In his elegiac memoir The World of Yesterday, which he wrote while in exile from the Nazis, the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig observed that most people cannot comprehend the prospect of catastrophic changes in their situation. Things can get incrementally worse for a long time without prompting a reaction. Once catastrophe strikes, it is too late to act.
Dramatic changes are occurring in our times, too, and we must hope that it is not yet too late to address them. Unfortunately, sufficiently urgent, coordinated, and decisive action will likely be difficult to mobilise when most of us – like the proverbial slowly boiling frog – perceive change to be incremental. So, it is worth asking what we might be facing if the worst happens.
Climate change-induced weather events are one obvious type of catastrophe. These could render uninhabitable large, densely populated parts of the planet, and it might already be impossible to avert large-scale population movements stemming from them. Many climate victims might seem far away – tiny Tuvalu in the Pacific is frequently portrayed as one of the first likely casualties. But recent weather events point to areas closer to global centers of power – such as Florida, the cities of China’s Yellow River valley, Seattle, and New Delhi – either flooding or becoming too hot for humans.
Governments and international organisations should therefore start preparing for the prospect of millions of future climate refugees. According to the United Nations, there were 79.5 million displaced people globally at the end of 2019, the biggest number it had ever recorded, and more than at any time since the huge, forced migrations in the aftermath of World War II. Continued global warming means that number will likely increase.
Worse still, climate change, combined with biodiversity loss and soil degradation, threatens to cause a downward spiral in agricultural productivity. That would undo many of the gains of the Green Revolution that has enabled the Earth to sustain its 7.9 billion people.
As such, we need a new Green Revolution that goes beyond genetic modification of crops to encompass social and economic changes such as land reform, altered diets, and different business models. Failure to change current intensive, industrialised farming practices rapidly and at scale will result in crop failures and increasing hunger. For net food importers like the United Kingdom, the post-war plenty we have grown used to could become a thing of the past. But how are we to bring about the system change needed when, despite the pandemic, supermarket shelves are still full?
Another type of disaster related to ever greater human incursions on nature is the increasing frequency of zoonotic diseases that leap from animal hosts to humans. The extraordinary COVID-19 pandemic has driven this message home to the world – Ebola, SARS, and MERS were earlier warnings – and there are more such health crises to come. The period in history when infectious disease seemed to have been tamed is likely over. Similarly, the spread of anti-microbial resistance means some old infection battles have restarted. And if an even more virulent novel coronavirus emerges in the next few years, will we be prepared for another upheaval like the one we have all experienced over the past 18 months?
These kinds of events will put immense pressure on existing political systems, whether they be democracies or authoritarian regimes. Today, only a Panglossian observer would foresee an imminent return to the trend toward liberal democracy that characterised the latter part of the twentieth century. On the contrary, the need to deal with more emergencies could make the West more authoritarian. And the retreat from multilateralism to geopolitical clashes could accelerate, fueling a vicious cycle that makes it ever more difficult to tackle global problems.
Perhaps these gloomy thoughts are merely a sign that their author needs a summer holiday. But with Zweig’s warning in mind, it would do no harm to consider the what if. What if this is the time for large actions, not small ones? What would they be?
The UN Food Systems Summit in September and the UN climate conference (COP26) in Glasgow in November are obvious opportunities to move from incremental reform to significant progress. But averting all of these potential catastrophes requires system change; they are what are known as “wicked problems,” for obvious reasons. And it is difficult to get people to tackle them in concert, especially when most people currently perceive only a slow deterioration.
The challenge is really one of leadership: a small number of global political leaders could agree to address some of these wicked problems in the common interests of all. But at the same time, universities and research institutes need to dismantle the disciplinary silos and career structures that reward only narrowness and incremental discovery. Climate scientists need to integrate their work with that of political scientists, and epidemiologists should do the same with economists. Analyzing the risks of catastrophe creates the obligation to act now.
Diane Coyle, Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, is the author, most recently, of Markets, State, and People: Economics for Public Policy. This content is © Project Syndicate, 2021, and is here with permission.
