Is Earth F**ked?

[EyeKhan]

So goes the title of the paper/ talk scheduled for tomorrow at the annual American Geophysical Union meeting. Essentially the point is that sustainability in our civilization is impossible. Full title and blurb about it from Science:

'Is Earth F**ked?' AGU Scientist Asks

by Eli Kintisch on 4 December 2012, 5:05 PM | 2 Comments

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Credit: Eli Kintisch/Science

The voluminous scientific program at this week's 20,000-scientist American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting is generally drier than Gale crater on Mars. But professor of geophysics and complex systems Brad Werner of the University of California, San Diego, has livened things up with a suggestive title talk, scheduled as part of a session tomorrow called "The Future of Human-Landscape Systems II." Drawing on Werner's computer modeling of the relationship between human society and environmental systems, "Is Earth F**ked? Dynamical Futility of Global Environmental Management and Possibilities for Sustainability via Direct Action Activism" makes some disturbing conclusions. (Asterisks are included in the official title of the talk, which can be accessed by search.) "[T]he dynamics of the global coupled human-environmental system within the dominant culture precludes management for stable, sustainable pathways and promotes instability," Werner's abstract says. This appears to suggest the answer to his provocative question, then, is yes. The talk, to be delivered tomorrow afternoon, is being recorded for on-demand viewing later this week. At press time, AGU had not responded to a request for comment about the title.

IMHO I have two responses:

#1. It's not about "Earth", it's about human civilization. But I recognize that most people think of the two as one in the same, so whatever.

#2. I've resigned myself to the reality that "yes, human civilization is fucked" for quite a while now.


Comments? Thoughts? What do you guys think? Are we, or our offspring anyway, fucked?

[RandBlade]

No.

[Aimless]

I was going to answer with "Yes, unless we arrest RB," but I forgot

[EyeKhan]

No.

Just curious, what is your response based on? Is it:

A. Human civilization is already sustainable in terms of impact on the environment/ resource use. Nothing we are currently doing will cause problems that might threaten our existance.

B. Human civilization isn't sustainable as-is but when the shit really starts hitting the fan we'll develope whatever technology/ policy we need to counter the problems.

C. Something else....


Note - the article wasn't specific but I'm assuming the guy isn't talking only about climate change, but probably the full gamut of sustainability issues. Also assuming there's no need to make an issues list here...?

[EyeKhan]

I was going to answer with "Yes, unless we arrest RB," but I forgot

Seriously, what do you think? I expected you might say something like "we're fucked if we don't change our course, but I'm very optimistic we will, so we're probably not fucked...."

[Aimless]

[EyeKhan]

Faith in what?

[RandBlade]

Just curious, what is your response based on? Is it:

A. Human civilization is already sustainable in terms of impact on the environment/ resource use. Nothing we are currently doing will cause problems that might threaten our existance.

B. Human civilization isn't sustainable as-is but when the shit really starts hitting the fan we'll develope whatever technology/ policy we need to counter the problems.

C. Something else....


Note - the article wasn't specific but I'm assuming the guy isn't talking only about climate change, but probably the full gamut of sustainability issues. Also assuming there's no need to make an issues list here...?

D. Human civilisation is already sustainable based on our ability to adapt. Similar to point B.

[Aimless]

Seriously, what do you think? I expected you might say something like "we're fucked if we don't change our course, but I'm very optimistic we will, so we're probably not fucked...."

I think mankind is in a constant state of being fucked. Worst case scenario (barring total annihilation) is that many many people will suffer and die aka. "history of mankind". I do however think that the consequences of our Lewkowskian stupidity will be truly dire for many people present and future who had little or no say in the matter. Just hope those clathrates stay cool and that we settle other planets.

[EyeKhan]

D. Human civilisation is already sustainable based on our ability to adapt. Similar to point B.

Effectively the same as B, if you don't want to go on record saying we're not sustainable right this moment.

I think mankind is in a constant state of being fucked. Worst case scenario (barring total annihilation) is that many many people will suffer and die aka. "history of mankind". I do however think that the consequences of our Lewkowskian stupidity will be truly dire for many people present and future who had little or no say in the matter. Just hope those clathrates stay cool and that we settle other planets.

