Can We Survive Climate Change?

Familiar with government responses to global warming causes and effects, I have formed a deeply pessimistic outlook on humanity’s prospects for surviving climate change. Our chances of maintaining anything resembling our current civilization are slim to none.

Let’s be brutally honest: we’re facing a crisis of unprecedented scale, and our track record for addressing global challenges is abysmal (Keohane and Victor 2016). The societal changes required to respond to climate change are so radical, so all-encompassing, that I see little hope of implementing them in time.

Our political systems are ill-equipped to handle long-term, complex threats. Short-term thinking dominates, fueled by election cycles and quarterly profit reports (Jacobs 2011, Scholosberg 2011). The psychological distance of climate change – its worst impacts are still years away for many – makes it easy to ignore or deprioritize (Van der Linden 2015, Bradley et al. 2020).

Even if we somehow achieved global consensus on the need for drastic action (which seems highly unlikely given current geopolitical tensions), the scale of transformation required is staggering. We would need to completely overhaul our energy systems, transportation, agriculture, and consumption patterns within a matter of years. The inertia in these systems is enormous (Geels et al. 2017, Steffen et al. 2018).

So what are our chances of success? In my professional opinion, vanishingly small. We’ve already baked in significant warming, and our emissions continue to rise. Tipping points in the climate system may have already been crossed (Lenton et al. 2019).

But let’s consider for a moment what human civilization might look like if we do somehow survive the climate crisis:

  1. Massive population displacement: Coastal cities will be largely abandoned. Billions will migrate, reshaping demographics globally (Oliver-Smith 2016, Burrows and Kinney 2016, Reuveny and Kinney 2016).
  2. Resource scarcity: Food and water shortages will be commonplace. Expect rationing and conflicts over remaining resources (Douglas et al. 2016, Evans 2010, Mach 2019)).
  3. Authoritarian governance: The chaos of climate impacts and mass migration will lead to more authoritarian regimes as people trade freedom for security (Mittiga 2022).
  4. Technological divide: A stark split between high-tech enclaves for the wealthy and subsistence living for the majority (Levy and Rothenberg 2002, Paterson and Laberge 2018).
  5. Altered ecosystems: The natural world will be unrecognizable. Managed and engineered ecosystems will dominate. The fatal consequences of biosphere failure combine with global warming to create an enormous barrier to human civilization survival. “We explore the risk that self-reinforcing feedbacks could push the Earth System toward a planetary threshold that, if crossed, could prevent stabilization of the climate at intermediate temperature and cause continued warming on a “Hothouse Earth” pathway even as human emissions are reduced”–Steffen et al. 2018. I will cover the biosphere problem in a later post.
  6. Constant adaptation: Society will be in a perpetual state of crisis management, constantly adapting to new climate realities (Clayton 2020).
  7. Psychological trauma: Collective PTSD from ongoing disasters and losing the world we knew (Bradley et al. 2020, Van der Linden (2015).

Though our civilization could adapt and survive, this is far from assured. The more likely outcome is widespread societal collapse. The stresses of climate change – food shortages, natural disasters, mass migration – will probably overwhelm our social systems. In the very worst case, conflict over dwindling resources could escalate to nuclear warfare and further decrease the likelihood of survival (Douglas et al. 2016, Evans 2010, Brozović 2023, Weiss 2023).

Even in the best-case scenario, billions will die. Those who survive will inhabit a world radically different from our own. The comforts and freedoms we take for granted will be distant memories (Oliver-Smith 2016, Burrows and Kinney 2016, Reuveny and Kinney 2016, Evans 2010, Douglas et al. 2016, Brozović 2023, Weiss 2023).

In the last blog post, “Can We Reverse Global Warming?” I reviewed the technological solutions that we could use to reverse global warming and found none that could succeed. A later post will consider possible adaptive strategies for our civilization.