61 Comments
"But at the same time, universities and research institutes need to dismantle the disciplinary silos and career structures that reward only narrowness and incremental discovery."
Brilliant. Here is an economist, who has applied logical though to arrive at 'wicked problems', and to span the spectrum. And has obviously ended up where one does, when one thinks ones way down that logic=path.
Good article.
and from 1989... more doomster porn click bait for the hand wringers to fret about. 30 years later we record global crop production - not doom.
'UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.
Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ″eco- refugees,′ ′ threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP.
He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control. '
https://apnews.com/article/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0
US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry flies in on his private jet to Obama's b day party held at his island beach front house.
Yep the elites sure are worried bout climate change.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9869959/amp/John-Legend-Chriss…
Eloquent, but not original. Pray elaborate?
Thinking of 'wicked problems', this came out of 'chch':
https://www.transitionengineering.org/book
Well worth the read. I often wonder about the close proximity of information, and lack thereof. One of the great puzzles....
Nope - you jumped to that conclusion, not me.
My comment was just an acknowledgment that a lot of people will respond "bollocks", because a good proportion of the time that's what these dire predictions turn out to be.
These aren't subtle and nuanced predictions we've been exposed to over the years, that have narrowly missed the mark. Need I remind you of Al Gore's apocalyptic predictions. There are some great clangers in this one too:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.theobserver
I don't doubt that we're damaging our environment and I support efforts to move away from fossil fuels. Let's just stop crying wolf over it all and please don't destroy the NZ economy over it. We're a rounding error in the scheme of things.
"Let's just stop crying wolf over it all"
Interesting that you chose that fable. You know how it ends?
And I actually agree with you that some people have made dumb predictions over the years, but that doesn't negate the underlying problem or mean that we should just ignore other warnings/predictions.
Still talking about the wrong stuff. The only solution to all our problems is reduced population. Just ask yourself the simple question, would we be in this mess now with only 1 billion people on the planet ?
https://populationmatters.org/population-numbers?gclid=Cj0KCQjwu7OIBhCs…
While this counter is still increasing and not decreasing were are stuffed. We are already in serious overshoot, there is no other way out other than it to end badly.
Yes but how to reduce the population is the wicked problem.
When you look at the CCP's attempt at that with their one-child policy - one of the unintended consequences was a preference for a male child, if there was to be only one child. Hence,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_infanticide#:~:text=Female%20infan….
And why is there a preference for male children in these over-crowded/developing economies? Easy answer - child labour - male children are thought to be more likely to earn and/or able to perform manual tasks such that they can better supplement the household income/wellbeing.
It is a fact that birth rates are lower in developed countries and much higher in developing countries. Because children are seen as a major part of the household labour force/labour income in developing countries. If we want a smaller population we must learn to redistribute wealth to provide easy access to the necessities of life in developing countries.
"And why is there a preference for male children in these over-crowded/developing economies? Easy answer - child labour - male children are thought to be more likely to earn and/or able to perform manual tasks such that they can better supplement the household income/wellbeing."
Totally wrong Kate in regards to China. The preference for male children in China is due to a cultural aspect. Traditionally, when couples are married in China the female joins the males household. So with only one child, the desire for a single male child was driven by this - parents wanted their children to bring back a wife and make a family under their roof. The only way seen to guarantee that is by having a male heir.
"It is a fact that birth rates are lower in developed countries and much higher in developing countries. Because children are seen as a major part of the household labour force/labour income in developing countries" - again I think you get this wrong. While this might be seen as one driver the most obvious reason appears to be because women are uneducated. You simply educate women and the birth rates drop off dramatically as seen in pretty much everywhere it has been done.
Yes, those are common 'rose coloured glass' developed-world perspectives - they are a dominant (Western) worldview because
a) we don't want to acknowledge the sheer size of the child labour market, and
b) we can avoid the question of generating greater equity via redistribution.
Feel good thinking for wealthier nations.