Ok. That's more or less what I've been thinking, except for the "constant state" portion of your post. I don't know exactly what you mean there, but I'm guessing it rests on what you consider as being 'fucked.'

Generally speaking I think the real question we are facing in the next hundred years or so is whether or not the collapse of human civlization results in our extinction or not. The optimistic scenario is that some small portion of future humanity survives the result of our current lunacy and, even more optimistically, retains our technological achievements with hard-won wisdom not to abuse them anymore. The middle-road scenario is we don't make it but Life Goes On. The pessimistic scenario is global sterilization.

[RandBlade]

Effectively the same as B, if you don't want to go on record saying we're not sustainable right this moment.

We are sustainable right now, because what we are now already is flexible and adaptable.

It is pure head-in-the-sand, 18th century, Malthusian idiocy to imagine that despite of all the evidence of human history and science, despite all the people who work in research, everything will be magically set in the stone right now without adjusting. Its like saying I'm going to crash whenever I drive as I'll run out of road if I keep going straight ... no I won't, I have a steering wheel.

Generally speaking I think the real question we are facing in the next hundred years or so is whether or not the collapse of human civlization results in our extinction or not. The optimistic scenario is that some small portion of future humanity survives the result of our current lunacy and, even more optimistically, retains our technological achievements with hard-won wisdom not to abuse them anymore. The middle-road scenario is we don't make it but Life Goes On. The pessimistic scenario is global sterilization.

The optimistic scenario is that life exponentially continues to improve and in a century from now our current time looks like to our great grandchildren like the 19th century does to us. The middle ground is that life continues to improve but at a slower rate. The pessimistic scenario is that life flatlines from here.

[Dreadnaught]

I would sure take our current trajectory over the status quo in the Roman era. "Civilization" was certainly much more precarious until the relatively recent past. While it's relatively "easy" for things to fall apart, the fact that we've come so far suggests it's also that much harder to lose "everything".

[EyeKhan]

We are sustainable right now, because what we are now already is flexible and adaptable.

Of course humanity has the potential, the ability, to address all the factors in our society that are poisoning the well we depend on, but that's NOT the same thing as being a sustainable society. Don't forget we also have the potential, the ability, to kill every man, woman and child on the planet in a very short period of time. Indeed that would be a LOT easier than turning our civilization on a sustainable course. And that ability is no more proof that we are doomed than the converse is that we are not.

It is pure head-in-the-sand, 18th century, Malthusian idiocy to imagine that despite of all the evidence of human history and science, despite all the people who work in research, everything will be magically set in the stone right now without adjusting.

Um, yeah. It isn't set in stone, it's on a slippery slide toward catastrophe. And absolutely by far the lesson of human history is that civilizations are temporary and tenuous - despite their best efforts, every single one has fallen except the latest FFS! Another lesson is that the Sky Does Fall and sometimes very hard. There is no reason what-so-ever to dismiss the reality boiling up around you as idiocy because civilization as you have known it uses the scientific method and changes rapidly. The fact of our modern history is that our society will not alter itself significantly until the problems we've brewed become painful to the masses, but then it will be far too late. Indeed it's too late now.

The optimistic scenario is that life exponentially continues to improve and in a century from now our current time looks like to our great grandchildren like the 19th century does to us.

That's a nonsensical scenario.

The pessimistic scenario is that life flatlines from here.

Equally nonsensical - the only constant is that the world around us is constantly changing.

I would sure take our current trajectory over the status quo in the Roman era.

Uh, me too. I'd take life as we know it over any and every era in human history. So?

"Civilization" was certainly much more precarious until the relatively recent past.

What's your basis for saying ancient civilizations were more or less precarious than our civilization today???? To take Rome as an example, was there ever a moment in that civilization's history when the Emperor could decide to kill everyone on the planet within a few hours? What's more precarious about ancient Rome than that?

the fact that we've come so far suggests it's also that much harder to lose "everything".

