It was possible about a
quarter century ago to believe that the planet's largest, most energy
consuming nations might be able to negotiate agreements to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions enough to prevent the rapid thermal runaway
we're now seeing. It's perhaps debatable whether these countries
actually could have done so, but we'll never know because the
governments simply were not interested.
And now we face a truly surreal situation. There's about 5 times as
much oil reserves in the ground than would be needed to boost the
earth's temperature above the 2 deg C threshold (that could allow
governments to manage climate change). But those reserves are already
booked as petroleum company assets and the oil companies have made it
very clear: They are not "unbooking" them. These assets will not be
stranded because that would affect company profits and stock values. And besides: we
have no idea how to live without unlimited growth, do we?
We're not going to do anything substantial to avoid even the worst
climate change effects because that would mean governments of the
industrial nations would need to force their citizens to live less
energy consuming lifestyles, and that means what we would call a
depression. Even an authoritarian nation like China cannot force that
degree of sacrifice on its population. There would be a revolution.
So it's time to dust off Malthus. The earth's human population is going
to radically shrink this century. How much? 90%? 95%? 99%? Too
soon to tell, of course. We don't know how bad climate change will
get. We don't know when industrial economies will collapse. What do we
know? It's going to be a terrifying century, full of chaos, violence,
disease, pestilence, epidemics, warfare and bare knuckled efforts to
survive.
Radically new religions will replace the current ones. Young people are
going to demand new narratives that explain "what the hell happened"
and what, if any, is the basis for hope.
