Making Sense of the Latest IPCC Report (2023)

–Kim Scipes

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), a UN agency with climatologists from over 70 counties included) has just come out with a new report about climate change.  (Available at https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/.)  The news is not good.

Basically, their arguments have gotten more refined, more specific:  climate change is impacting humans, animals, and plants to a greater and greater extent, things are getting worse, and its impact will escalate the longer we hesitate to take resolute steps to address it.

The IPCC is making several points:  the Earth’s temperature is rising and, with each increased increment, things are getting worse; moving forward, without major changes this decade, they will get exponentially worse.  That’s my way of transmitting “scientese” into understandable English.

A few words before continuing:  this “Synthesis Report of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report:  Summary for Policy Makers” (March 19, 2023) is an effort to synthesize findings from a number of groups of scientists working together, each which focuses on a particular area (energy, biodiversity, etc.), and to present them to policymakers, many who have PhDs, often in the physical sciences (physics, chemistry, biology) and related fields.  This is not written for the general public, but it needs to be shared in ways that other educated people and interested lay persons can understand; hence, this article by a PhD in Sociology who recognizes the importance of sharing technical writing far beyond the scientific community.

The report is broken into three sections:  after the introduction, it discusses current status and trends; future climate change, risks, and long-term responses; and responses in the near term (meaning up to 2040).  In this article, I focus primarily on current status and trends, and following this report, do not discuss many of the changes taking place; I focus on some of the changes I believe are most salient.

In the introduction, they write:  “This report recognizes the interdependence of climate, ecosystems and biodiversity, and human systems….”  (All quotes included, unless otherwise identified, are from the report and are italicized herein to draw attention to their specific wording; all temperatures provide use the Celsius scale, not Fahrenheit.)

In the report, they present findings from a wide-range of research, recognizing a range of possibilities; they give a median or mid-range (half of the scores are above and half below) result, with a very likely range between 5-95 percent of findings; this conveys the most likely range of 90% of the findings (pretty much guaranteeing the accuracy of the findings.)  Reporting median findings is the best way to represent a range of numerical results; much more representative than averages.

Current Status and Trends

“Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gasses, have unequivocally caused global warming, with global surface temperatures reaching 1.1 degree Celsius above 1850-1900 in 2011-2020.”

What this says, should it not be clear, is that human beings have caused the Earth’s surface temperature to rise—not natural processes—through emitting greenhouse gasses, which include carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (NO_x), and fluorinated gasses, with the first two being the most harmful.  And we know the extent of this increase; compared to the median temperature from between the years 1850-1900, the median temperature between 2011 and 2020 was 1.1 degree Celsius higher.  (The years 1850-1900 were chosen to represent “pre-industrial” civilization as this was the first period where climate records were generally kept globally, and industrialization was confined to only a few countries.)

This gives us a more stable period of comparison:  median temperature across a 50-year period, instead of just the usual single years of 1750 (beginning of the industrial revolution) or 1880 (when detailed records began being compiled).  Thus, we can be more confident of reported increases/decreases in the future.

Accordingly, we know that 58% of the approximate 2400 Giga-tons of carbon dioxide and equivalents emitted by humans into the atmosphere—a gigaton is equivalent to one billion metric tons or 2.2 trillion  pounds; see NASA’s web site regarding equivalent measurements at https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2933/visualizing-the-quantities-of-climate-change/ –were emitted between 1850 and 1989 (139 years), while the other 42% were emitted between 1990-2019 , roughly a 30-year period.  This shows that the annual rate of emissions is increasing faster in the second period than in the initial one.

The report continues, discussing very tiny amounts that have such a huge impact on atmospheric and ultimately planetary conditions:  “In 2019, atmospheric CO₂ concentrations (410 parts per million) were higher than any time in a least 2 million years (high confidence) and concentration of methane (1866 parts per billion) and nitrous oxide (333 parts per billion) were higher than any time in at least 800,000 years (very high confidence).”  It should be noted that in February 2023, according to NASA, the atmospheric CO₂ level was 420 parts per million.  (For a visual representation of the last 800,000 years of CO₂ emissions—none which exceeded 300 parts per million until roughly 1950—see https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence.)

[These “confidence terms” are based on the type, amount, quality and consistency of evidence:  very high confidence means 9 out of 10 chances of being correct; high confidence means 8 out of 10 chances of being correct; and medium confidence means about 5 out of 10 chances.  See Sophie Lewis and Allie Gallant, “Lost in Translation:  Confidence and Certainty in Climate Science” at Lost in translation: confidence and certainty in climate science (theconversation.com), August 22, 2013.)

This is important.  As carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere, the more it attacks the very atmosphere that protects the Earth from the Sun’s rays.  In other words, as I put it in a previous article, “the essential relationship is the more greenhouse gases released, the more damage to the atmosphere, leading to more warming and many related problems.” (“Climate Change is Real and It’s Happening Now,” at https://www.pnw.edu/faculty/kim-scipes-ph-d/publications/climate-change-publication/ under “Basic Understandings of Climate Change.”)

We can see some of the impacts of this.  Consider sea levels.  Sea levels have been rising around the globe, and the rate of increase has been accelerating.  Between 1901 and 1970, the average sea level rise was 1.3 millimeters (mm) per year.  Between 1971 and 2006, it rose 1.9 mm a year.  Yet, between 2006 and 2018, it rose 3.7 mm per year.

So what?  Well, when you consider the large numbers of cities around the world that are on the coasts of oceans—Tokyo, Yokohama (Japan), Shanghai, Hong Kong (China), Haiphong and Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), Manila (Philippines), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Jakarta (Indonesia), Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney (Australia), Kolkata and Mumbai (India), Durban and Cape Town (South Africa), Alexandria (Egypt), Athens (Greece), Naples, Rome, Genoa and Turin (Italy), Marseilles (France), Barcelona (Spain), Lisbon (Portugal), London, Liverpool and Glasgow (United Kingdom), Antwerp (Belgium), Rotterdam and Amsterdam (Netherlands), Stockholm (Sweden) all come to mind, and then you get to Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Newport News, Savannah, Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa, Mobile, New Orleans, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle for a few in the US—then you are talking hundreds of millions of people who are at increasing risk from sea level rises.  And then when we recognize that most coastal cities have major infrastructures—sanitation, transportation, electricity—below street level, then you can see that rising oceans threaten the well-being of people before rising to street level.

And will people in these areas sit there passively as the water rises and drown, or will they migrate inland to higher ground?  And where will they go, and will there be jobs and food and housing for them in their new locations…?

The report argues that globally “approximately 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change.”  That’s almost one out of every two people on the planet!

Further, “Increasing weather and climate extreme events have exposed millions of people to acute food insecurity and reduced water insecurity, with the largest adverse impacts observed in many locations and/or communities in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, [Less Developed Countries], Small Islands and the Arctic, and globally for Indigenous Peoples, small-scale food producers and low-income households.”  Altogether, “Between 2010 and 2020, human mortality from floods, droughts and storms was 15 times higher in highly vulnerable regions, compared to regions with very low vulnerability.”  

But this damage extends beyond human beings. “Climate change has caused substantial damages, and increasingly irreversible losses, in terrestrial, freshwater, cryospheric, and coastal and open ocean ecosystems” (emphasis added).  We humans are killing the physical environment on which human survival depends.