Can you explain what 'coming so far' means??? Far from where and to what? And exactly how does going that distance mean it will be harder to lose 'everything?' What IS everything anyway??? Knowledge? Law? Infrastructure? I'm under the impression we could lose it all rather easily in comparison to every prior era of human history - except maybe when humanity was limited to a population of a few hundreds on some paleolithic African plain...

[Nessus]

Comments? Thoughts? What do you guys think? Are we, or our offspring anyway, fucked?

Fucked in the sense that the coming wars over energy and resources will destroy what's left of democracy, maybe a genocide or two, then yeah. You did your kids a real disservice.

But if it helps, I'm crazy

[EyeKhan]

Fucked in the sense that the coming wars over energy and resources will destroy what's left of democracy, maybe a genocide or two, then yeah. You did your kids a real disservice.

But if it helps, I'm crazy

The thing that makes the current era so odd is how little genocide there is. In the past genocide was the all too effective solution to humanity's most intractable problems.

And even if the worst case plays out, I won't ever feel I've done my kids a disservice.

[Lewkowski]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb

The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate..

[Lewkowski]

Or:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/...tal-forecasts/

[Ziggy Stardust]

Or

http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=411
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/8747
http://radarsite.blogspot.nl/2008/08...revisited.html

[Dreadnaught]

Uh, me too. I'd take life as we know it over any and every era in human history. So? What's your basis for saying ancient civilizations were more or less precarious than our civilization today???? To take Rome as an example, was there ever a moment in that civilization's history when the Emperor could decide to kill everyone on the planet within a few hours? What's more precarious about ancient Rome than that? Can you explain what 'coming so far' means??? Far from where and to what? And exactly how does going that distance mean it will be harder to lose 'everything?' What IS everything anyway??? Knowledge? Law? Infrastructure? I'm under the impression we could lose it all rather easily in comparison to every prior era of human history - except maybe when humanity was limited to a population of a few hundreds on some paleolithic African plain...

I was talking about the point you made -- we mostly don't rely on genocide as a type of everyday method of combat. We have extensive philosophical and institutional investments in making sure that stuff kind rarely happens. The mechanized nature of conflict makes the numbers appalling when it does happen, and yet it so far hasn't.

The Roman emperors could decide to flush an entire peninsula of its people via rape and murder, and most people would barely know or care. In fact, they often would do things like that. We could flush an entire continent with nuclear hellfires, and yet it hasn't happened because we mostly understand the consequences and immorality of that.

I hate to say that we're "enlightened" because the world is a fucked-up place. But in a lot of ways, compared to our past, I believe we do have a substantial amount of law, knowledge and morality about these things that is hard to completely lose.

[RandBlade]

Um, yeah. It isn't set in stone, it's on a slippery slide toward catastrophe. And absolutely by far the lesson of human history is that civilizations are temporary and tenuous - despite their best efforts, every single one has fallen except the latest FFS! Another lesson is that the Sky Does Fall and sometimes very hard. There is no reason what-so-ever to dismiss the reality boiling up around you as idiocy because civilization as you have known it uses the scientific method and changes rapidly. The fact of our modern history is that our society will not alter itself significantly until the problems we've brewed become painful to the masses, but then it will be far too late. Indeed it's too late now.

It is bullshit pure and simple to claim we're slipping down, rather than climbing up. Pick your metric and provide some facts rather than inane unhistorical garbage.

How about Life Expectancy? Lets look at some real numbers of US Life Expectancy from birth: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html
Or even if you want recent years from another nation, the same for the UK: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lifeta...t-2008-10.html

Show me your "slope downwards" because all I see is an ever-increasing climb upwards.

That's a nonsensical scenario.

Why? History from the Reformation onwards is that each century is improved on the one before it. Can you please demonstrate a single reason why that would be reversed over the next hundred years? All evidence points to us looking quaint when people look back in the future.

Or

http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=411
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/8747
http://radarsite.blogspot.nl/2008/08...revisited.html

So what you're pointing out confirms that alarmist doomsday scenarios are garbage.

[Nessus]

Show me your "slope downwards" because all I see is an ever-increasing climb upwards.

Persesilmä on siitä hyvä silmä että se kattelee aina takasinpäin.