Well I lived in China for quite a few years, and many other Asian countries. I speak Chinese and have married a Chinese woman who has done studies on the one child policy. I have also traveled and worked extensively throughout China. I doubt most Westerners can say the same, so claiming I have rose coloured glasses is, frankly, a bit rich. I can't ever remember seeing a child working, sometimes with tiny service jobs (like deliver jobs for pocket money), but mass child labour is unlikely.
https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/chieco/v51y2018icp149-166.html
Tang, Can & Zhao, Liqiu & Zhao, Zhong, 2018. "Child labor in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 149-166.
"about 7.74% of children aged from 10 to 15 were working in 2010, and they worked for 6.75h per day on average, and spent 6.42h less per day on study than other children."
I think you missed the point being made.
It's not literally about child labour. It's literally about children being the future of the family, and children looking after their parents in their subsistence farm once the parents are to old to work themselves, since (historically, for thousands of years) there was no government assistance. Families had to look after themselves, and the way to do that was to have many children. Labour of children in a family, as opposed to literal child labour.
Your point about male children growing a family under their roof underscores the point being made - if you can only have 1 child, you need that 1 child to be present when you grow old to look after you.
The slight problem with that argument is that if the population magically dropped to 1 billion, that 1 billion would probably increase their resource use per person massively (similar to Jevons paradox). So it depends on who those billion people are and how they live
Yeah Nah, the population is not going to magically drop to 1 billion its going to crash to that figure or less when the resources run out. Whats left will not lead to massive increase in resources per person because there will not be the resource available. The 1 billion left will have to live on far LESS than each person is currently living on, thats just the way it works.
Carlos67 - We all have our perspective, I use to enjoy your comments.
Come on the world is not ending, you are sounding like an old person, you know the one's that say they were lucky to be in their time and the world is now turning to shit.
The world is evolving, what are we going to run out of Oil, sunlight, wind, gold, copper, food, big Mack's?
This is the best time in time to be alive why would you waste time being negative about what if's ??
Hey Shoreman, its not negative its just plain logical reasoning. Yes its a great time to be alive, well it is for me anyway having retired before even hitting 50 but that doesn't stop me from being able to see that life has already turned shit for many people, even in NZ. I think you need to be able to see the planet as a limited resource or your just not able to get your head around where we are heading in the short to medium term. If you think the planet is ok with 8 billion people, then you probably think its still good with 16 billion, where does it end. The human mind has a big problem understanding the word "Exponential". With the current trajectory unchanged the outcome is inevitable, its just a question of when. Watch the video already mentioned below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdXdaIsfio8 the takeaway is simple, enjoy life while it lasts, no point worrying about the future you cannot change it anyway.
The thing is you could probably enjoy life just as much or even more so while consuming 1/10th of what you do now. But no one is going to volunteer to do that while others are not. We need governments to stand up and force us all to change.
Yes I agree the worlds population can’t keep increasing exponentially, but that is not expected to happen anyway with birth rates naturally declining. But saying we are all stuffed and nothing can be done is just crap really, there is plenty we could all do.
I've always wondered why humans are so fixated on catastrophic outcomes. There's a real allure to forecasting the end of life as we know it. While I find it interesting to reflect on the I have no reason the Diane Coyle is any more likely to be correct than Nostradamus.
In truth I think many factors, including the forecast peak in human population and technological advancements, actually make this outcome a less likely. We need some historic perspective whenever we discuss these events. The end of our Western civilisation, as with most others, is likely to be assimilation into another prevailing civilisation of the time - not an end of days scenario.
I'm equally fascinated why the vast majority of people just prefer to stick their heads in the sand. The human race has no long term plan and we wouldn't stick to it anyway so your probably better off with your head in the sand from that perspective. Multiple problems really and all down to human nature. Unfortunately there will be no satisfaction for the people predicting the final outcome, being right will not get you a ticket off this rock.
Squishy - it a physics, not a social or political problem. We are drawing-down the planet. Finite resources, reneable resources and sink-capacities; we're drawing them all down at exponentially-increasing rates.