Yet the physical environment is not the only victim; humans are especially susceptible to extreme heat events:

In all regions, increases in extreme heat events have resulted in human mortality and morbidity (very high confidence).  The occurrence of climate-related food-borne and water-borne diseases (very high confidence) and the incidence of vector-borne diseases (high confidence) have increased.  In assessed regions, some mental health challenges are associated with increasing temperatures (high confidence), trauma from extreme events (very high confidence), and loss of livelihoods and culture (high confidence).  Climate and weather extremes are increasingly driving displacement in Africa, Asia, North America (high confidence), and Central and South America (medium confidence), with small island states in the Caribbean and South Pacific being disproportionately affected relative to their small population size (high confidence).

And this is not just limited to isolated cases:

In urban areas, observed climate change has caused adverse impacts on human health, livelihoods and key infrastructures.  Hot extremes have intensified in cities.  Urban infrastructure, including transportation, water, sanitation and energy systems have been compromised by extreme and slow-onset events, with resulting economic losses, disruptions of services and negative impacts to well-being.  Observed adverse impacts are concentrated amongst economically and socially marginalized urban residents (high confidence).

While there are obviously other cases, Super Storm Sandy’s assault on New York City during 2012 shows unequivocally that urban areas are at serious risk, and it is people of color and the poor of all colors who are particularly at risk.

To sum up:  “Adverse impacts from human-caused climate change will continue to intensify,” with widespread and substantial impacts and related losses and damages attributed to climate change having been observed, and that impacts are driven by changes in multiple, physical climate conditions that have been caused by human behaviors.

And those physical climate conditions have primarily been by emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.  As we continue to do that, we are hastening the risk to human, animal, and most plants’ survival on this planet.

Now, admittedly, there have been significant efforts in some areas and localities to address the problems of climate change; these are referred to “adaptation” and “mitigation.”  Adaptation to climate change has resulted in “at least 170 countries and many cities including adaptation in their climate policies and planning processes (high confidence).”  However, “Most observed adaptation responses are fragmented, incremental, sector-specific, and unequally distributed across regions … with the largest adaptation gaps among lower income groups (high confidence).”

Key barriers to adaptation are limited resources, lack of private sector and citizen involvement, insufficient mobilization of finance (including for research), low climate literacy, lack of political commitment, limited research and/or slow and low-uptake of adaptation science, and low sense of urgency (emphasis added).

Mitigation, on the other hand, refers to efforts to mitigate the impact of climate change, such as building sea walls to respond to sea level rise.  Many of these efforts are basically stop-gap measures that suggest that our political leaders are responding to the problem when they really are not.

The issue, going forward, is how do we respond?  The crisis is real and getting worse.  What are we going to do about it?

Future Climate Change, Risks, and Long-term Responses

There are a number of choices in how we respond that humans collectively can take; we have the power to choose how we go forward. 

Now, in reality, without broad, widespread, and continued mobilization that is based on solid organization and determined actions, these decisions will be made by people who have political and economic power in our world; and their collective interests are not to help out people around the world but to maintain their own wealth and power.  We can never forget that.  (The report did not say that; I did:  as the result of over 50 years of political activism, I aver it is the truth.)  In fact, as the report states, “The 10% of households with the highest per capita emissions contribute 35-45% of global consumption-based household [greenhouse gas] emissions, while the bottom 50% contribute 13-15% (high confidence.)” And, I argue, that means we must unify with forces around the globe; no one people can make the required changes by themselves.

However, what climate science provides us with are various options by which we can go forward.  These scientists can tell us the different options and the ramifications of choosing each one against another.  This is invaluable and necessary, but not sufficient.  They can tell us what options are available, in their opinions, but they do not tell us which ones we should take; that is a collective political decision that humans must collectively consider and choose.  Yet, having these options gives us places from where to start our discussions.

To do this, scientists prepare models that will suggest future behavior:  if we choose this, then that is likely to happen.  And it’s up to us to decide if these ramifications are worthy and/or desirable within our current context.  (And then we must decide which ones we will organize to achieve, and how hard we are willing to fight to attain them.)

However, when one looks at models, we must always remember that models are based on assumptions:  if you assume this, then that likely that will happen.  So, scientific models are not certainties; they are “best guesses” as to what will result if we do or allow certain things to happen and depend on the assumptions included that affect the outcomes.

The report spends considerable time discussing these plausible models, but it doesn’t do it in a systematic way that is easily accessible to non-physical scientists.  And I’m not going to spend a lot of time discussing them, although I will say a little about them and urge each of you to read the report for yourself and your friends.

The report gives us five plausible scenarios:  if we are willing to accept an increase of 1.4 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 median temperature; 1.8 degrees; 2.7 degrees; 3.6 degrees and 4.4 degrees.  They give these options with the understanding that “Global warming will continue to increase in the near term (2020-2040) mainly due to increased cumulative CO₂ emissions in nearly all considered scenarios and modelled pathways.  Furthermore, “In the near term, global warming is more likely than not to reach 1.5 degrees even under the very low [greenhouse gas] emission scenario … and likely or very likely to exceed 1.5 degrees under higher emissions scenarios” (emphases in original report).

Why the emphasis on 1.5 degrees?  It is the limit at which many scientists believe humans can survive without causing the physical environment to be destroyed.  It is a controversial “limit,” and a considerable number of scientists believe it is too high.  (For a cogent argument that the IPCC’s work is too conservative, see David Spratt, “IPCC:  Separating the Science from the Politics?” March 30, 2023 at https://www.climatecodered.org/.)  Nonetheless, it is the “target” set by the IPCC as being “relatively safe.”  (See the 2018 IPCC Special Report: “Global Warming of 1.5 Degrees Celsius” at https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15.)

The point to remember, however, is that the greater the global warming, the greater the deleterious impacts on both human and natural environments, and these impacts will further worsen things for humans, animals and most plants while contributing to the worsening attacks on the physical environments on which we depend:  “With every additional increment of global warming, changes in extremes continue to become larger” and “continued emissions will further affect all major climate system components.”

If exponential risk of change is not bad enough, the risk is ever worse; the report discusses likelihood and risks of unavoidable, irreversible or abrupt changes:  “The likelihood and impacts of abrupt and/or irreversible changes in the climate system, including changes triggered when tipping points are reached, increase with further global warming (high confidence).”

The report ends clearly:  “International cooperation is a critical enabler for achieving ambitions climate change mitigation, adaptation, and climate resilient development (high confidence).”

Comment

The science, I believe, is incontrovertible—climate change threatens the very existence of humans, animals, and most plants on this planet—although arguments can still be made about how soon we must resolutely act to actually have a chance of stopping this; some people argue that it’s already too late, while others believe it can be stopped if acted upon soon (by 2030), while others think we have more time:  that is not settled.  There is also hope that even if the Earth’s surface temperature exceeds 1.5 degrees, that future inventions could bring the temperature back below 1.5 degrees, and restore some kind of atmospheric stability, although I don’t see any evidence to date that supports the development of something that effective.

However, there are two things not mentioned in the report:  war and capitalism.

With any war (Russia v. Ukraine, Israel v. Palestine, Saudi Arabia v. Yemen, US vs. the world), there is tremendous death and environmental destruction.  Focusing only on the latter here, every shell shot, every plane launched, every bridge or building struck harms the environment.  Period.  And this environmental and human destruction doesn’t end with the cessation of hostilities:  people in Vietnam are still dealing with unexploded ordinance and poisoning of their people and environment from US use of Agent Orange and other defoliants, and the “American war,” as the Vietnamese call it, ended in 1975.

We must do everything we can to end war on this planet, and especially the US efforts to dominate every country on Earth.  And we also need to prevent any other country from establishing a subsequent empire.