Let's see. After we were done with the Holocaust (the GULAG was still running strong, with streams thousands of men wide, but that was those people, you say, but we had another genocide on European soil in the 90s) we matriculated those who elevated, when calculating the number of their victims, the powers of ten to eight and nine from maniacs to paragons. We proceeded, once this was done, to forfeit the fate of human society into the hands of venture capital, and made food just one more thing for the markets to speculate upon. I heard it in the House of Commons, everything's for sale...

This is not to say that the ages of open slavery were any more humane. But I think you are confusing the availability of iPads and curry with genuine progress of human spirit or morality. Of course, if you find the only sensible metric of human society's wellness to be the amount of iPads and curry, you're all set, and the voices in the wilderness are just that... And conversation becomes meaningless

[EyeKhan]

I was talking about the point you made -- we mostly don't rely on genocide as a type of everyday method of combat. We have extensive philosophical and institutional investments in making sure that stuff kind rarely happens. The mechanized nature of conflict makes the numbers appalling when it does happen, and yet it so far hasn't.

The Roman emperors could decide to flush an entire peninsula of its people via rape and murder, and most people would barely know or care. In fact, they often would do things like that. We could flush an entire continent with nuclear hellfires, and yet it hasn't happened because we mostly understand the consequences and immorality of that.

I hate to say that we're "enlightened" because the world is a fucked-up place. But in a lot of ways, compared to our past, I believe we do have a substantial amount of law, knowledge and morality about these things that is hard to completely lose.

I agree with you on all this stuff. It seems since WW2 there's been a genuine effort to turn away from the practice of genocide or warfare practices that indiscriminantly destroy civillian population. And I don't believe global nuclear warfare is in our future - maybe some regional stuff, but not global...

Still, that doesn't say anything about how precarious our civilization is compared to past civilizations.... I really don't think we know enough right now about the past or the present to make a claim either way. And the sad truth is genocide doesn't threaten civilization - you could even argue it helps stabilize them. What better way for Rome to conquer a region than to slaughter/ impress into slavery all the men and replace local customs with Roman law?

[EyeKhan]

It is bullshit pure and simple to claim we're slipping down, rather than climbing up. Pick your metric and provide some facts rather than inane unhistorical garbage.

How about the frequency trend of warm season weather extremes vs cold season weather extremes over the past half century. How about the accleration of glacial ice melt and movement into oceans in Greenland and the disintegration of antartic sea ice and corresponding glacial accleration. Lets look at forest loss due to expanded pest ranges throughout the American middle-West. Take a look at the increasing permafrost melt in Northern Canada, Alaska and Siberia and the resulting massive and increasing releases of methane and carbon dioxide. Take a look at the dropping pH levels in ocean waters all over the world. Look at the modern atmospheric CO2 trend in comparison to past sudden spikes in CO2 that the climate record shows were followed by extreme global temperature rise. All of these trends are alarming, are accelerating, have consistently exceeded the predictions of models that already show things will be very bad, and there is no way to slow or reverse them. What will happen is an unpredictable disruption of much of our land and sea based food supply at the same time we face the challenge of global coastal flooding and a peak population to feed.

[RandBlade]

Persesilmä on siitä hyvä silmä että se kattelee aina takasinpäin.

Let's see. After we were done with the Holocaust (the GULAG was still running strong, with streams thousands of men wide, but that was those people, you say, but we had another genocide on European soil in the 90s) we matriculated those who elevated, when calculating the number of their victims, the powers of ten to eight and nine from maniacs to paragons. We proceeded, once this was done, to forfeit the fate of human society into the hands of venture capital, and made food just one more thing for the markets to speculate upon. I heard it in the House of Commons, everything's for sale...

This is not to say that the ages of open slavery were any more humane. But I think you are confusing the availability of iPads and curry with genuine progress of human spirit or morality. Of course, if you find the only sensible metric of human society's wellness to be the amount of iPads and curry, you're all set, and the voices in the wilderness are just that... And conversation becomes meaningless

Life Expectancy in '49-'51 was nearly a decade longer than Life Expectancy in '29-'31 despite the Great Depression and WWII in-between. Of course life Expectancy in '29-'31 was already itself a decade longer than 1900-'02. And we put on nearly another decade since then. Life Expectancy now is about 30 years more than it was at the turn of the last century. About 40 years more than it was in 1850.