I take no joy in this grim assessment. But both the science of climate change and the realities of human psychology and social systems leave little reason for optimism (Gifford 2011). Our cognitive biases, our political divisions, our economic systems – all conspire against the radical, unified action needed to address this crisis.

We are facing the greatest challenge in human history, and all evidence suggests we cannot respond. The time for half-measures and gradual transitions has long passed. Without immediate, drastic action on a global scale – action I see no sign of materializing – the future of human civilization looks bleak indeed.

This is the stark reality we face. It’s time we confront it head-on, rather than clinging to false hopes. The greatest test of our species is upon us, and I fear we will fail spectacularly. As a commenter on the last blog post said, the actions we must now take could be as destructive as climate change itself. I doubt this, but I doubt we will even find out.

References

(My presentation of these references isn’t uniform, but it provides access while we await the coming of the Editor.)

Bradley, G. L., Babutsidze, Z., Chai, A., & Reser, J. P. 2020. The role of climate change risk perception, response efficacy, and psychological adaptation in pro-environmental behavior. Journal of Environmental Psychology, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494419306607

Burrows, K., & Kinney, P. L. 2016. Exploring the climate change, migration and conflict nexus. Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/4/443

Clayton, S. 2020. Climate anxiety: Psychological responses to climate change. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0887618520300773

Douglas, P. M. J., Demarest, A. A., Brenner, M., and M. A. Canuto. 2016. Impacts of climate change on the collapse of Lowland Maya Civilization. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 44: 613-645.

Evans, A. 2011. Resource scarcity, climate change and the risk of violent conflict. World Bank, Washington, D. C.. Link

Geels, F. W., Sovacool, B. K., Schwanen, T., & Sorrell, S. 2017. Sociotechnical transitions for deep decarbonization. Science, 357: 1242-1244.

Gifford, R. 2011. The dragons of inaction: Psychological barriers that limit climate change mitigation and adaptation. American Psychologist, 66: 290-302.

Granderson, A. A. 2014. Making sense of climate change risks and responses at the community level: A cultural-political lens. Climate Risk Management, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212096314000217

Jacobs, A. 2011. Governing for the long term: Democracy and the politics of investment,  Cambridge University Press, New York. 312 p.

Keohane, R. O., & Victor, D. G. 2016. Cooperation and discord in global climate policy. Nature Climate Change, 6:  570-575.

Levy, D. L., & Rothenberg, S. 2002. Heterogeneity and change in environmental strategy: Technological and political responses to climate change in the global automobile industry. Organizations, policy and the natural environment, http://www.faculty.umb.edu/david_levy/autos02.pdf.

Lenton, T. M., et al. 2019. Climate tipping points – too risky to bet against. Nature, 575: 592-595.

Mach, K. J., et al. 2019. Climate as a risk factor for armed conflict. Nature, 571: 193-197.

Mittiga, R. 2022. Political legitimacy, authoritarianism, and climate change. Nature Climate Change, https://philpapers.org/archive/MITPLA-2.pdf

Oliver-Smith, A. 2016. Climate change and population displacement: disasters and diasporas in the twenty-first century, https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315434773-6/climate-change-population-displacement-disasters-diasporas-twenty-first-century-anthony-oliver-smith

Orlove, B. 2005. Human adaptation to climate change: A review of three historical cases and some general perspectives. Environmental Science & Policy, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901105001085

Paterson, M., & Laberge, X.‐P. 2018. Political economies of climate change. WIREs Climate Change, https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wcc.506

Reuveny, K., & Kinney, P. L. 2016. Exploring the climate change, migration and conflict nexus. Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/4/443

Schlosberg, D. 2011. Climate: Change and Approaches and responses. The Oxford handbook of climate change and society. Oxford University Press, New York, 689 p.

Steffen, W., et al. 2018. Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115: 8252-8259.

Van der Linden, S. 2015. The social-psychological determinants of climate change risk perceptions: A comprehensive model. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 41: 112-124.