Tied into that, although with a related albeit different dynamic, is capitalism.  As seems obvious to me, the economic system’s immediate demand for increased production is killing us through the emission of greenhouse gases.  Simply, it must be stopped as soon as possible; I don’t think there’s any support by anyone with any sense that capitalism will save us, that it will create the tools to remove carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gasses quick enough or sufficiently enough to keep the Earth’s temperature at 1.5 degrees or below, and especially not in the face of its need for increased production.  And, even should something emerge that could even potentially solve this problem, it still would not address the exploitation, oppression, and inequalities required by capitalism.

Accordingly, I think we need to think out and propose more globally collective solutions that are designed and intended to surpass capitalism and its related problems.  This obviously means drastically reducing growth in the more economically developed countries, while transferring money and resources to the less-developed countries, so they can try to adapt and mitigate the effects of climate change.

Neither war nor capitalism were mentioned in this report by the IPCC:  something, obviously, is missing!

Conclusion

Climate change is threatening the very existence of humans, animals, and most plants on the planet.  The evidence is overwhelming, and is getting more and more established and uncontroversial over time.

Yet we need to include many more things into the mix; I’ve begun here by including the need to end all wars and capitalism as well.  I don’t think we can do this by continuing to think as the status quo demands; I think we need to think outside of the box, if you will, to have any chance to make the changes necessary for survival of all species.  (For one example, although needing to be updated is my 2017 article, “Addressing Seriously the Environmental Crisis,” which is on-line at https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/classracecorporatepower/vol5/iss1/2/.)

It is clear that we cannot depend on our economic or political “leaders”:  if we’re going to survive, we have to do it ourselves, but together, and globally.

—

Kim Scipes, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Purdue University Northwest (PNW) in Westville, Indiana, who has been a political activist for over 50 years.  He has taught an undergraduate course on “Environment and Social Justice” since 2006.  He was recently presented with a 2023 Outstanding Faculty Engagement Award by his peers at PNW for his years of service to his communities, both on and off campus. 

Revolutionary thoughts

Karl Marx’s (1859) Preface to a Critique of Political Economy represents one of his major contributions to human thought. It has probably been more influential than any other in the social sciences and has served as a guide to revolutionary thinkers and activists across the intervening decades. We suggest ruminating on the following passage before considering our illustrations. 

(But reader alert: a lifetime can be spent mining this dense and complex argument by Marx, rivalling in its significance Darwin’s argument for evolution by natural selection. Both arguments, however, deserve the attention of every person committed to working for a future for humanity. Readers who prefer to return to this passage later, can proceed to our illustrations.) 

“In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. 

“In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production. No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society. 

“Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation. In broad outline, the Asiatic, ancient, feudal and modern bourgeois modes of production may be designated as epochs marking progress in the economic development of society. The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production – antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism but of an antagonism that emanates from the individuals' social conditions of existence – but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism. The prehistory of human society accordingly closes with this social formation.” – Karl Marx, 1859.

These passages represent application to the social sciences of Marx’s revolutionary philosophy, which combines two elements, namely materialism and dialectics. Marx’s contribution was to bring these two elements together. Materialism is the assumption that matter exists independent from our thinking about it. Dialectics, in the hands of non-materialist philosophers, is the assumption that certain patterns of change can be ascribed to human thought. In the hands of Marx, dialectics is assumed to be the reflection in human thought of the actual patterns of change of matter in motion. These patterns in the study of matter in motion include: 

• the transformation of quantitative change into qualitative change, distinguishing these changes by emphasizing the relation between them (a typical example in the physical sciences being the distinction between a quantitative variable like the temperature of matter and its qualitative state, such as solid, liquid or gas)
• the interpenetration (and unity) of opposites, the existence within everything of contradictory tendencies which act as the basis for motion and development, in contrast to the view that an external mover is needed (as in religious philosophy), and 
• the negation of the negation, that is, everything contains within it the conditions for its own annihilation, the new negates the old.

It is evident from our selection that Marx examines society as an object that exists independent of his thinking about it. In addition to this materialist approach, he also regards it dialectically, exemplified as follows: 

Quantity into quality: “the material forces of production” (for example, technology) and “the mode of production of material life” (for example, capitalism)

Interpenetration (and unity) of opposites: “The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production” (capitalist class vs working class, the one existing only together with the other)

The negation of the negation: “At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production.” (feudalism was replaced by capitalism; capitalism will be replaced by…)

Marx’s materialist assumption underlies all scientific inquiry. The criterion for scientific claims is empirical validation. On the other hand, philosophical assumptions are judged by their efficacy. A scientist may routinely apply both materialist and dialectical assumptions to their study of nature and society, while applying other philosophical assumptions on other occasions. We argue here for the efficacy of materialism and dialectics for both scientific inquiry and for contributing to the achievement of an ecologically sustainable global civilization, because this latter depends on successful application of science. Nevertheless, such moral characteristics as generosity, empathy, humility and self-sacrifice are also essential to the struggle, and are common to those who are guided by religious (non-materialist) philosophical assumptions as well as to those who are not.

From our communal past to our communal future

The study of human history is itself a revolutionary activity. It destroys all stories which portray current class relationships as eternal ones. We illustrate this with a science-based story of our evolution as a species and conclude with a speculative extension of this evolutionary tale into the future.  

While the scientific story of our deep history remains incomplete, including uncertainty about the chronology of our origins as a species, there is nevertheless scientific consensus on its broad outline. This includes the identification of intelligence and sociality as the distinguishing characteristics of our species. For this part of our history, we follow the contemporary account of the science by paleoanthropologist Curtis W. Marean (“The most invasive species of all”), published in the August 2015 issue of Scientific American.   

By 200,000 years ago our species, Homo sapiens, had evolved in Africa as a social one with complex cognition. In search of resources and in response to intermittent periods of glaciation our history features tribal migration to all corners of the globe. This expansion reached beyond Africa 70,000 years ago, southeastern Asia by 55,000 years ago, Australia and Europe by 45,000 years ago, northeastern Siberia by 35,000 years ago, North America by about 14,000 years ago and South America by about 13,500 years ago. In Europe and Southeastern Asia we encountered and displaced our near relatives, the Neandertals and Denisovans, respectively. Marean explains the successful competition of Homo sapiens with our near relatives as the result of our prior evolution (about 71,000 years ago) in Africa as a hyper-cooperative species which had developed and learned to cooperatively use aerial weapons for hunting (and probably also in the event of conflict with other hominid species competing for the same resources).  

But Homo sapiens not only expanded across the Earth. Through relative geographic isolation and local population concentration, our continuing evolution was primarily a cultural one, featuring distinct languages of communication and the evolution of superficial differences in physical appearance. In relation to the opposing strategies of negotiation and violent confrontation, these differences may have contributed to occasional confrontation over resources, particularly when tribal migration exceeded the expanding limits of kinship relationships. In other words, cooperation within tribal communities and between communities linked by kinship relationships appear to have co-evolved with competition (sometimes violent), especially between more distant communities.  

The question remains whether this cooperation included class structure. Distinct from mere division of labor, class structure means differences in power and access to natural and human cultural resources. A society without social classes is usually designated as a communal one, a practice we follow here. The conclusion from paleoanthropology – linking the results of ethnographic studies of communities encountered in geographically isolated regions with the results of archeological studies of past human societies, is that most of human history has featured our communal existence. Only during the period of recorded history (recent millennia) are class societies known to have been dominant. By “recorded” we mean in writing. For our prior history we rely on archeology (including the study of human remains and surviving artifacts or their remnants), paleoanthropology, genetics, linguistics and oral histories for documentation.    

