Category: Social Evolution

On April 25^th and 26^th 1986, the Number 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded causing the death of 30 plant workers and emergency responders, and ultimately the evacuation of over 300,000 people. The radiation poison killed nearly all life within a 30-kilometer radius of the power plant. According to National Geographic, it may take thousands of years for the area to become safe for humans due to the pace of the radiation decay. Yet despite the presence of dangerous radiation in the exclusion zone, nature has abundantly recovered. In David Attenborough’s documentary, “A Life on Our Planet”, digital cameras vividly captured a wide range of wildlife including deer, wolves, horses, and an assortment of birds. A dense vibrant forest has consumed the abandoned buildings of Chernobyl. Our experience with the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster proves the resiliency of nature is boundless.

As we consider the myriad of existential challenges facing modern civilization, we can draw inspiration from how living species were able to adapt and replenish in less than 40 years of the nuclear reactor disaster. As President Kennedy once said, “Our problems are manmade. Therefore, they can be solved by man.” While our problems are many, including severe wealth and income inequality, geopolitical conflicts threatening nuclear annihilation, and unregulated artificial intelligence, in my view our existential challenges are two-fold:

1. Resource extraction well beyond our planetary boundaries
2. Increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the use of fossil fuels are destabilizing the ecology that sustains current life on Earth

The goods and services we use in our modern economy require the extraction of natural resources. As our economy grows, our extraction of natural resources increases to produce the additional goods and services we consume. The capacity of the Earth to produce natural resources is a function of geologic processes that often take millions of years to complete. Since the industrialized economy is less than 200 years old, modern civilization has benefitted greatly from an abundance of untapped natural resources. Yet as our demand for more and more resources have exceeded the annual capacity of the planet to replenish, we have begun to dramatically draw down on the available natural resources. Global scientists have measured our excess extraction of natural resources by developing a new metric: Earth Overshoot Day¹, which “marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year.” The 2023 Earth Overshoot Day was August 2^nd, 2023, which means for 2023 humanity consumed 1.7x the Earth’s annual regenerative capacity. The 2024 U.S. Overshoot Day is March 14^th, 2024, which means we need 4.9 Earths if all countries consumed as much natural resources as America.  

In order for humanity to live within our planetary resource boundaries, all over-consuming nations must significantly decrease the extraction of natural resources until their national overshoot day is December 31^st. Dramatically reducing the consumption of natural resources necessarily involves a material decrease in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In order to achieve this goal, we will need a new system of economics because capitalism requires persistent economic growth to produce economic prosperity. Ecological Economist, Tim Jackson, has written extensively about this topic in his two best selling books:

• Prosperity without Growth: Foundations for the Economics of Tomorrow
• Post Growth: Life After Capitalism

Degrowth is an academic and social movement critical of the hegemony of economic growth perpetuated by capitalism, and calls for an equitable and democratically-led downscaling of production and consumption in industrialized countries as a means to achieve environmental sustainability, social justice and well-being.²

Degrowth is a transitional process of moving over-consumption nations from the current state to a future state of sustainable natural resource management. Ideally, this transitional period accommodates the need for developing and under-developed nations to increase demand for natural resources in order to modernize their countries. Once all countries are modernized and the global extraction of natural resources are within the annual regenerative natural resource capacity of the Earth, a new economics that accommodates consistent Pareto Optimal conditions will need to be innovated. Pareto optimal is a condition where there are no more improvements that can make any person better off without making some other person worse off.³

The second existential challenge facing humanity is human-induced climate change. The most comprehensive scientific consensus on all issues regarding climate change is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is comprised of the leading scientists from 195 member nations. The IPCC was established by the United Nations in 1988, and releases an exhaustive assessment every seven years based on the latest global research on three primary topics:

1. The science basis of human induced climate change⁴
2. Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability⁵ (of climate change)
3. Mitigation of Climate Change⁶

Each of the major reports of the periodic assessment represents a meta-analysis of the latest global research and typically includes approximately 2,000 pages each. The IPCC summarizes the most important determinations, with level of confidence, in the Synthesis Report – Summary for Policymakers, which upon final release reflect the unanimous concurrence of all 195 member nations. The IPCC released the 6^th Assessment reports in 2021 and 2022, and the Synthesis Report⁷ in 2023.

