Cataclyst

This is still a work in progress.

Updated 3/2009 Posted 1/2010

This is a research supported version of my manifesto. Readers of previous versions will note clarification of some hazy points. In this current permutation, I have compiled it from four parts into one cohesive essay.

“The human prospect is not an irrevocable death sentence. It is not an inevitable doomsday toward which we are headed, although the risk of enormous catastrophe exists. The prospect is better viewed as a formidable array of challenges that must be overcome before human survival is assured, before we can move beyond doomsday. These challenges can be overcome by the saving intervention of nature if not by the wisdom and foresight of man. The death sentence is therefore better viewed as a contingent life sentence — one that will permit the continuance of human society, but only on a basis very different from that of the present, and probably only after much suffering during the period of transition. (164)… In other words, if we don’t discipline ourselves nature will do it for us. Either way, what doesn’t kill everybody makes the survivors stronger, to place Heilbroner’s views in their properly Nietzchean philosophical climate. ” (McMurry pp.22-23)

Andrew McMurry wrote this 13 years ago, unfortunately, his words were not headed, and now his idea of a contingent life sentence is almost a moot point. The sad truth is that the collective we, on a global scale, have done nothing to stop or even limit our catastrophic impact on the earth. We have not disciplined ourselves. When the Cuyahoga River caught fire, in 1969, It was merely an poetic omen of things to come. A truly pure example of just how badly we poison the earth, and just how unaware of it we are. The world as we know it, is going to come to an end in my children’s lifetime. Not a religious apocalypse; complete with horsemen and hell on earth, but a simple, clean, swift obliteration of most all humans on the planet. In 1000 years from now, when the earth reaches it’s peak climate shift, human life will literally be impossible on the entire face of the earth, and so will be the end of this age of man. The problem is that no one is interested in preparing for it, and the preparations that are being made are at best a joke, a slap in the face of Mother Nature, who is ready to crush humanity at her whim.

“Bill Gates Kennedy understands the importance of scale when it comes to thinking about human history, which in turn suggests the need to consider whether we are justified in thinking our past success in overcoming adversity provides any sort of basis for bechallenges that now confront us… In fact, it is precisely the absence of any point to our history that makes this apocalypse unreadable except as an accretion of systemically deleterious effects which, incredibly, have become indistinguishable from progress.”(McMurry pp9)

Human society’s engagement with ‘progress’ is the primary cause of climate shift. It is an inability for satisfaction that has been seeded into our species for generations. Essentially we became too apt for our environment to support us, Homo sapiens were able to use the world faster than any other species, and only now has this parasitic behavior caught up with us. Power structures will not change until their collapse, ruthlessness is inherent, and therefore the apocalypse is likened to a slow moving tortoise (McMurry). The magnitude of the damage is irreparable. So much so, that it is ingrained through centuries of evolution. To collectively combine efforts to remedy a catastrophe of this magnitude, and in this disguise, is implausible.

“Who says the human presence on this earth was ever sustainable? Why do we continue to believe so strongly in our competency to manage the risks we compound daily? Where is this secret heart of history we trust has been beating? What precisely leads us to believe our world is not perishing? Why isn’t this the Apocalypse? “(McMurry pp26)

The truth about Global warming, is that it is very real. The World Watch institute, for the past 26 years has put out a ‘State of the World’ report. The 2009 report was entitled ‘Into a Warming World” The World Watch Institute, is a very reputable source, and they have made it very clear that a climate shift is underway. It is their responsibility to both terrorize and incite hope. But when you juxtapose the solutions with the problems, it is simple to see that expecting the worst is not pessimistic but realistic.

“”The latest climate models indicate particular veulnerability in the dry tropics, where the food supplies for hundreds of millions of people will be undermined by climate change, Hundreds of millions more who live in the vast asian mega deltas will be at risk from rising sea levels and increased storm intensity. Health threats from malaria, cholera, and other diseases that are likely to flourish in a warmer world will add to the burdens facing the worlds poor. The fact that many of the 1.4 billion people who now live in severe poverty already face serious ecological debts- in water, soil and, forests- will exacerbate the new problems presented by climate change.” (State of the World 2009 pp8)

Changes in temperature will impact food production, temperature changes also exacerbate the delicate weather system on earth, and this in turn has an effect on the severity of natural disasters. The rising temperature also has a direct impact on the melting of glacial ice at the polar caps of the earth.