All class societies known to us through our relatively brief “recorded” history have necessarily devoted a significant part of their productive activity to the maintenance of the ruling classes and the physical and ideological confinement of the exploited classes. The division of society into antagonistic classes requires the creation and use of an enormous “surplus” of goods and services for establishing and maintaining the unequal relationships – all a form of waste in relation to the less wasteful communal societies they displaced and continue to displace.  

Class societies could only have become possible on any enduring basis with the development of the needed technologies, including physical tools and social forms and standards. These latter most notably included the concept and practice of private property, whether this included ownership of other humans (slavery), the land and resources upon which others were permitted to work for themselves but were required to turn over to the landowner a part of the product of their work (feudalism) or “merely” the private ownership of the human labor time and ideas of others (capitalism). 

An outcome of every class society is the production of more waste than can be absorbed or recycled by the environment in which it is created. For the greater part of the short history of class society, the problems of waste production were principally local ones, usually addressed by re-location of the polluting societies or polluting economic activities. But in the present epoch of global capitalism this waste problem has reached the scale of the entire biosphere, making capitalism the most wasteful and dangerous form of society in human history – today so much so that our survival as a species is now clearly at issue.  

Our story can have only one outcome: the ultimate demise of all classes. This can occur through our mutual extinction by drowning in the waste class antagonism produces. Or it can occur through our wilful and successful movement beyond a class-based society to a renewed communal life in a restored and sustainable natural environment. 

Like all new forms of society (and other natural ecologies), a globally sustainable human community will need to be formed from already existing elements. In our case, the new form of society can be built by expanding upon the remaining commons and communal forms of activity, displacing the temporarily co-existing capitalist forms of property and activity, and by introducing democracy into all workplaces, displacing the exclusive decision-making rights of owners and managers.  

The well recorded history of class society suggests that the technological and ideological pre-requisites of the new society, including physical tools, organizational forms and cultural values, emerged from within its predecessor. Usually, if not invariably, the lengthy periods of transition were marked by brief, intense periods in which the legal and constitutional forms of the old society were replaced by those required for the new society.

The first attempts to move beyond capitalism occurred in societies still in transition from feudalism and during periods in which capitalism had vast territories yet to conquer. Examples of these attempts include the Paris Commune of 1871, the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Chinese Revolution of 1949.  

In the meantime, the conditions have ripened for a global transformation, one necessitated by the globally destructive environmental and social consequences of capitalism. Among these conditions are relatively higher levels of public education and labor productivity, the technological capacity for complex systems management, and an emergent culture that combines radical democratic aspirations and radical environmental consciousness.    

On the present historical agenda, then, is a brief, intense, more or less globally synchronized period in which the legal and constitutional forms of the new society are instituted in every country and at the international level or, failing that, our demise as a species.

Dialectical approach to revolutionary policy

For the purposes of revolutionary policy and practice, we argue here for a conception of social change that distinguishes between continuous (quantitative) and discontinuous (qualitative) change. But we caution that our argument does not lead to the conclusion that revolutionary policy excludes reforms. Quite the contrary, appropriate kinds of reform can lead to system change. 

As an analogy from the physical sciences, imagine the gradual changes in temperature, pressure and volume associated with the transformation of matter from one state to another. Each state is qualitatively different, characterized by a different set of laws of motion. But change from one state to another may occur through a continuous change in one or more of these variables. Heating a pan of water to the boiling point is an example.

A socio-economic system is somewhat more complex, but quantitative changes in the forces of production can lead to a qualitative change in the dominant mode of production. Associated with the qualitative change from a dominant feudal mode to a dominant capitalist one, causal changes in the forces of production can include the development of manufacturing within feudal guilds, the expansion of banking through feudal trade, a decline in public consent to the divine property rights claimed by feudal kings, lords and their retinue, and other quantitative social changes, including cultural and environmental ones.  

By referring to socio-economic systems as more complex than physical states of matter, we may be simplifying the reality of the latter. But we have in mind that real socio-economic systems are dynamic. They exist in a changing historical context, carrying traces from the past and giving birth to the system to follow. Motion forwards or backwards is possible, depending on environmental and historical conditions and human agency. 

From the earliest class society to the current global capitalist system, each has included at least traces of the modes of production that were previously dominant and has served as the womb for the birth of the mode of production to follow it. Without discounting the role of feudal and slave relations within capitalist societies, the clearest example of the continuous existence of subordinated relations of production is the communal system based on reciprocity (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”) Its traces in practice and in moral values have yet to be snuffed out, notwithstanding the continuous and now increasing attempts to do so by the ruling class and its retinue.  

So, how might human agency help to create favorable conditions for the transition to a globally sustainable ecological society? Acting locally under conditions of global solidarity is clearly essential. But the kind of reforms we unite around matter. Specifically:

• We should prioritize those reforms that strengthen and expand the commons at the expense of the capitalist class and its claims to private-for-profit property. 
• Included among revolutionary reforms are those that strengthen and enforce fundamental human rights, including the rights of the world’s Indigenous peoples and, most of all, the rights of the youngest generations to a future, one that includes a supportive natural environment. 
• Critical to human survival is the replacement of private property rights by usufruct rights and associated stewardship responsibilities. 
• The mobility of capital must be constrained while the mobility rights of people must be expanded. 

We have chains to discard and a world to preserve for present and future generations.

Policy choices misrepresented as either/or

There can be no revolutionary transition without careful consideration of practices that are often misrepresented by their proponents as either/or policy choices. Here we specifically address cooperation vs competition, globalization vs localization, homogenization vs diversity, exploitation vs conservation, centralization vs decentralization, and validity vs reliability.

It appears from historical examples of self-proclaimed attempts to transition to a system beyond capitalism, that these are hampered by the view that serious social issues (such as social stability, immigration policy, wealth distribution, language policy, human impact on the environment, and the efficiency and public accountability of social institutions) can be resolved by either/or policies on these dichotomous variables. At least during the transition to a more just, democratic and sustainable global society, each of these poles represents real human needs, some created by the dying social system, some by the need for its successor.

Cooperation vs competition

We are not obliged to choose, for example, between competition and cooperation, only that in the transition to a globally sustainable ecological civilization an emphasis on cooperation will be necessary to build up the counter culture to the social Darwinist justification (“survival of the fittest”) for the ruthless, inhumane behavior at the heart of capitalism. The transition to a just, democratic and environmentally sustainable human society may combine elements of competitive endeavor, including, for example, competition to find the best ways to achieve desired outcomes, such as healthy people living in a healthy environment.    

Cooperation and competition are characteristics of human individual and social behavior within the recorded history of class society, and probably during all of human history, which is not to say that these characteristics are immutable or were always present. Channeling competition to service for the common good would seem a reasonable alternative to the private-profit-motivated competition characteristic of capitalism.  

Globalization vs localization

A major problem with capitalist globalization is its connection with increasingly unaccountable economic and political power in the hands of corporate executives and their political and academic flunkies. One consequence is reduced economic and political power for the rest of humanity, experienced by the majority as reduced resources for meeting communal needs and hyper-centralized, hierarchical decision-making. This trend is driven by the profit-drive central to capitalism.

The alternative to capitalist globalization is bottom-up economic and political democracy, in which economic and political power resides in local communities. In that case, economic and social activity that can best be done locally would be done there, constrained only by stewardship responsibilities for a peaceful, globally sustainable ecological civilization. 

To ensure global equality, people would have the unfettered right to move across political and territorial boundaries, only constrained by the responsibility to integrate linguistically and culturally with the communities they join. Participation in economic and social initiatives that cross political and territorial boundaries would be based on the sovereign right of local communities to informed consent and participation (or not), including in the coordination and management of the common activity, ordinarily through locally accountable and therefore recallable representatives.