The following climate change narrative is based on the determinations of the IPCC’s 6^th Assessment reports:

Like all planetary phenomena, the climate change story starts long ago…during the last Ice Age. One core characteristic of the Ice Age is highly erratic changes in global average surface temperature, which produced catastrophically disruptive extreme weather events. The Ice Age ended 15,000 years ago as global average surface temperatures began moderating. It took another 5,000 years for the global average surface temperature to stabilize. For the next 10,000 years, global average surface temperature remained stable at approximately 56.9 degrees Fahrenheit plus or minus 1.8 degrees (or about 13.8 degrees Celsius plus or minus 1 degree Celsius), which produced predictable global weather patterns. Predictable weather allowed primitive hunter-gatherer communities to use pattern recognition to innovate farming, which produced excess food. Excess food supported increased population growth and provided the surplus used for trade. Trade formed the basis for commerce, development of currency, and the formation of modern civilization. Beginning in the 1800’s with the successful development of the internal combustion engine, fossil fuels became the primary energy source for the new, industrialized global economy.

Fossil fuels, which include coal, natural gas, and oil, emit carbon dioxide (or methane) when burned to create energy. Carbon dioxide and methane are greenhouse gases (GHG) which accumulate in the atmosphere when emitted. GHG in the atmosphere absorb sunlight reflected from the surface of the Earth, holding it in the atmosphere and warming the planet like insulation in a home. Since 1850, approximately 2,400 gigatons of carbon dioxide have accumulated in the atmosphere, which is the most carbon in the atmosphere in over 800,000 years. By 2020, the global average surface temperature had reached 58.8 degrees Fahrenheit (or 14.9 degrees Celsius), which reflects an increase in global average surface temperature since 1850 of 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit (or 1.07 degrees Celsius).

For the first time in 10,000 years, the global average surface temperature exceeded the stable temperature range of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (or 1 degree Celsius).

And to what effect?

Predictable weather patterns started becoming erratic. Since the 1980’s, extreme weather events (defined as events exceeding a billion dollars in damage) have tripled.

In America, attribution science shows temperature rise contributed to the intensity of extreme weather events including Hurricanes Andrew, Katrina, Sandy and Ian, and to the proliferation of wildfires and availability of fresh water in the western states. Biodiversity is collapsing globally as the species extinction rate since 1900 is 1,000 times the historical background rate. Since 1970, 75% of global animal species have gone extinct. Sea level rise is threatening coastal communities as the melting of the Greenland Ice Cap is fast approaching an irreversible tipping point.

The most troubling trend is global average surface temperature is increasing at an increasing rate for two reasons:

1. Global energy use is increasing annual GHG emissions

2. Positive feedback loops such as the melting of the Greenland Ice Cap and carbon saturation of the oceans is accelerating the warming.

It took 170 years (1850 to 2020) to increase global average surface temperature 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit (or 1.07 degrees Celsius), but all future pathways developed by global scientific models indicate it will take less than 20 years to increase global average surface temperature another 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit (37%; or 0.43 degrees Celsius).

Yet there is good news. According to the latest IPCC Climate Mitigation Report, the global transition to a net zero carbon economy while avoiding the worse, irreversible climate related impacts is possible based on current technology. The challenge is harnessing global collaboration to front-load the reduction of GHG emissions by 43% by 2030. With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Law, the United States is investing in a pathway that could reduce economy-wide GHG emissions by 40% by 2030. Much more needs to be done in the area of regulation and the development of international treaties to codify the necessary global collaboration.