And still climbing. Not iPads, lives.

[RandBlade]

How about the frequency trend of warm season weather extremes vs cold season weather extremes over the past half century. How about the accleration of glacial ice melt and movement into oceans in Greenland and the disintegration of antartic sea ice and corresponding glacial accleration. Lets look at forest loss due to expanded pest ranges throughout the American middle-West. Take a look at the increasing permafrost melt in Northern Canada, Alaska and Siberia and the resulting massive and increasing releases of methane and carbon dioxide. Take a look at the dropping pH levels in ocean waters all over the world. Look at the modern atmospheric CO2 trend in comparison to past sudden spikes in CO2 that the climate record shows were followed by extreme global temperature rise. All of these trends are alarming, are accelerating, have consistently exceeded the predictions of models that already show things will be very bad, and there is no way to slow or reverse them. What will happen is an unpredictable disruption of much of our land and sea based food supply at the same time we face the challenge of global coastal flooding and a peak population to feed.

Blah, blah, blah.

pH levels, CO2 etc - they may theoretically be risks to the future none of that is relevant to the issue you brought up - human civilisation. Life Expectancy is. We've gained over 40 years life expectancy in the last 150 years, doubling the age we expect people to live to when born. At 30 years old right now, I'd be coming up to the end of my expected life had I been born in 1850.

Bring up something relevant to human civilisation: Life Expectancy, Disease, Hunger - in every metric we're constantly improving. You said we're on a downwards slope - show any measurable HUMAN metric that says we're on a downwards slope. Because the FACTS betray your lie, the only slopes we're on are upwards.

Not an alleged future catastrophe, but show what is currently taking us down and has been for some time - measurable by looking at the past. Or admit you were wrong and that instead of talking about the past and present (which being on a slope entails) you're claiming that there's a disaster in the future you're worried about.

[GGT]

So goes the title of the paper/ talk scheduled for tomorrow at the annual American Geophysical Union meeting.
Essentially the point is that sustainability in our civilization is impossible. Full title and blurb about it from Science:

IMHO I have two responses:

#1. It's not about "Earth", it's about human civilization. But I recognize that most people think of the two as one in the same, so whatever.

#2. I've resigned myself to the reality that "yes, human civilization is fucked" for quite a while now.


Comments? Thoughts? What do you guys think? Are we, or our offspring anyway, fucked?

At our current rate of activity, sustainability of humans -- on planet earth -- is improbable, but not impossible.

Personally, I have trouble imagining human civilization on other planets, or in space. I assume the human connection to our planet is what's driven our evolutionary changes, and Humanity itself. I'm not ready to give up on that concept.

[Nessus]

Life Expectancy in '49-'51 was nearly a decade longer than Life Expectancy in '29-'31 despite the Great Depression and WWII in-between. Of course life Expectancy in '29-'31 was already itself a decade longer than 1900-'02. And we put on nearly another decade since then. Life Expectancy now is about 30 years more than it was at the turn of the last century. About 40 years more than it was in 1850.

And still climbing. Not iPads, lives.

Persesilmä on myös siitä hyvä silmä ettei se näe yhtikäs mitään.

You didn't get my point, which I clearly failed to articulate clearly enough, and which I fear is impossible to convey across the altar of Mammon. Oh well. Maybe Choobs will have words for you.

[GGT]

I have a question for Rand. Hasn't our greater life expectancy -- that you flaunt as a plus for humanity -- been because of redistribution of wealth?

Haven't we used public/tax dollars to expand the reach of wealth in science, technology, medicine, information, education? Spreading that wealth among continents, developing nations, poor nations...and their people...using trade and tax policies?

I'm interested in how you can take both sides of the issue: lower taxes, fewer public services, less government funding or interference AND a continued trajectory of global growth, that doesn't destroy our planet in the process.

[RandBlade]

I have a question for Rand. Hasn't our greater life expectancy -- that you flaunt as a plus for humanity -- been because of redistribution of wealth?

No it's because of science.

[Nessus]

No it's because of science.

As a scientist, I disagree.