“Urban residents are vulnerable to a wide range of climate change impacts. Changes in temperature may worsen air quality and increase energy demands for heating or cooling, changes in precipitation will increase the risk of flooding and landslides, and sea level rise will lead to coastal flooding and the salinization of water sources. More-frequent and more-intense extreme events—such as tropical cyclones, drought, and heat waves—will also affect human health and well-being. In addition, there will be changes in the types of threats cities are exposed to as people move away from stressed rural habitats and as biological changes mean disease carriers can survive in a wider area. “(State of the World 2009 pp160)

The Institute for Mechanical Engineers have also come out with an interesting report, in which they have analyzed a weather model, and then thought of possible solutions to a changing climate. While their solutions are somewhat interesting, the harrowing truth is that the climate model analysis is far more gripping than their over-engineered solutions.
“The modelling techniques used for this report predict that by 2050 the world’s temperature will have increased by, on average, 2°C relative to the pre-industrial climate. This is considered to be the maximum temperature increase we can allow before catastrophic and irreversible climate changes begin to occur. The model furthers these predictions, demonstrating that even with significant global commitment to avert climate change, it could take many centuries before we can stabilise average temperatures – and that could be at up to 8°C above pre-industrial levels.” (IME pp5)

The IME report goes on to discuss three specific geographical locations, because of their diversity from each other. The analysis is compelling.

“This temperature increase will have global consequences, with nearly all regions experiencing their own particular climate-related challenges. This report examines climate change predictions for three geographical regions (UK, Shanghai in China and Botswana), chosen for their differing maritime, monsoonal and continental climates, and different stages of economic development.
The principal challenge for the UK will come from increased risks of flooding, resulting from a rise in sea levels and an overall wetter climate, summer droughts affecting water supplies, and high temperatures in urban areas during the summer months. It should also be noted that an 8°C worldwide average rise in temperature translates to a 7°C to 13°C rise in the UK.
Shanghai, located on the Yangtze river delta, will be particularly affected by flooding issues, from both rising sea levels and an intensification of the monsoonal rains. Here an 8°C global rise is equivalent to a much larger 10°C to 12°C rise in this region.
Botswana will be particularly affected by rising temperatures, made worse by the effects from increased urbanization in this region. Furthermore, implications for Botswana are made more severe by the fact that, as a developing economy, there may be less emphasis on climate change adaptation in deference to more immediate social and economic issues. Moreover, the 8°C global temperature rise could result in a 10°C to 15°C rise in Botswana.” (IME pp5)

While words may strike fear, in their delivery, and their strength, It is my belief that the numbers are much more devastating than words can describe.