Homogenization vs diversity

Cultural homogenization and diversity are seemingly contradictory changes that accompany globalization. Trade introduces similar products and technology around the world, experienced both as global homogenization and local diversity. Likewise, with migration of people, which can also create greater diversity within local communities and greater homogenization globally. 

These quantitative cultural changes call for a qualitative change in the dominant mode of production. The globally ruling capitalist class has responded by encouraging xenophobia as a diversion from its responsibility for the current planetary emergency. A positive outcome for humanity now depends on a revolutionary transformation from capitalist rule to that of the people themselves, which can now only be achieved through global solidarity of the people.

Exploitation vs conservation of nature            

Exploitation has both a positive and a negative connotation. Limited to usufruct rights (that is, to taking from nature only that which is essential for human existence) and a high standard for stewardship responsibility, we have the potential to meet our existential needs without infringing on the rights of future generations to do so as well. 

But this potential is unrealizable in a global society dominated economically and politically by capitalist corporations. These have a profit motive for expanding production beyond the capacity of the biosphere, in the process avoiding the cost of environmental stewardship. For an individual corporation to assume these costs would give a competitive advantage to those which don’t. 

The negative connotation of exploitation, theft, applies to capitalism. Not only does the capitalist class take unpaid labor time directly from the workers it exploits, it also robs future generations of an equal opportunity to have their needs met by a supportive natural environment. 

If we are to reconcile our need to make our living from nature while also assuring our younger generations of a similar opportunity, we are now faced with the urgent responsibility of moving beyond capitalism and to treat doing so as our highest responsibility. We urgently need a world full of revolutionaries and revolutionary thinkers.

Centralization vs decentralization

Centralization and decentralization constitute another pair of opposing directions, each of which is arguably essential to meeting some needs. Coordination is frequently needed for the efficient functioning of what would otherwise be a highly decentralized system, for example, a power grid to include inputs from geographically distributed sources of energy. 

On the other hand, concentration of economic and political power into the CEOs of megalithic transnational corporations and the executive branches of government is associated with the advent of government austerity for the poor, profligacy for the rich, a race to the bottom in environmental protections, wage rates and labor rights, an increasingly destroyed natural environment and a redundant, expendable human population, one with no role in relation to the needs and possibilities for further private capital accumulation. Decentralization of economic and political power is looking increasingly attractive.    

Validity vs reliability in measuring outcomes

The capitalist ruling class favors those methods of measuring outcomes which produce positive results for its continuing rule. Included are measures which reliably confirm the intelligence of capitalists and their coterie of executives, lobbyists, politicians, and representatives within academia and the press. These measures are predominantly machine-markable multiple choice tests, those which reliably lead to the success of confident test-takers not distracted by any need to apply scientific conceptual understanding or do critical analysis. These tests reliably produce the same result on repeated application. They are “fair”.

Another measure of success under capitalism is economic growth. This is typically measured by changes in gross domestic product – a reasonably reliable measure of economic busyness of a country’s market-based economic activity. It tells us nothing, however, about the quality of that activity, nor does it include all the things people do for each other without charging money. 

Instead, we need valid measures, those that can tell us about the quality of our lives and guide us in acquiring the capacity to improve it. 

Making an economic and political revolution

Since the first decade of the 21^st Century, when system change once again became a rallying cry for millions around the globe, Marx’s observations about revolutionary change once again became more clearly relevant. It is worth repeating, this time in sex neutral language, his two related conditions. 

1. “No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society.”

2. “Humanity … inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation.”

Associated with the emergence and global expansion of the capitalist system has been a corresponding growth in the role and development of science and technology. In its defining stage, this was expressed as the industrial revolution in the production and distribution of goods. But it has more recently led to the digital revolution, applicable to communication and management as well as production and distribution. The latter has enabled rapid movement of capital across nation-state political barriers, while labor remains effectively confined and controlled by capitalist political control of the nation-states it created. This circumstance has facilitated a global race to the bottom in labor and environmental protections. In turn, this has precipitated an existential crisis for humanity. 

Nothing should now be clearer than the urgent need and present opportunity for transition to a corresponding economic and political system, one able to utilize the digital revolution for a more just, radically democratic, and environmentally sustainable global civilization. The necessary means have already largely been created within capitalism. Remaining is the political task of wresting control over these means by the people themselves from the capitalist class. This, of course, requires a global revolutionary movement. 

The central feature of a revolutionary movement is a minimum set of political and economic demands, which when met would put society on the path to revolutionary transformation. While each of these demands might constitute a reversible reform of the system, together they would put society on the path to revolutionary transformation. In the present case of a global system, dominated by transnational corporations, their chief executives, and main political, media and academic representatives, the revolutionary movement must be a global one. That means, it must come together for the global implementation of a minimum set of demands. 

We suggest the following be included.

Government:

• Radical democracy, based on human rights, direct democratic participation in discussion and decisions concerning the essence of major policy changes, and representative democratic decision-making with respect to other ones, and on
• Tiered, bottom-up decision-making on operational decisions, beginning by direct participatory democracy at the smallest population/geographic level and representative democracy at each other level, with the election of representatives from the lowest tier to the next highest tier and continuing thus right up the ladder to the largest population and geographical levels (national, international and global), and on
• Accountability of the representatives to the level that elected them, each expeditiously recallable and replaceable at that level, and on 
• The sovereignty at each level over whether to participate or not in socio-economic activities and initiatives at the larger geographic or population scales, and on
• The exclusion from participation in election to and influence over government at any level by transnational private-for-profit corporations and anyone who has participated in their senior management and public representation, including as major investors/owners, senior managers, legal advisors, senior advertising executives, academic advisers, or as recipients of funds from them for lobbying or election to government, and also on
• Exclusion of all these former and current corporate representatives from senior positions within the civil service of government at any level.

Environment:

• Make the right to a healthy, life-sustaining natural environment an enforceable human right, including
• Stewardship responsibilities and
• Usufruct rights.

Justice:

• End the system of “justice for those who can afford it;” 
• In its place make judicial services, including legal and investigative services, freely available to all who need them. 

Finance:

• End usury, making finance a non-profit public utility.

Public welfare:

• Provide fully comprehensive and free health care, childcare and lifelong public education, and a
• Social guarantee of essential food, shelter, and transportation for everyone.

Social equality:

• Institute maximum levels of income and wealth.

Remunerative work:

• Guarantee socially useful remunerative work to all who desire it.
• Establish humane community standards applicable to all workplaces, including
• Minimum and maximum weekly hours of work, with each of these declining as labor productivity increases, 
• A generous minimum number of weeks annually of vacation time, with the number of weeks increasing as labor productivity increases
• A generous minimum number of days per week free from work responsibilities, with the number of such days increasing with increased labor productivity
• An annual minimum level of income equal to annual cost of non-discretionary expenses (which would decline with increases in free provision of essential goods and services),
• A minimum additional income for discretionary expenses,
• The right to participate in all work-related decisions, 
• Collective workplace veto rights to practices and decisions that put at risk the health and welfare of present and future generations,
• Collective right of employees to take civil action against their employers in relation to violation of environmental and labor laws and regulations, up to and including
• The right through judicial review, to remove these employers, transfer their assets into the public domain, and assume the responsibility of managing these assets in the public interest.   

Private property

• Public enforcement of environmental stewardship responsibilities.
• Guarantee the right to a minimum of personal use property,
• Disallow exclusion of the public from ready access to lakes, rivers, beaches, trails, roads and other recreational areas and natural environments, whether these are privately owned or already part of the universal commons.

