The two most pressing issues regarding the continuation of organized human society have been known for decades. Very little has been done to mitigate them, and the question now seems to be which will destroy us first, the climate or nuclear weapons?
Fun fact! They can all represent the four horsemen of the apocalypse (double-featuring Death).
Climate catastrophe – Famine, Death
The ice shelves of West Antarctica are almost certainly going to melt – this is now unavoidable, even in the best case scenario, which we are not even on track to meet.
To avoid dramatic sea level rise, not only would carbon emissions need to stop immediately, carbon would need to be captured from the environment. No nation is coming close to completely cutting out carbon emissions (as even green energy, at the very lease in the creation of their infrastructure, requires mining and fossil fuels – at least with current technology). Carbon capture technology is still basically just an idea and not something which is actually ready to be deployed.
Even taking this recent study (linked above) as not being a perfect study, the West Antarctic ice shelf is not the only tipping point we are approaching. The Gulf Stream could collapse as early as 2025.
For all the chaos climate change has already caused and can cause (such as epidemics and famines), there’s a much worse option.
War, Conquest, Death
War does all sorts of awful things – one of which is contributing to climate change. But aside from that, it’s much more likely to just kill everyone, and rather quickly at that.
(Tangentially, war is extremely profitable – a short book written nearly 100 years ago reads like it was written this morning, particularly when rumors circulate that a nation has hinted that a war might stretch on for years)
The only thing I wish to delve into in relation to the latest atrocities in Gaza is that it brings the world closer to nuclear war, during a year where it was already closer than it has ever been.
The Doomsday Clock was set to 90 seconds to midnight at the beginning of this year – largely due to the war in Ukraine. Adding another conflict with a nuclear-armed power cannot help. The alliances and friendships between the nations involved does not help, either.
Unfortunately, it is not an exaggeration to say that an all-out nuclear war between the US and Russia would kill almost every human on Earth. The initial blasts would be dreadful, but their longer term impacts would lead to global food shortages – within two years, more than half of the people on Earth will have starved to death.
Should we just call it quits?
None of this is guaranteed to happen – some of these problems, particularly in relation to climate change, may be entering the realm of being too late to completely avoid, but these outcomes ultimately rely on choices which we all must make.
The primary way to avoid utter climate disaster is to move away from an extraction-based, consumption-based economy and to a form of organization that is not reliant on profit-seeking but on well-being.
A large issue with moving to this sort of economy is that there either must be a revolution, or those holding the reigns must act against their own greed. The problem with a revolution being that we must avoid the sort of thinking which created these problems – that is, at least in large part, patriarchal. A more gentle approach is required – and yet how does one gently forcibly replace the underlying ideology of society? Is there a gentle way to prevent recently displaced capitalist warlords from staging a counter revolution? This ideology needs some fine tuning. Time will tell if there is time for that.
If we are on a ship (which happens to have some organizational and equitable problems) heading straight for an iceberg, it is everyone’s best interest to divert from the iceberg and worry about the new course after immediate danger has passed.
This same solution (and problems with it) would help to avoid nuclear war. The only way to truly avoid a nuclear war is to dismantle nuclear weapons and for all parties to agree to never use them. This is easier to imagine taking place in a gentler society that is not based on competition and power.
What does it all mean?
Doodley-squat.
Human beings ceaseless search for meaning in a meaningless universe – it is Absurd.
Recognize that Absurdity and seek unity beyond it – that is the start of this gentle way, to see that none of us are truly that different from one another, we can all live better lives building each other up rather than tearing each other down.
I would rather keep trying and fail than to give up. Giving up will not solve anything. Being gentle is not the same as being weak.