“It begins in the year 2000 with CO2 emissions of 7GtC per year, which then increase at the current average rate for the last 25 years of 1.9% per year. Emissions continue to increase at this rate until 2050, when effective global mitigation is assumed to begin. We argue that this would be provoked by reaching 2°C global warming in the 2040s, causing “dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system” including the passing of some climate tipping points… 2000–2100 Atmospheric CO2 reaches double the pre-industrial level (560ppmv) in 2050 and global warming exceeds 2°C above the pre-industrial in the 2040s. Consequently some tipping points may be passed by mid-century7. In 2100, emissions reach their peak of 28.9GtC per year, atmospheric CO 2 has exceeded 1000 ppmv and global warming is 4.4°C above pre-industrial or 3.4°C above our present temperature levels (this is in the middle of the range given by the IPCC for its A2 scenario4). Thermal expansion of the ocean is estimated to contribute a 0.31m to sea level rise, and melting of the Greenland ice sheet 0.19m, giving a total of 0.5m (or 0.45m since the late 20th century) at the upper end of the IPCC A2 scenario range4. This is likely to be an underestimate because the melting of smaller inland ice caps has been excluded. 2100–2200 By the end of the first decade of the 22nd century, emissions are declining, but atmospheric CO2 has reached four times the pre-industrial level (1120ppmv) and is still rising. Global temperature is changing at its most rapid rate of 0.46°C per decade, and shortly after, in the 2110s, global warming reaches 5°C above pre-industrial levels. As the 22nd century progresses, the global temperature continues to rise but at an ever decreasing rate. Average temperatures pass 6°C above pre-industrial levels in 2140 and 7°C in 2180. By the year 2200 the temperature is increasing more slowly (0.14°C per decade) than at present (0.17°C per decade). Sea level rise is projected to be greater in the 22nd century than in the 21st, due to ongoing melt of the Greenland ice sheet. It reaches 1.42m in 2200 and is rising at an almost constant rate of 0.09m per decade. 2200–3000 Atmospheric CO2 peaks in 2250 at 1780ppmv, by which time mitigation activity and dwindling fossil-fuel reserves have caused emissions to fall to 2.5GtC/year, about a quarter of their value today. By this time, 4364GtC (equivalent to 2050ppmv) have been added to the atmosphere by human activities and an additional 3195GtC (1500ppmv) are present there. The ocean has taken up about 1200GtC but the land has become a source of about 200GtC – mostly from soils. The combination of a weakening of the ocean carbon sink, due to a change in the deep overturning circulation of the Atlantic, and the switch of the land from a carbon sink to a carbon source, contributes to the high peak in CO 2 and global warming. In 2250, global warming is 7.75°C above pre- industrial levels and the temperature increases slowed to 0.06°C per decade. Temperature continues to rise because the ocean is still slowly heating and there are ongoing positive feedbacks in the climate system, including the loss of sea-ice and land snow cover. By the year 3000, atmospheric CO2 has dropped to 1430ppmv thanks to the uptake of an additional 940GtC by the ocean. However, global temperature has cooled only slightly, having peaked above 8°C, and is still 7.75°C above pre-industrial levels. Sea levels have risen by more than 7.3m and there is little left of the Greenland ice sheet, which is still melting. The Atlantic overturning circulation remains fundamentally altered.”((IME pp5)

What becomes of humanity is up to us. Do we chose to ignore these implications altogether? Should we continue our fruitless efforts to cut back on emissions, to recycle, and press on with the ‘Green Revolution’ or in my terms, far too little far too late? Or is it necessary to completely obliterate the world as we know it, to re vamp the way we build, the way we survive, and the way we live, and re-focus all of our efforts on survival, rather than fixing the unfixable?

I choose the latter, and Pensive I take up this argument, one may read this as my madness and not see the deep love I feel for us all. Shame I feel for our sins upon each other in the name of each other, in the name of our mother earth, who’s teat we have sucked so dry it no longer produces milk, but putrid acid slowly dissolving life as we have and will ever know it. Billions of us will die,, will simply no longer be able to survive. Those of us who do will adapt another perspective, another concept of what it is to be a human being. We will evolve mentally, spiritually, and by any means necessary physically, to suit our new world. We will come to realize that we are not in control of the earth, and never were. For what makes you can destroy you. We were made by earth, and the earth can destroy us.
A day will come when the sea will rise, the currents will change, and the storms will come. Earth will be rocked with forces unfathomable compared to the history of recorded meteorology. Our Global Society will undergo crisis. Most all countries will be catapulted back centuries. It will be an end to modern civilized life, as we know it. Our collective knowledge will be reprioritized based on necessity and survival. Finally, through near extinction, humans will transcend material life, and slowly reestablish a unified communal society based on interdependence and mutual proliferation. With the breakdown of most all communication systems, mass medial will be powerless to fight the effects of catastrophe. With no solace to be found on television, radio or periodicals, revolutionaries, evangelists, and other soothsayers, will profess the way from street corners, in betwixt the masses begging for scraps of food.