Migration

• Freedom to migrate across political boundaries, including to establish residence and acquire immediate citizenship rights and obligations there, the latter to include the responsibility to learn and use at least one of the common languages of communication in the new community.  

More on the political and economic revolution that is needed can be found in our other articles. 

Charles Posa McFadden and Karen Howell McFadden

Fredericton, New Brunswick, CANADA

www.greensocialdemocracy.org

apcamcfadden@aol.com

Such a ludicrously tenuous situation clearly demonstrates that the only rational model of geopolitics capable of avoiding catastrophe, whether due to nuclear annihilation or collective climate suicide, is some sort of world government.

Scientists disagree on the timeline of collapse and whether it's imminent. But can we afford to be wrong? And what comes after?

The East Siberian Arctic Shelf (“ESAS”) is the epicenter of a methane-rich zone that could turn the world upside down.

Still, the ESAS is not on the radar of mainstream science, and not included in calculations by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), and generally not well understood. It is one of the biggest mysteries of the world’s climate puzzle, and it is highly controversial, which creates an enhanced level of uncertainty and casts shadows of doubt.

The ESAS is the most extensive continental shelf in the world, inclusive of the Laptev Sea, the East Siberian Sea, and the Russian portion of the Chukchi Sea, all-in equivalent to the combined landmasses of Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy and Japan. 

The region hosts massive quantities of methane (“CH4”) in frozen subsea permafrost in extremely shallow waters, enough CH4 to transform the “global warming” cycle into a “life-ending” cycle. As absurd as it sounds, it is not inconceivable.

Ongoing research to unravel the ESAS mystery is found in very few studies, almost none, except by Natalia Shakhova (International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska/Fairbanks) a leading authority, for example: “It has been suggested that destabilization of shelf Arctic hydrates could lead to large-scale enhancement of aqueous CH₄, but this process was hypothesized to be negligible on a decadal–century time scale. Consequently, the continental shelf of the Arctic Ocean (AO) has not been considered as a possible source of CH₄ to the atmosphere until very recently.” (Source: Natalia Shakhova, et al, Understanding the Permafrost–Hydrate System and Associated Methane Releases in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, Geosciences, 2019: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3263/9/6/251/htm) 

Shakhova’s “until very recently” comment explains, in part, why the IPCC does not include ESAS methane destabilization in its calculations. Meanwhile, Shakhova’s research has unearthed a monster in hiding, but thankfully, mostly in repose… for the moment. Still, early-stage warning signals are clearly noticeable; ESAS is rumbling, increasingly emitting more and more CH4, possibly in anticipation of a “Big Burp,” which could put the world’s lights out, hopefully in another century, or beyond, but based upon a reading of her latest report in Geosciences, don’t count on it taking so long.

Shakhova’s research is highlighted in a recent article in Arctic News: “When Will We Die?” d/d June 10, 2019, which states: “Imagine a burst of methane erupting from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean that would add an amount of methane to the atmosphere equal to twice the methane that is already there.” 

Horror of horrors, the resulting equation is disturbing, to say the least, to wit: Twice the amount of CH4 that is already in the atmosphere equals a CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) of 560 ppm, assuming CH4 is 150xs the potency of CO2 in its initial years. And, adding that new number to current CH4/CO2e of 280 ppm to current CO2 levels of 415.7 ppm, according to readings at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, equals total atmospheric CO2 of 1256 ppm. 

In other words, if ESAS springs a big fat leak, the Big Burp, which would only be <5% of the existing frozen methane deposit; it is possible that atmospheric CO2e would zoom up go as high as 1256 ppm. 

What happens next?

A recent third-party study, also referenced in the aforementioned Arctic News article d/d June 10th, concluded that at 1200 ppm atmospheric CO2 global heating cranks up by 8°C, or 14.4°F, within a decade. (Source: Arctic News d/d June 10, 2019). Truth be known, that scenario is not problematic, it’s catastrophic and too far along to be classified as a problem. After all, problems can be fixed; catastrophes are fatal.

According to Shakhova’s research, as referenced in Geosciences/ 2019: “Releases could potentially increase by 3–5 orders of magnitude, considering the sheer amount of CH₄ preserved within the shallow ESAS seabed deposits and the documented thawing rates of subsea permafrost reported recently. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the ESAS permafrost–hydrates system, which is largely unfamiliar to scientists,” Ibid. (Side note: 3 orders of magnitude is equivalent to 1,000, i.e., a large methane release.)

More from Shakhova: “Here we present results of the first comprehensive scientific re-drilling to show that subsea permafrost in the near-shore zone of the ESAS has a downward movement of the ice-bonded permafrost table of ~14 cm (6 inches) year over the past 31–32 years… However, recent studies show that in some areas very recently submerged permafrost is close to or has already reached the thaw point,” Ibid. 

Shakhova’s studies are based upon marine expeditions, including drill campaigns that investigate the thermal regime, geomorphology, lithology, and geocryology of sediment cores extracted from boreholes drilled from marine vessels and not based solely upon climate models calculated on desktop computers.

In conclusion, as the world community continues to accept the reality of climate change as an existential threat, which fact is emphatically spotlighted by the likes of the Children’s Crusade, originating out of Sweden, and the Extinction Rebellion, originating out of the UK, it is important to emphasize the timing factor. Nobody knows 100% for certain how the climate crisis will turn out, but there is pretty solid evidence that the issue, meaning several ecosystems which are starting to collapse in unison, is accelerating, by a lot. So, there is not much time left to do something constructive, assuming it’s not already too late. Speaking of which, a small faction of climate scientists has already “tossed in the towel.” 

After all, it’s not that hard to understand their point of view as many ecosystems have already hit tipping points, which means no turning back, no fixes possible, but still, (and, here’s the great hope) nobody really knows 100% for sure how all of this will play out. 

Nevertheless, in a perfect world that really/truly “follows the science” a Worldwide All-In Coordinated Marshall Plan to do “whatever it takes” would already be in a full-blastoff mode.

But… It’s not!

America’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking at the prestigious Arctic Council biannual meeting in Finland, christened the Arctic meltdown: “A wonderful economic opportunity for international trade.” In a nutshell, here’s a critique of the Secretary’s advice: An ice-free Arctic reduces travel time for shipping lanes between Asia and the West by three weeks, which qualifies as one of the biggest transport revolutions since cargo planes first crossed the Atlantic in the early 20^thcentury.

Additionally, more goodies are at stake, as highlighted by the portly stout Secretary in his address to the biannual in Finland: “Arctic sea lanes could become the 21st century Suez and Panama Canals. Pompeo also called the region, which has lost nearly 90,000 square miles of sea ice since last year, the forefront of opportunity and abundance. It houses 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil, 30 percent of its undiscovered gas, an abundance of uranium, rare earth minerals, gold, diamonds, and millions of square miles of untapped resources, fisheries galore, he said.” (Mike Pompeo: Reductions in Sea Ice Will Open Up Trade Opportunities, The Daily Beast, May 6, 2019)

The Arctic is the newest frontier for commercial interests, drilling, mining, and fishing galore, with remarkably little concern for spills or accidents in one of the harshest yet most sensitive ecosystems on the planet. The Secretary also emphasized American supremacy, by putting both China and Russia on notice for their “aggressive behavior.”

Surprisingly, there is a silver lining within this exercise of pomposity and heavy-duty bombast by Mr. Secretary ignoring, rejecting the inherent dangers of global warming and clearly stating a preference for complete meltdown of the Arctic. Thereafter, the most powerful forces of nature will be un-leashed much sooner than would otherwise be the case. Still, there is a surprising silver lining to all of this nonsense. 

