struck an iceberg and are taking on water. Everything looks normal on the deck. Nothing seems amiss. Everyone is going about their business as usual. Who would think that in two hours we will all be on the bottom of the ocean? But the Titanic had lifeboats. They didn't have enough, but they had some. We do not have any lifeboats. If this ship goes down, we are all doomed to go down with it. It's a stark message to bring before the world, and totally against my temperament. I am an undying optimist. But I am staggered by what I have been finding out. I don't believe these harebrained schemes to "geo-engineer" the Arctic have a snowball's chance of success. Attempting to infuse oxygen into the Arctic Ocean or suck methane out of the atmosphere are desperation measures. Maybe they should be tried, but I doubt very much that they will work. My own opinion is that it could already be too late. If the Russian reports about methane plumes in the Arctic Ocean are true and ongoing, the prospects are extremely grim. But doomsday scenarios are fantasies, imaginative projections that are based on incomplete information and partial understanding; unforeseen and unforeseeable factors could intervene and influence events and outcomes. Maybe somehow it's not really true. There are many ways for these most calamitous predictions to be wrong. If the most dismal outcome is destined to be our fate, it should become clear in the next three to five years that we are in deep trouble beyond denial. That's why following the ice melt is so fascinating. The pace of the ice melt is a visible, measurable indicator of the accuracy and seriousness of all the relevant factors. It is a kind of summation of all of the forces at work in a very complex, variable system. We don't really know how much methane is pouring into the atmosphere out of those Siberian vents. We know there is a lot more methane in the Arctic atmosphere than there used to be, but how much more will be added and in what time frame? And ultimately what effect will it have on the earth? The ice melt is our first indication. And the ice is melting faster than it has ever melted, and it is proceeding much faster than predicted by earlier models that only took carbon dioxide into account. The pace of global warming is accelerating. This infusion of methane means that it is no longer going to be a linear process. Every indicator points to the methane having its dreadful, odious effect. How far will it go? Is there anything that can stop it? Is it already too late? Do we really only have another 25-30 years of human history left? Are we truly living in the last days? I sound like those idiots in that church I grew up in.
Many philosophers throughout history have pondered how we should live and what is good and valuable in life. But all of those philosophers assumed that life would continue beyond their own personal mortality. Yes, we die, but we leave a legacy that follows us and connects us to future generations and thus gives our actions and accomplishments a purpose and significance beyond our own existence. We reason about the meaning and purpose of our lives in light of that assumed legacy. I am the first philosopher in history to confront the question of how we should live under the looming assumption of imminent mass extinction. When I die, all humanity will die with me, or follow me in short order. There will be no legacy. There will be no posterity. There will be no future generations to influence, or to appreciate what I leave in my wake. In the next twenty-five to forty years it will be curtains on all humanity, and indeed on most, if not all, life forms on the face of the earth. How should we live in the face of such a prospect? No philosopher has ever thought about that before. The best answer I can come up with is: just keep on dancing.
Notes
2. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/vast-methane-plumes-seen-in-arctic-ocean-as-sea-ice-retreats-6276278.html
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
This interview with Natalia Shakhova is particularly worthy of attention
http://www.uaf.edu/aurora/archives/fall-2010/around-campus/#briefs
This interview with Natalia Shakhova is particularly worthy of attention
http://www.uaf.edu/aurora/archives/fall-2010/around-campus/#briefs