Or were.
Sorta peaked, now. Malthus was entirely correct; the only thing staving off his prediction was the application of a finite energy resource, to food production. We overhshot ourselves atop that - just physics, chemistry, biology.
Im not sure that is very good physics, we are absolutely no where near running out of energy, that big yellow thing in the sky has plenty. If we had no energy it would be a cool -273 degrees outside. We just haven’t come up with many good ways to extract and store it yet, but we are getting closer. To be fair just over 100 years ago we barely even knew what electricity was!
I live on solar; have been off-grid one way and another for more than 20 years. But I'll tell you, it is harder than you think. And we have built a complete set of infrastructure, based on compact, portable, fungible fossil fuels. They are leaving us, and we've left it too late to replace that level of energy-supply - do some homework.
Your last comment just shows how fast we got stuck in and gorged ourselves; as if there were no tomorrow.
touche
Yes PDK, I'm an electronics technician and have looked at solar over the years and have gone no thanks. The reason is the cost payback is not there and thats before you start looking at the maintenance time and replacement cost and I could do the work myself. Unless your on a tiny island with no grid or a very long run of cable is required to connect to the grid its a no go financially. I have been on tank water most of my life and that's hard enough to manage. Water is easy to store compared to electricity. Being on the grid is great, no worries. If you have a smaller house with 1 or 2 people, energy efficient LED lighting, heatpump, double glazing, gas cooking then solar is just not required. Do the math its doesn't stack up, not yet anyway.
It is Physics. The energy density in fossil fuels is huge, try and work out how many solar panels or renewable energy sources you need to replace the total current energy consumption and remember that all has to be produced to start with and then maintained and replaced over time. You pointed out another issue, we all assume that technology will come to the rescue and "something" will come along and save us, the problem is time is running out. The human issue is that we are not planning for the worst but just hoping for the best. In certain areas our progress has been exponential, however in energy production its not. We are miles away from being self sustainable using just the sun, wind and water to just meet the current energy demand, let alone population increase and then having the surplus energy on top of that to make more panels, turbines and dams.
Something - already has come along. "Upstream data shows many hundreds of gas fields set to continue producing gas in the second half of the century. These include more than 4,000 active fields, such as the huge Bovanenkovskoye Field in Russia, with 98,368 billion cubic feet (bcf) of remaining reserves that are set to produce until 2091, or the 20,116 bcf Kroll Field in Norway, set to last until 2051.
Upstream data also includes fields where extraction has yet to begin, but which have either received a final investment decision (around 150 in total), or are en route to one (around 280). Such fields include the 43,377bcf North Field East in Qatar and the 41,439 cf Prosperidade field in Mozambique. A further 5,016 fields are listed as “discovered”, meaning the presence of gas has been confirmed, but their commercial viability is yet to be determined.
“Data that charts how gas fields will remain [in production] up to 2100 is testament to the fact that gas is abundant,” says Gordon. “We will never run out, and therein lies the rub. We cannot solve our climate problems through demand shifts only. The oil and gas industry typically acts like a herd. When they are in, they are all in. You can see this in the trillions of dollars of planned investments.”
https://energymonitor.ai/finance/risk-management/exclusive-natural-gas-…
Something else - and this doesn't include uranium extraction from seawate - the IPCC, citing the OECD, project that at the 2004 utilization levels, the uranium in conventional resources and phosphates would last 670 years in once-through reactors, 20 000 years in fast reactors with plutonium recycling, and 160 000 years in fast reactors recycling uranium and all actinides (Sims et al., 2007).
http://withouthotair.com/c24/page_174.shtml
I'm just reading "Blip" which describes why this time "the end" (of our current living standards) might really be nigh.
https://www.readblip.com/
We might just hit the unholy trifecta of disastrous climate change, resource depletion and economic collapse all at the same time (10 to 30 years from now). It won't be pretty.