Counter-intuitively, Pompeo’s blatant push for celebration of an ice-free Arctic helps the world community to avoid the gravity of circumstances. Further to that point, for the first time ever, the Arctic Council did not issue a joint statement after the Finnish summit concluded. The sticking point was U.S. insistence upon “watering down the climate change statement,” in turn, disrupting worldwide efforts to wholeheartedly address the issue in proper forum. 

Not surprisingly, upon leaving the summit, Secretary Pompeo mysteriously, on very short notice, canceled his scheduled meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, wondering whether she might slap the daylights out of him, until his beetling jowls turn pink.  

Again, the silver lining within Pompeo’s pomposity is the inescapable conclusion that the world needs a wakeup call, a kick in the shins, or a hard knock on the head that an ice-free Arctic could be absolutely devastating. So far, the world community doesn’t seem to take the risks seriously, as CO2 emissions are ready/set for all-time records in 2019.  

Therefore, the sooner that rising sea levels hit uncomfortable levels, as an ice-free Arctic serves to hurry up Greenland’s big melt, and the sooner that weird weather patterns destroy more agricultural crops, like the damage done to Upper Midwest Floods (2019) in the U.S., the sooner people will get the message loud and clear that something needs to be done on a coordinated worldwide basis. Therefore, in a weird twisted fashion, Pompeo does the world a favor by helping the climate crisis cruise along uninterrupted by any human influence to reduce or ameliorate, instead knocking the world in the head with a strong dose of reality.

Henceforth, at the very least, as that reality of iceless Arctic-related problems in the Northern Hemisphere hit in a big way, nation/states will be forced to prepare their citizens with infrastructure projects like building seawalls around every major coastal city, storing additional grains, closing down or moving nuclear power plants away from coastal flood-surge zones and other preventative measures in anticipation of all hell breaking lose. 

In that respect, Pomposity Pompeo will have served the world well by opening its eyes much sooner than otherwise would be the case to a major existential threat so that people are forced, for the first time ever, to deal with the harsh reality of upcoming bigger threats. 

Scientists know that an ice-free Arctic could take the world down to its knees via (1) Amplification of the big Greenland meltdown, but alarmingly rain is already melting Greenland, even in winter – Ouch! (2) Worldwide grain-production will suffer extreme havoc as loopy jet streams over the Arctic force tropical weather north, Arctic weather south. Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska (2019 record snow & record flooding) already have experienced loopy jet streams influencing weird, harsh, record-setting damaging weather, and (3) A massive 50gt burst of methane clathrates out of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, kick-starting Runaway Global Warming… the end game. 

Regarding the end game, the East Siberian Artic Shelf, similar to a growling creature in the back of a dark cave, is in waiting, eerily similar to the circumstances behind the Permian Mass Extinction, when pretty much every living creature got bumped off, dead as doornails, according to the science:  “The release of methane… from permafrost and shelf sediment methane hydrate is deemed the ultimate source and cause for the dramatic life-changing global warming… and oceanic negative-carbon isotope excursion observed at the end Permian. Global warming triggered by the massive release of carbon dioxide may be catastrophic, but the release of methane from hydrate may be apocalyptic.” (Source: Uwe Brand, et al, Methane Hydrate: Killer Cause of Earth’s Greatest Mass Extinction, Paleoworld, Vol. 25, issue 4, December 2016)

Repeating the scariest sentence of the 21^stcentury: “Global warming triggered by the massive release of carbon dioxide may be catastrophic, but the release of methane from hydrate may be apocalyptic,” caustically, Pompeo’s epitaph, lest ignoring the rapidly thinning layer of underwater permafrost that barely covers the massive deposits of methane hydrates in shallow waters (easily warmed up w/o ice cover) in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf warrants some kind of final recognition.

Postscript:Mauna Loa CO2 emissions, as of April 2019 @ 413.32 ppm versus 410.24 ppm in April 2018, or an increase of +3.08 ppm. That rate of increase is nearly twice the rate +1.61 ppm in the year 2000. By way of contrast, in 1960 CO2 increased +0.54 ppm (see a trend?) As more CO2 emits into the atmosphere, global warming heats up more and more. 

And, as for the celebrated 2015 Paris climate agreement… Where’s Waldo?

On October 31^st a select group of UK scientists launched a Declaration of Rebellion against the UK government at the Houses of Parliament: “For criminal inaction in the face of climate change catastrophe and ecological collapse.”

According to the scientists, now is the time to act as a planetary emergency is already upon us.

Nearly 100 British scientists, academics, and writers are willing to go to jail to make their point that anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change is a surefire provocateur that’s already starting to decimate ecosystems.

“This is almost a cry of desperation,” says Andrew Simms of the New Weather Institute (Source: Alex Kirby, UK Scientists Risk Prison to Urge Action, Climate News Network, Oct. 31, 2018).

Additionally, effective October 31, ExtinctionRebellion launched an international movement that will use mass civil disobedience to force governments to immediately establish a WWII-type effort to fight climate change.

Yes, civil disobedience is the way forward, as the group promises: “Repeated acts of disruptive, non-violent civil disobedience” if the government does not respond seriously to demands, and they anticipate “there will be mass arrests.”

Similar in tone to early American rebels like ‘Give me Liberty or Give me Death” Patrick Henry of American Revolution circa late 18^th century, these rebel scientists are willing to make personal sacrifices, to be arrested, to go to prison, as they firmly believe its proper to start a planetary emergency global effort in the UK where the industrial revolution commenced. Essentially, full circle back to the beginnings of the fossil fuel era.

According to ExtinctionRebellion the sixth mass extinction is already strutting its mettle in spunky fashion, for example, a recent Worldwide Fund for Nature report claims a wipeout of 60% of animal populations has already occurred over the past 50 years alone.

All of which begs the provocative question: What does it imply for the next 50 years as climate change/global warming indicators firmly crank up to rapid-acceleration mode, in some cases exponentially? Thus, the next 50 yrs zoom-zoom will be supercharged. What then?

For example, an extremely alarming new study, Climate-Driven Declines in Arthropod Abundance Restructure a Rainforest Food Web, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals a mind-boggling cataclysmic falloff, up to 60-fold, of the “food web” in tropical rainforests with temps up 2.0-to-2.5°C over baseline, indicative of an ecosystem in early stages of disintegration.

A falloff of “up to 60-fold” is extremely difficult to fathom. It’s almost like an out of body experience from far above, watching rainforests, over time, crumble into thousands of piles of grey dust in a dark nightmarish dream sequence.

The climate is changing much faster than nature normally functions because human-charged climate change works against the regular flow of nature, leaving it choking/gasping/disintegrating in the dust.