A monarch will rise, but not in the traditional sense. For in a world devoid of resources, exploitation will not go uncontested, but will be policed with brutal murder. No tolerance for greed, no tolerance for economic hierarchy will sustain. Murder will be rampant, and will go unpunished. The life of one loses meaning, after the death of billions. The strong will survive, the weak and lazy will die. A nomadic ‘utopia’ will be established. Traveling to find resource in an obliterated, overheated earth will prove difficult, but slowly, fertility will be found or created. We will reestablish our existence on this planet, but for the first time will not be the dominant species. The insect will begin its reign on earth, dominating most of the surface, and resources. It will be the last age of the human being… That is, if we do not prepare.

Presently, human kind is wasting its intelligence, technology and resources on a life of excess and false value. The power we allow ‘government’ to assume is far beyond a space of comfort. The ruling world powers have nothing but the short term in mind, with the boorish belief that the future is within human control. We need to know that what power makes the world spin is far stronger than what makes it go around. The strength of the world economy cannot bear the load of natures inevitable snap. This priority of façade over skeleton is simply a foreshadowing of our demise.
No longer are the problems of the past relevant to the future. With history for a guide, we will surely navigate into the abyss. Yet the powers that be maintain that the cycle will stand. Blind to the larger cycle, that of the earth which dominates the micro-cycle that is human history. At our ‘progressive’ rate, there can be no stopping the growth of human power, they would like you to believe. Yet humans are empowered at their core by a precious delicate balance of elements conducive to their existence. No matter how potent a force, everything has weakness. There is a fine line between unnoticeable and genocidal, and we are walking it without a glance at how close we are to the edge

A collective realization needs to come. We have an inability to fight the inevitable. Humans, parasitically have acted without repercussion on the earth. Poisoning without maintaining vital statistics. Destroying without knowing how to rebuild. In recent developments, we have come to understand just how badly we have destroyed the earth. But once again façade has dominated understructure, and this new information is being wasted on efforts of conservation and efforts to “save earth”. This idea is even more backward than the carelessness that brought about the trouble in the first place. The earth, no matter what we as humans do to it will be fine. It is simply our ability to live on the planet that will change. By reducing pollution we are not saving the planet, or even ourselves, but rather wasting what little time we have to prepare for the planet to change. We cannot affect the inevitable shift of the planet at this point. No more than a match will affect a five-alarm blaze. The blaze will rage on weather another match is lit or not. The way to extinguish fire is not to stop throwing matches at it, but to use intelligence and try to put it out. We need to accept that limiting pollution will not save us, but predicting what its affects will be, and preparing for them might.
“A report prepared for the meeting warns of “structural” problems in world food markets that risk war and famine – unless food output is doubled in 20 years.”(Castelfranco 2009)

This is an excerpt from a report to the G8 Summit in 2009. Now, looking back on the climate analysis, how exactly would a doubling of food output take place in the next 20 years? Should we then expect the war and famine?
All over the world in developed and developing nations we face a water crisis. It has been said that the wars of the next century will be over water. Drought and toxification of the oceans caused by global warming will only increase this impact. Not only drinking water is affected, as the climate change develops, the delicate ecosystem of entire continents can be disrupted, destroying any hope for agriculture, as we know it. (Berry 2008). And what about natural disaster, what if not one major disasters happened in one year, but two, or even three. Take a look at analysis to the response to an event like Hurricane Katrina.
“…In the wake of Hurricane Katrina. More alarm than insight was raised (Tierney 2006a), and some emergency responders, frustrated by repetitious mistakes in disaster management, point out that even “a casual observer can spot problems that recur: communications systems fail, command and control structures are fractured, resources are slow to be deployed.” (Donahue and Tuohy 2006:1) Disaster management professionals working on post-tsunami reconstruction in Aceh and Sri Lanka (Kennedy et al. 2008:34) are also critical in noting a cycle of “lessons learned about ‘lessons learned’” because their own insights “mirror many of the lessons identified – but not necessarily learned and applied – in other transitional settlement and shelter cases.” (Stewart pp1116)