Climate change is a global phenomenon that can only be mitigated with the active cooperation of all major stakeholders. This is not a time for winners and losers because the losers have the power and ability to push the global average surface temperature well above 2⁰C. In order to keep global warming from increasing past 1.5⁰C, 33% of known oil reserves, 50% of known natural gas reserves, and 80% of known coal reserves must remain in the ground unused. As the failed global trade ban on Russian oil and natural gas after their attack on Ukraine demonstrates, fossil fuel asset owners will always be able to find a willing buyer. Therefore, to meet the challenge presented by climate change, we must obtain the active cooperation of the global fossil fuel industry. One idea that has been used successfully in the electric utility industry, is to offer stranded asset compensation that allows the fossil fuel industry to transition to renewable energy. By tying current industry subsidies to ending fossil fuel exploration and shifting future investment to renewable energy production and innovation, we will be able to encourage industry cooperation.

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the global transition to a net-zero carbon economy by 2050 is estimated to cost approximately $131 Trillion dollars. Given the concentration of global wealth in developed nations such as the United States, United Kingdom and European Union nations, the global north will necessarily be required to cover most of the cost of the transition. The intense demand of the global south to cover the growing climate related impacts dominated the latest Conference of Parties (COP) where COP 28 President, Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, announced a historic agreement to operationalize the Loss and Damage Fund. The Loss and Damage Fund will assist developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. While the Loss and Damage Fund will help offset the cost of adaptation, mitigation costs tied to leapfrogging the use of fossil fuels to meet the energy needs of developing nations with renewable energy will require a substantial portion of the overall transition costs. The magnitude of the climate related transfer payments will likely break nation-centric budgetary priorities. Further, the absolute need to set aside less important disputes in lieu of the required global cooperation will create the possibility of dramatically reallocating resources from global military budgets to newly formed climate mitigation and adaptation funds.

There are many areas of innovation that will be necessary to successfully complete the global transition to renewable energy in thirty years. Yet the success of the transition will require global distribution of the latest innovations regardless of the capacity to pay. The urgency of the escalating climate-related impacts will therefore break the current business as usual model because unlimited profit seeking, which necessarily creates scarcity, will not be permissible.

The pattern these factors establish is to meet the existential challenges of climate change and natural resource overshoot, humanity must set aside profit seeking and the competition between winners and losers, wealth and poverty, national, regional and cultural distinctions, in order to collaborate for the good of all of us.

Our choice will be increasingly clear: Unite or risk mass extinction.  

¹See https://overshoot.footprintnetwork.org/about-earth-overshoot-day/

²“Degrowth: Vocabulary for a New Era” by Giorgos Kallis, Federico Demaria, and Giacomo D’Alisa

³Per Wikipedia

⁴See ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_FullReport_small.pdf   

⁵See https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_FullReport.pdf

⁶See IPCC_AR6_WGIII_FullReport.pdf

⁷See IPCC_AR6_SYR_SPM.pdf

The first step to solving any problem is recognizing you have one.

What is our problem?

We are experiencing the poly-crisis.

We face a climate crisis where the use of fossil fuels are accelerating the warming of the planet, which is destabilizing the ecology sustaining current life of Earth.

We face an economic crisis where the mass majority of people, even in the wealthiest country on Earth, are struggling to afford essential goods and services.

We face a democratic crisis where the major political parties are so corrupt the super majority of voters have little influence on public policy.

We face a geopolitical crisis where an escalating series of surrogate conflicts are leading inevitably to WWIII.

Are there any solutions?

There are many.

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the use of fossil fuels are causing the accelerating warming of the Earth. A rapid reduction in the use of fossil fuels will keep the warming from causing irreversible, catastrophic climate-related damages. We can achieve a rapid reduction of fossil fuels if we invest in a rapid increase of renewable energy.

The economic crisis is not due to insufficient goods and services in the global economy. The economic crisis is due to the gluttonous hoarding of goods and services by wealthy elites.

