Can our civilization survive climate change? There’s no short answer to that.
People are strongly motivated to believe that climate change can be overcome, and not only overcome, but overcome in such way that their standard of living is maintained, or even improved. They are also strongly motivated to reject any conclusions regarding climate change that are sad or that imply that their personal behavior will be responsible for a catastrophe.
As a result, it is hard for anyone to talk about climate change realistically. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is the UN group officially tasked with collating official reports on the state of climate science; it has no power to enforce anything. The IPCC’s method for communicating the perils of climate change is to provide a series of hypothetical scenarios; e.g., if we do nothing, outcome A, if we do this, outcome B, if we do that, outcome C. When people read an IPCC report (or the journalism based on it), they are motivated to think, “Oh, OK, it is under control; clearly, we will do option C because that is the good option.” Then, however, no one does option C. They don’t even do option B.
Joe Biden’s most progressive environmental program in history resulted in an increase in US oil production to the highest level in history! Oil is the primary driver of the overall increase in carbon emissions. While the US did manage to decrease emissions by about 2% in 2023 while growing the economy by 2.4%, this is all largely a shell game with emissions being relocated to the “world’s factory” in Asia (and China in particular). Regardless of the details, the reduction in emissions isn’t even enough for the US, specifically, to reach its 2030 goals.
Look at this graph. That’s world CO2 production from 1750 to 2022. You’ll notice that production is leveling off (almost entirely due to natural demographic processes rather than something purposeful), but at a very, very high level of emissions. Scientists first figured out the relationship between CO2 and climate in 1896. Look at that graph again and the level of CO2 in 1896. As things got worse, scientists became more and more alarmed, including scientists working for major oil companies. In the 1980’s, they started to get a bit panicked. Look at that graph again. My point is that we are far, far beyond the “bad level” of CO2.
In fact, if you read the IPCC reports, they actually suggest that our net carbon emissions must drop to net zero emissions by 2050 or our civilization will not continue. Look at that graph again. That would mean that emissions would have to drop to the 1750 level by 2050.
The word “net” does offer a possibility, though. We could remove CO2 from the atmosphere to get to that net carbon level. However, the scale of the problem is too great for the available technology to adequately address it. In the US, there are currently 15 carbon sequestration projects, but they only capture 0.4% of US emissions. Since the US de-industrialized (sending its production capacity overseas), we really need to look at the total CO2 sequestered globally — or at the very least in China, which is now the world’s factory (because they successfully seized the means of production). Globally, we are currently sequestering 2 billion tons of carbon annually out of 35 billion tons produced. Sequestering enough carbon to solve the problem this way is simply not feasible. Part of the problem is that carbon sequestration technology produces more carbon emissions.
Let’s imagine that we are able to sequester half of global carbon emissions. That’s unlikely, but our civilization would still be ended by climate change under these circumstances. We need to reduce our energy use dramatically (look at the chart again) to get to net zero and save our civilization. This is a problem because our civilization is based on a form of capitalism that requires constant growth (otherwise, you’ll have a recession, then a depression, then a collapse). Capitalism just means a class of people owns the equipment required for mass production of goods, but in our version of capitalism, there is a sub-class of capitalists called “bankers”. Bankers make loans with interest, and the other capitalists want to pay off the loans but also make a profit. This is essentially how our society decides what projects go forward; the bankers decide by making loans. For this process to work (and not collapse), the economy must perpetually grow.
The good news is that everything bankers do can be done with democratic allocation of resources instead. The bad news is that what I just described is socialism — and honestly, pretty close to communism. While getting rid of bankers would solve a lot of unrelated problems with society, the people and nations who are effectively in control of this situation will not allow the banking system to be traded for a socialist economy even if the capitalist class were allowed to continue to exist. Therefore, getting rid of the banking system would require a violent revolution (which would also get rid of capitalism).
Let’s say that we had a successful violent revolution, so we’ve replaced the global banking system (and capitalism) with a socialist system that democratically allocates resources instead of letting capitalists and bankers make those decisions. Let’s also say we have succeeded in sequestering half of global carbon emissions as well. Does that solve the problem? No. We would need further changes, such as:
- Near elimination of compressor-based air conditioning
- Near elimination of air travel
- Localization of food production
- Drastic reduction in international shipping (and trade)
- Drastic reduction in volume of consumer products produced
- Drastic reduction in volume of energy-consuming consumer products in use
- Relocation of people living in environmentally absurd locations (e.g., Las Vegas)
- Drastic reduction in meat consumption
Maybe all of those would not be required. Pick half. You see the problem, though, right?
Unless things are in horrible shape already, we aren’t going to do what is necessary. As far as I can tell, we aren’t even going to take power away from the global banking system. Once things are in horrible shape, it is too late because there is up to a 30-year lag between when we take action and when the full impact of released carbon takes place.
I do, however, think it is possible to make it through this and I don’t think we should give up.
There’s a scifi story by Isaac Asmiov (contained in the book “I, Robot”) called “Escape!”) where scientists ask the world’s smartest supercomputer to design a hyperspatial drive (spoilers ahead). The computer is constrained by Asimov’s laws of robotics, which includes preventing the computer from harming a human being. The robot produces a hyperspatial ship and presents it to the humans, but it is clearly some kind of weird practical joke in that there are no controls in the ship and the computer refuses to explain it. Well, the thing works just fine, but it turns out that the crew of the ship ceases to exist for a moment during the hyperspatial jump. It’s OK — it’s only for a moment.
The question we’re facing is: Can our civilization survive climate change?
The answer is yes. But also no.
This civilization, as it is, cannot survive climate change. The civilization that can survive climate change is very different from what we have now. Perhaps there’s a way to allow the current civilization to blink out of existence for a moment, and something new to take its place. The key might be in working class people deciding that, rather than trying to burn everything down, they’re just going to start doing things the right way. It’s entirely possible to simply ignore the bankers, capitalists and their political lackeys and just work things out with each other directly. This change is by no means inevitable, but if we don’t make that change, there will be no technologically-advanced human society going forward.