Watched the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdXdaIsfio8 well worth it.
pdk,
will use any means possible to avoid facing this reality. The farther we kick the can, the larger the disconnect between our financial and physical reality becomes. The moment of this recalibration will be a watershed time for our culture, but could also be the birth of a new ‘systems economics’. and resultant different ways of living. The next 30 years are the time to apply all we’ve learned during the past 30 years. We’ve arrived at a species level conversation.
I took that from the link you posted yesterday. A good though long read. However, with my right leg in a moonboot from a tramping accident, I have a lot of time on my hands just now. The reason I highlighted these few sentences is that despite all the negatives, the author can foresee a future "resultant different ways of living". Very dimly, that is what I think will happen. The road from here to there will not be pretty and my grandchildren will face huge and highly disruptive issues, but unlike Blip, I have some optimism that a way through will be found.
It's a good read it terms of the content, but I find the layout cumbersome (tables should be graphs), the quality of some of the images look like they were done on a dot matrix printer (look it up younguns) and some of the writing sub-par and a bit repetitive. It's a bit like an undergraduate report, but you can't really argue with the overall premise.
How does the S curve go….. Slowly, slowly then all at once. We’ve done the slowly, slowly bit and have arrived at the all at once part. Radical changes are required in every aspect of our lives. What we eat, where we live, how we build houses, how we travel about, what we produce, what we export. Big hint here…. Many of these problems have already been solved. No need to sit in a room and reinvent the wheel….. Just do it…..
People won't do it. Just imagine telling the kids they have to walk or cycle to school. Each generation is WORSE than the last in terms of depleting the planet.. Expectations in lifestyle are now off the charts, quality of life rising fast in places like China, population growth exponential, the drawdown on resources simply cannot last. The changes will be forced on us eventually and its not going to be pretty. At my age now it looks like I will be bailing out right at the end anyway.
Diane, since the mid 1970s exponents of "climate change" have been predicting terminal catastophic climatic events. Literally dozens of them and none (zero) have ever happened! That's 50 years of peddling misadventurous fear-mongering. According to all of them we should have all perished about 30 times. This is on the record! This is hard proof! Why don't you take a browse?
Well ignore the Exponents and look at the science, keep it simple focus on pollution for instance. You wouldn't leave your car running in a enclosed space because you know the emissions will kill you. Earths atmosphere is responding to increased levels of pollution earth will be fine. Our climate is warming due to anthropocentric activity. We are already seeing drought and floods occurring more frequently. And all we had to do was limit our fossil fuel use, and not turn rain forest into arable land
Please please stop this argument supporting climate change ""We are already seeing drought and floods occurring more frequently"". There is plenty of evidence for climate change but more floods and droughts is not that evidence. Firstly it is untrue - what does happen is more publicity. Remember hurricane Katrina in 2005 - we were assured it was the beginning of ever more hurricanes hitting the USA but who ever reports the fact that the next ten years were about the least hurricanes hitting land since records began ~170 years ago. With tens of thousands of sites worldwide recording weather it is just too easy to select the 'exceptional' data you want to support your case. I find the fact that I wipe ice off our windscreen a couple of times a year whereas a decade ago it was dozens of times a year far stronger evidence. It is evidence of a gradual but noticeable average warming.
Well ignore the Exponents and look at the science, keep it simple focus on pollution for instance. You wouldn't leave your car running in a enclosed space because you know the emissions will kill you. Earths atmosphere is responding to increased levels of pollution earth will be fine. Our climate is warming due to anthropocentric activity. We are already seeing drought and floods occurring more frequently. And all we had to do was limit our fossil fuel use, and not turn rain forest into arable land.
Pathos,
You might find this interesting.https://www.climatefiles.com/shell/1988-shell-report-greenhouse/
It shows that the oil companies were well aware of the potential effects of climate change some 40 years ago. Even you might have noticed that there seem to be rather more floods, droughts, heatwaves and fires around. If you have travelled even just to the Tasman glacier, you will have seen that it is shrinking-in common with many other and much larger glaciers. What causes ice to melt? In a word-heat.