“During Hurricane Katrina, a problematic individualism was writ large because the state was deemed to have failed, as people fended for themselves. One local newspaper even declared: “Every Man for
Himself.” (Tampa Tribune cited in Menzel 2006:812) In contrast to the reports of late and inadequate rescue and recovery operations, are the revelations of overly officious, zealous responses.”(Stewart pp1122)

“How many lives were lost in New Orleans while rescue workers sought to put down looting? How much resident-to-resident helping behavior was prevented or suppressed because people were afraid to venture out to help their neighbors out of fear of being killed or arrested?” (2006a:20) “(Stewart pp1123)

“In the aftermath of Katrina, for example, Erikson (2007:xx) stresses how “virtually everything that followed was a product of human hands or human imaginations.” With the tsunami, Clark discusses vulnerability specifically in terms of “our all-too-humanness,” side-stepping nature except for its impact on people: “What is being passed over … is not simply ‘nature’ – which is often well understood and deeply assimilated into struggles. But it does include some of the things that natural forces can do: what they can do, in particular, to soft and fragile bodies.” (2007:1132) “(Stewart pp1125)

“According to others (Clinton 2006; Kennedy et al. 2008), environmental security and safety have been compromised because the “build back better” motto of aid organizations soon became one of “build back faster.” As a result, urban sprawl, inadequate planning, resource- exploitation and environmental degradation have worsened. This landscape is now not only less resilient than before but also more exposed to natural hazards and possible disaster.6 “(Stewart pp1127)

“But a post-social understanding will perhaps incorporate the physical and human environments as always already interwoven, and to better effect, by engendering a respect for the agency and power of nonhuman nature. While acknowledging our constitutive presence in the landscape we then might also make more of the fact that we cannot always know it all. “(Stewart pp1131)

Our current efforts are directed toward concepts so meaningless in the grand scheme, a true reallocation of our collective action must be instated. The following ten points will be necessary for the human race to sustain the possibility of future.

I. Socialization of the global economy under true democratic fashion. With a government of the people in a sense that every person has an equal share of power and must exercise it on a daily basis. And for the people, in the sense that it will be dissolved when collectively agreed upon.

II. A system of no laws based on the belief that all men are good but are corrupt by alienation from institution. Institutions that will be dissolved in the socialization of the economy and society.

III. A collective concentration on development of technologies that will prepare for the fate of the environment. Focus on discovering the impending effects of global warming, and preparing for them at all costs.

IV. A global redistribution of wealth through transparent government agencies to the people on the basis of need and need alone, to be allocated in the form of goods and services. Effectively transcending capitalism, money, and the inherent effects of their alienation.

V. Deletion of all individual records.

VI. A disbanding of all military agencies globally, encompassing the removal of all alienating forces, including police, security and surveillance.

VII. A permanent suspension of all unnecessary production. Competition replaced with necessary quality goods and services essential to existence.

VIII. Formulation of agencies millions strong dedicated to the research and development of survival in the changing environment. Above all else, survival of the race into the future is priority.

IX. Establishment of transparent media agencies responsible for bringing information to the collective foreground

X. The final stage, post the anticipated cataclysm will be a global utopia dedicated to the flourishing of the human mind, in a society void of alienation, and true suffering.

