Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of
Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of
Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of
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204 S far<strong>the</strong>r horizons<br />
and account for wealth, which is <strong>to</strong> say a matter <strong>of</strong> economics.<br />
However diffi cult, it is probably repairable in a matter <strong>of</strong> a few<br />
years. The second is ecological. It is permanent, in signifi cant ways<br />
irreparable, and potentially fatal <strong>to</strong> civilization. The economy, as<br />
Herman Daly has pointed out for decades, is a subsystem <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />
biosphere, not <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r way around. Accordingly, <strong>the</strong>re are shortterm<br />
solutions <strong>to</strong> <strong>the</strong> fi rst defi cit that might work for a while,<br />
but <strong>the</strong>y will not res<strong>to</strong>re longer-term ecological solvency and<br />
will likely make it worse. The fact is that <strong>climate</strong> destabilization<br />
is a steadily—perhaps rapidly—worsening condition with which<br />
we will have <strong>to</strong> contend for a long time <strong>to</strong> come. University <strong>of</strong><br />
Chicago geophysicist <strong>David</strong> Archer puts it this way:<br />
a 2°C warming <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> global average is <strong>of</strong>ten considered <strong>to</strong> be<br />
a sort <strong>of</strong> danger limit benchmark. Two degrees C was chosen as a<br />
value <strong>to</strong> at least talk about, because it would be warmer than <strong>the</strong><br />
Earth has been in millions <strong>of</strong> years. Because <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> long lifetime<br />
<strong>of</strong> CO 2 in <strong>the</strong> atmosphere, 2°C <strong>of</strong> warming at <strong>the</strong> atmospheric<br />
CO 2 peak would settle down <strong>to</strong> a bit less than 1°C, and remain<br />
so for thousands <strong>of</strong> years (Archer, 2009, pp. 146–147).<br />
But if <strong>the</strong> record <strong>of</strong> earlier <strong>climate</strong> conditions holds true in <strong>the</strong><br />
future, it also means, among o<strong>the</strong>r things, a 10-meter sea level rise<br />
as well as warmer temperatures for thousands <strong>of</strong> years. Climate<br />
destabilization, in short, is not a solvable problem in a time span<br />
meaningful for us. But we do have some control over <strong>the</strong> eventual<br />
size <strong>of</strong> climatic impacts we’ve initiated if we reduce emissions<br />
<strong>of</strong> CO 2 and o<strong>the</strong>r anthropogenic heat-trapping gases <strong>to</strong> virtually<br />
zero within a matter <strong>of</strong> decades. Assuming that we are successful,<br />
by <strong>the</strong> year 2050, say, we will not have forestalled most <strong>of</strong><br />
<strong>the</strong> changes now just beginning, but we will have contained <strong>the</strong><br />
scope, scale, and duration <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> destabilization and created <strong>the</strong><br />
foundation for a future better than that in prospect.<br />
There is no his<strong>to</strong>rical precedent, however, for what we must<br />
do if we are <strong>to</strong> endure. Our biology, and specifi cally <strong>the</strong> way we