Ecosystems from the Arctic to Antarctica are starting to crumble right before our eyes, but nobody lives where it happens. So, nobody sees it first-hand, as for example:

• Vavilov Ice Cap (700 sq. miles) in the Russian High Arctic slipping sliding by 15-35 feet per day versus normally 2 inches per day- a real shocker.
• Three 100-year droughts (which normally happen once every 100 years) hit the Amazon Rainforest like clockwork 2005-2010-2015 over the past 10 years… This is unprecedented.
• The Totten Glacier (16 feet of water), which comprises less than 1/10^th of East Antarctica’s ice mass, is destabilizing 100-years ahead of previous climate modeling.
• West Antarctica’s rate of ice loss triples over 15 years, way ahead of scientific modeling.
• Arctic multi-year thick ice infrastructure melts, losing Northern Hemisphere’s biggest reflector of sunlight, exposing subsea permafrost methane trapped over the eons in clathrates, thus risking runaway global warming with concomitant wipeout of mid latitude agricultural crops.
• The entire surface of Greenland (22 feet of water) turned to slush, freaking-out scientists.
• China’s Lancang River (1,330 miles in China), the Danube of the East, lost 70% of its headwater glaciers to global warming, threatening an irregular flow, sometime in the distant future, of this major river for all of SE Asia that flows into the Mekong Delta.
• The World Bank warns that 100 million people are at risk of loss of irrigation, drinking water, and hydropower because of rapid melt of Andes’ glacial water towers.
• Pingos imploding in Siberia, spewing methane. 7,000 Pingos identified, as Siberia enters ecosystem collapse phase.
• Alaskan permafrost emitting 220M tons of carbon every 2 years as it reverses from carbon sink to a carbon emitter. Ouch!
• Too much heat and CO2 are changing ocean chemistry, as acidification disrupts the base of the food web. Pteropod reproduction and/or development threatened.
• One-half of the Great Barrier Reef killed by excessively heated ocean water conditions 2016-17; scientists flabbergasted.
• Ocean plankton production off by 40% past 50 yrs., diminishing oxygen production.
• Thermohaline worldwide ocean circulation slowest in 1,600 years has negative worldwide impact.
• Underwater kelp forests decimated all along California northern coasts and Australia’s giant kelp forest declared “endangered ecological zone,” as a steady increase in ocean temps by nearly 3 degrees Fahrenheit in recent decades was all it took.
• Colorado River Basin water flow down 40% in worst drought in 1,200 years, threatening major cities and agriculture.
• Middle East/Northern Africa Mediterranean coastlines drying up faster than anywhere on the planet because of global warming. Where will eco migrants go next?
• One hundred nature reserves in Europe experienced 80% drop in flying insect abundance, confusing scientists.
• NOAA says CO2 increasing 100xs faster than end of last Ice Age, which is hyper-speed in geological time.

Signatories to the Declaration of Rebellion include established names in academics like Professor Danny Dorling of University of Oxford and Dr. Ian Gibson, former chair of Parliamentary Science and Technology Select Committee and Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, and former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and Andrew Simms of the New Weather Institute, and widely published environmental journalist George Monbiot.

Thus and so, because of clear irrefutable evidence that demands an alert of worldwide “climate emergency,” 100 scientists, academics and writers are willing to stick their necks out to wake up the world to the most serious crisis of all time, as ecosystems commence an awful process of crumbling all across the planet, but once again, it happens where nobody lives. People do not see it in the flesh.

Postscript: “The basic science is very well established; it is well understood that global warming is due to greenhouse gases. What is uncertain is projections about specifics in the next few decades, by how much will the climate change.” Mario J. Molina, Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences recently issued a report on the status of arthropods in rainforests (Bradford C. Lister and Andres Garcia, Climate-Driven Declines in Arthropod Abundance Restructure a Rainforest Food Web, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2018 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1722477115).

The report’s shocking analysis discovered a collapsing food web in tropical rainforests. Oh please! Can ecological news get any worse than this?

Biologists Brad Lister and Andres Garcia of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México returned to Puerto Rico’s Luquillo Rainforest after 40 years, and what they found blew them away. Abundance of insects, and arthropods in general, declined by as much as 60-fold and average temps had risen by 2°C over the past four decades. According to the scientists, global warming is impacting the rain forest with distinctive gusto.

According to Lister: “It was just a collapse in the insect community. A really dramatic change… The insect populations in the Luquillo forest are crashing.” (Source: Climate-Driven Crash in a Rainforest Food Web, Every Day Matters, Oct. 22, 2018).

It doesn’t get much worse than “crashing” of ecosystem support systems, i.e., insects and arthropods in general, which are in the phylum Euarthropoda, inclusive of insects, arachnids, myriapods, and crustaceans. This equates to a loss of basic structures of biosphere life forces.

The research team believes they are already seeing today what the recent IPCC report predicted for climate change in 2040. In their words: “It’s a harbinger of a global unraveling of natural systems.”

“The central question addressed by our research is why simultaneous, long-term declines in arthropods, lizards, frogs, and birds have occurred over the past four decades in the relatively undisturbed rainforests of northeastern Puerto Rico. Our analyses provide strong support for the hypothesis that climate warming has been a major factor driving reductions in arthropod abundance, and that these declines have in turn precipitated decreases in forest insectivores in a classic bottom-up cascade.” (Lister)

Lister and Garcia also compared insect abundance studies conducted in the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve in western Mexico in 1980 to the year 2014, finding temps increased 2.4°C and biomass of insects, and arthropods in general, declined 8-fold.

Their report prompts all kinds of questions about the health and stability of the world’s ecosystems. For one, tropical rainforests are the final frontier of pristine wilderness in the world. People do not live there and other than scientists, few people visit.

Therefore, if arthropods or invertebrate animals like insects and spiders are crashing in abundance, then something is horribly amiss. After all, the Luquillo is a protected rainforest, but alas, that doesn’t prevent the impact of global warming, which is on the rise in the tropics.

According to the scientists: “Our results suggest that the effects of climate warming in tropical forests may be even greater than anticipated.” (Source: Mountain Research Initiative)

Already, it was reported back in March of 2018 that insect losses of 40% up to 80% were happening around the world outside of and beyond tropical rainforests. (Ref: Insect Decimation Upstages Global Warming by Robert Hunziker, March 27, 2018)  

Now, it appears that insect loss is truly global, not missing a corner of the planet. It’s everywhere.  That’s worse than bad news; it’s dreadful. It’s indicative of a living planet in its early stages of dying throes but still hanging in there. Nobody knows for how much longer.

The big question is: What are the consequences of loss of large portions of insect life? Answer: All living things in the food chain above insects also decrease in abundance or in plain English, they die, e.g. frogs, lizards, and birds and ultimately Homo sapiens, assuming ecosystems eventually crumble.

Significantly, insects are the primary source for ecosystem creation and support. The world literally disintegrates without mischievous burrowing, forming new soil, aerating soil, pollinating food crops, etc. Nutrition for humans happens because insects pollinate.

After all, 97% of the Animal Kingdom consists of invertebrates such as insects, crabs, lobsters, clams, octopuses, jellyfish, and worms Meanwhile, insects of the world are getting the ole one-two punch as global warming hits the tropical rainforests whilst excessive use of chemicals hits broad-reaching continents, everywhere.

The underlying message is that the world’s ecosystems are under tremendous stress from aberrant forces such as (1) out of ordinary temperature rises, aka global warming, and (2) toxic chemicals, e.g.: “Industrial toxins are now routinely found in new-born babies, in mother’s milk, in the food chain, in domestic drinking water, in deep-water squid, at Mt. Everest’s basecamp, in fact, worldwide… Humans emit more than 250 billion tonnes of chemical substances a year, in a toxic avalanche that is harming people and life everywhere on the planet.” (Source: Scientist Categorize Earth as a Toxic Planet, Phys Org, February 7th 2017)

Here’s an excellent video about the insect dilemma on YouTube by Ben Guarino of the Washington Post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAOnySPnt3E

Postscript: NOAA has issued a warning as of 10-25-2018 that the entire Great Barrier Reef from November 2018 to February 2019 is at heightened risk of massive bleaching and coral death because of heat stress. If the models prove accurate, it would mean the entire Great Barrier Reef would be damaged by climate change and coral populations would trend towards very low levels, affecting the reef’s tourism and fishing industries and the employment they support. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent 1.5C report warned coral reefs were especially vulnerable to climate change. At even 1.5C of warming it estimated the planet would lose 80% of its coral reefs. At 2C they would all be wiped out.