The Great Storm of November 26–27, 1703, that struck Southern England and Wales took place in a time when the climate was just 1 degree centigrade cooler than now. Robert Markley’s article analyses Daniel Defoe’s 1704 text The Storm, a compilation of reports of damage from across England that Defoe put together with his own experience of the disaster. This storm took place in what was known as the little ice age from 1300 to 1850, where the temperature was approximately one degree centigrade cooler. These accounts of the incredible storm can give a bit of insight into just how severe weather can be, far beyond the likes of contemporary recorded meteorological history.
“The reconstruction of past conditions through proxy data, such as tree rings, ice cores, and the chemical composition of sediments in bogs, allows climatologists to model past temperature and rainfall differentials and to offer reliable predictions about future climate change.6 In its 2003 retrospective report on the damage done by the 1703 storm, Risk Management Solutions© projects what would happen if an equally powerful wind-storm struck present-day England: extrapolating from the death tolls and property damage that Defoe reports, the authors estimate that as many as two hundred people might die and property losses (figured in 2003 dollars) could exceed £10 billion (6)… Drawing comparisons to the wind speeds of 225 mph recorded in the jet stream during the Christmas Day storm that hit Paris in 1999, the report suggests that a massive low-pressure area centered northeast of Scotland created a deep and swift-moving daughter depression. Buffered by a ridge of high pressure over France, the storm struck the coast of Wales at 3 a.m., London at 6 a.m., and Copenhagen at 11 a.m. on the morning of November 27. Estimating wind speeds from the damages done to chimneys, church steeples, and roofs, the authors of the report suggest that winds reached 110 mph across a twenty-mile wide band of southern England, and exceeded 90 mph across a band 150 miles wide. This “windfield footprint” dwarfs those measured during the storms of 1987 and 1999 that followed similar tracks across northwestern Europe;”(Markley pp105-106)

Nichole Fifer published a review of three recent volumes that discuss aspects of the climate change debate and the policy actions that have resulted in both the do- mestic and international arenas. (Fifer) In which she discusses the Kyoto protocol and how post Kyoto agreements in 2013 would need to be more inventive and impactful. A thread through these three books on climate change is definitely the global impact. The authors note that everyone is at risk, yet they remain hopeful in a call to action. Personally I find no hope for such a drastic change in behavior. Whatever we do will be too little too late.
“Although developing countries are certainly at risk of absorbing the majority of the negative environmental and economic effects of global climate change, these outcomes and their scale are still largely uncertain. The great uncertainty that lies ahead in terms of the effects of climate change, the effective- ness of Kyoto, and where we will turn post-2012 for policy formulation, is an underlying theme in all three volumes, and certainly most works on climate change.”(Fifer pp145)

Your life, and the life of your children, and most certainly your children’s children is going to be nothing like any age we have known as a society. The world and by that I mean nature, is going to take back what we have borrowed, and rescind the life provided, and all humanity can do, is predict and prepare. I do not have all of the answers, I merely have suggestions, I just hope you will head my warning, and pay attention to the cold hard facts I have presented to develop your own argument. Do you believe we have a chance?

REFERENCE LIST:

Beyond the Crisis?: Moving Water and People away from the Margins    (1)

Berry, K., A. (2008). “Beyond the Crisis?: Moving Water and People away from the Margins.” Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers 70: 14-27.

Casualties and Disasters”: Defoe and the Interpretation of Climatic Instability    (1)

Markley, R. (2008). “”Casualties and Disasters”: Defoe and the Interpretation of Climatic Instability.” Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 8(2): 102-124.

Climate Change Adapting To The Inevitable?    (1)

IME (2009). Climate Change Adapting To The Inevitable?, Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Climate Change, International Interests and the Future    (1)

Fifer, N. M. (2008). “Climate Change, International Interests and the Future.” Global Environmental Politics 8(4): 141-145.

G8 Agriculture Ministers Try to Avert World Food Crisis    (1)

Castelfranco, S. (2009) G8 Agriculture Ministers Try to Avert World Food Crisis. VOA News.com

Rethinking the Nature of Disaster: From Failed Instruments of Learning to a Post-Social Understanding    (1)

Stewart, W. (2008). “Rethinking the Nature of Disaster: From Failed Instruments of Learning to a Post-Social Understanding.” Social Forces 87(2): 1115-1138.

State of The World 2009: Into a Warming World    (1)

Christopher Flavin and Robert Engelman David Dodman, J. A., and Saleemul Huq (2009). State of The World 2009: Into a Warming World. Into a Warming World. T. W. Institute. Washington D.C., The Worldwatch Institute. 26.

The Slow Apocalypse: A Gradualistic Theory of the World’s Demise    (1)

McMurry, A. (1996). “The Slow Apocalypse: A Gradualistic Theory of the World’s Demise.” Postmodern Culture 6(3): p.