The Keeling Curve shows very clearly the year on year increase in atmospheric CO2 and the physics-long understood-dictate that this will lead to a warmer climate. just remove your head from the sand for a little while and look around.
I haven't noticed more floods, droughts, heatwaves and fires. I have noticed the glaciers and the reported increase in temperatures both air and ocean. I've also noticed journalists use every special weather event to argue for climate change - they assume the public is so dumb that it will only respond to dramatic photos not consolidated weather data. 50 years ago in a geology class I was told judging by the excessive size of flood plains of rivers in northern Europe there used to be more floods about 2000 years ago. The biggest recorded storm to hit Europe was in 1703. The fires in California used to burn more acres pre-war (there were few fire-fighters and those areas were not inhabited). Heatwaves you do have a point - not each heatwave but the frequency and the size do appear to be increasing. But as proof of climate change what about this year being exceptionally cold summer in South of France or the 1976 British Isles heat wave that led to the second hottest summer average temperature in the UK since records began.
Your last paragraph is perfect (although I had to look up the Keeling Curve). There definitely is climate warming and it may be more dangerous than we realise since the issue is so complex and despite massive research so poorly understood. We should do something about it. But arguments based on use of ' ... noticed that there seem to be rather more ...' will not convince skeptics. It shouldn't even convince believers.
Check out what's happening to the northern-hemisphere jetstream. It's slowing, meandering and seen from above the Pole, resembles a cog. The heatwaves and floods are the inside of the turns of the cog-teeth, and the slowing means they stay longer in a given location. The jet-stream was just one of those feed-back loops that climate scientists warned us about.
But we chose to listen to the spin. We're mature, that way. Rilly, rilly sapient.
Indeed you do need a holiday as you mention.
When we allow more people to live in harms way, floods whatever, expect there to be more people who need to be "displaced". In other words leave their home for one or more nights.
Floods on the Rhine and other rivers flowing into the low lands are a regular occurrence, NOT an anomaly. If the Germans do not build the infrastructure to cope with floods, while sad for those living in the affected areas, so be it. Typical sadly.
Public policy does not make one an expert in climate related issues.
In the meantime in the real world as far as we can ascertain every 1000 odd years it warms for a 200 to 300 year period all the way back to the last ice age.
I do go with the idea that there are too many people on this planet as of right now, happy to discuss reduction policies. Question is: who takes the lead? In some countries the leading party takes the initiative in others they allow guns to freely sort it out, that should really be: idiots that have the guns. But by and large who takes the lead?
Clean air, yes that would be nice.
Pollution: anything we can do to reduce that will be a help.
Actual climate, rather then the "manmade" hysteria, is more complicated.
"In the meantime in the real world as far as we can ascertain every 1000 odd years it warms for a 200 to 300 year period all the way back to the last ice age."
While that may be true, it doesn't negate the fact that increasing CO2 and CH4 concentrations increases atmospheric temps. That's pretty simple physics.
If you have some alternative physical laws your nobel prize awaits...
Fisheries anyone ? The more I read about this I just cannot understand why nothing is done.
The likes of the cook islands allowing many Chinese vessels in their waters, mostly a deal to pay back debt the govt has with China, but decimating fisheries. The whole South Pacific is in this hole.
It is quite interesting Sluggy, the pacific island's are like a testing ground for the human race. Because of increased population they are totally unsustainable and rely on renting out fishing grounds and tourism to bring in revenue so they can import food etc. Without this revenue there would be wide spread famine, Makes one wonder what is the tipping point for the planet. Edit: I should say Not the planet as the planet we live on is just a rock floating in an orbit in space and nothing will hurt it. I am talking human existence as we know it.
Interesting Ted Talk last night on National radio , about CFC's and the Montreal protocol . Basically said they went early(relatively for international agreements) on less evidence than we have now on climate change. His comment was you can pick holes in any solution ( there is never a perfect solution), but they went with it and stopped the worst effects.
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