The democratic crisis is not due to a lack of voting rights or limited eligibility to run for elected office. The democratic crisis is due to insufficient political participation by the electorate, which empowers wealth to dominate political influence. If the electorate chose to reclaim its sovereignty by prioritizing political participation, political advertising and exclusive name recognition would not be as effective in determining election results.

The geopolitical crisis is due to the military industrial complex’s success in manufacturing consent through the use of prevailing narratives. We can overcome these narratives and reclaim our consent with a sober assessment of the historical facts leading up to each conflict.

The necessary condition for each one of these solutions is Unity.

The only advantage the global population has over the ruling elite is the power of our extreme majority, which can only be harnessed if we Unify.

If each of us reduces our use of fossil fuels as much as we can, we will slow the warming of our planet and force wealthy elites to offer renewable energy alternatives.

If each of us shared our excess resources in our local communities, we would eliminate the suffering from resource deprivation.

If each of us committed an hour a day to learning about our national, state and local politics, money would no longer be able to manipulate us to vote against our own interests.

If each of us challenged the prevailing narrative supporting the latest military conflict, none of us will have to die in another senseless war for the benefit of extreme wealth.

What can be done when we Unify?

We can each participate in the development of a global society that serves all of us.

Network – Howard Beale…

https://youtu.be/MRuS3dxKK9U

Yet the wrong people got mad and we learned the wrong lesson.

Wall Street – Gordon Gekko

And so it is…

The Big Short – Jared Vennett explains Wall Street’s mortgage backed securities con.

Predators eat their own…

Margin Call – John Tuld

And it wasn’t just a movie…

U.S. Senate Hearing – Senator Levin grills Goldman Sachs – 2010

Then the predators blame the prey…

Rick Santelli Rant – 2/19/2009

Comedy becomes the last refuge of truth – Jon Stewart exposes Jim Cramer

But the suffering is real…

Up in the Air – You’re Fired

“Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.”

Joker – 2019

Surely a global pandemic will bring us together…

PBS Newshour – Judy Woodruff

And yet we have a much bigger problem…

Natural Disasters from climate change – December 22 to 25, 2021

https://youtu.be/RoJv1IzPBk8

Will we notice the threat of climate change?

Don’t Look Up – Interview: Leonardo DiCaprio

COP26 is merely the start of our transformation to a 21st century sustainable economy. As it stands now we have non-binding commitments to cut GHG emissions 50% by 2030.

Here is what we need:

Binding commitments to tie net zero transition to a peak global average surface temperature increase of 1.5°C.

Graduated carbon pricing of $100 per ton by 2025, $125 by 2030, and $150 by 2035 & thereafter.

Acknowledgement of the carbon budget from 1850 to peak temperature increase of 1.5°C.

Retroactive carbon price of $50 per ton charged to the wealthy nations who benefitted most from the 2,400 GtCO2 of carbon pollution emitted since 1850. This $120T will initially capitalize the Global Net Zero Transition Fund. Future carbon pricing proceeds will be injected directly into the Fund.

Establish a fossil fuel stranded assets regime that will tie future subsidies and stranded assets compensation to investment in scaling up sustainable energy power generation including new sources such as green hydrogen, and ammonia.

Establish a Leap Frog power generation program for India, China and the emerging world funded by the Global Net Zero Transition Fund. Leap Frog means increasing energy production from carbon-free, sustainable energy sources.

Require all businesses to disclose a decarbonization transition plan tied to the peak temperature increase of 1.5°C and inclusive of 95% of scope 1, scope 2, and scope 3 emissions by 2025 or face 2030 carbon pricing fees.

Establish a global anti-profiteering regime capping Return on Investment for Net Zero Transition activities. We will not succeed if investors can impose economic rents at every stress point.

Can we do it?

Yes…

If enough of us convince the wealthy elites they will not escape the price of inaction.