With me at the bottom of the stairs, one of Buddy’s favorite games involved a ‘tipping point’ - that he controlled!
When Buddy and I started this newsletter in November of 2021, I was pessimistic.
Our actions are hugely below the scale of the problem, willfully self-deceiving. The big delusion is that climate change will be stopped, that coming generations will adapt to a new normal - a world of solar-electric power, carbon-sequestration, fish-farming, public transportation, water-making, and a stabilized climate. [ClimateDog, Magical Thinking]
Since then a lot has happened, and last autumn I began to think the human race is fast discovering it can in fact drop our emissions to zero. We have the technologies. Public opinion is moving further toward climate action. And now economic incentives in the US—profits, penalties, and others—are growing rapidly, largely thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act.
What a difference eighteen months makes!
However, while it appears more and more likely Humanity can stop fueling the greenhouse effect, Nature could be taking over that process.
Tipping points
Many climate factors could soon cross a threshold that turns a slow physical change into a rapid one. Like a truck approaching the top of a hill, we’ve got to lift our foot from the accelerator pedal and come to a stop before the crest. We have no brake pedal. Once we pass that point, fossil fuel no longer drives the truck, the force of gravity does.
How close is the Earth to Nature’s tipping points?
There are several in sight.
Methane released from permafrost Nature could start spewing greenhouse emissions just when automobiles stop doing so.
Huge amounts of methane, 30-times more potent than carbon dioxide as a global warming agent, are stored in no-longer-permanent permafrost in the Arctic. It’s beginning to be released, as the tundra warms. And once the release temperature is reached more widely, no one knows how to put the brakes on.
Ocean currents Meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet could threaten the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation system (AMOC). It would dilute the salty sea water in the north Atlantic, making the water lighter and less able to sink. Recent research suggests the AMOC has already weakened by around 15% since the middle of the 20th century. We don’t yet know, but this weakening could force the destruction of the Gulf Stream, a disastrous tipping point for the climate of the northern hemisphere.
There is potential for high-impact ‘climate tipping points’ where abrupt, non-linear change in climate occurs - such as the potential collapse of the AMOC. Impacts of such a tipping point are likely to include widespread cessation of arable farming [in Europe] with losses of agricultural output. [University of Exeter]
The same conditions could cause the collapse of the summer monsoon in India, critical for agriculture and water resources in South Asia.
Across the region, climate change is making the monsoon more erratic, less dependable and even dangerous, with more violent rainfall as well as worsening dry spells. For a region home to nearly one-quarter of the world’s population, the consequences are dire. [NYTimes]
Loss of rainforest Warmer temperatures are weakening and downsizing the Amazon rainforest on which the earth relies to absorb CO2, starting to transform it into savannah which has much less absorbing ability. We hear about the destructive cutting and clearing being done by humans, but the threat to rainforests from Nature is far greater.
Loss of insects The world’s insect population is under stress. A collapse could dramatically reduce pollinators for the world’s food sources. Again we hear about threats to insects from manmade chemicals, but the changing climate is becoming the bigger enemy.
Loss of Arctic sea ice Alarmingly we’ve already passed at least one climate tipping point.
Arctic sea ice declined dramatically in 2007 and has never recovered. New research suggests the loss was a fundamental change unlikely to be reversed this century, if ever—perhaps proof of the sort of climate tipping point that scientists have warned the planet could pass as it warms. [Washington Post]
For the past umpteen million years, a good portion of sunlight falling on Arctic sea ice has been reflected back into space. (It’s called the Albedo Effect for the Latin word for white.) But global warming has hit the Arctic harder than most of the planet, and as the sea ice melts, Earth's reflectivity is reduced by the resultant dark, warmer water, which melts more sea ice. This feedback loop—now unstoppable after a tipping point a while ago—seems likely to result in the complete loss of Arctic sea ice and a warmer planet despite any emission reductions that humans can achieve.
How close are our finances to some tipping points?
Of course, tipping points are not limited to physical phenomena. Pandemics, stock selloffs, real estate booms, and wars can often spring from risks that are slow-developing, then become suddenly powerful.
Real estate One risk that climate change is quietly raising relates to homes and other real estate holdings across the country.
The combination of federal flood maps that don’t reflect true risk, government insurance policies that subsidize development in flood-prone areas, and buyers who haven’t accepted the dangers posed by climate change all contribute to the prospect of a future real estate bubble, researchers found. [Washington Post story]
These house-price bubbles have developed in many parts of the country, but most homeowners don’t see them yet. Real estate agents in places like Galveston, Norfolk, Miami, and Paradise, CA are the most likely to notice, but they’re not telling potential buyers. If we live in a climate-threatened home or neighborhood, it makes sense to beat the rush out of there. And maybe get ahead of other families relocating to a more climate-proof neighborhood elsewhere.
What to think?
It’s discouraging to see that Human efforts to decelerate emissions are making progress, but on the slippery slope of Nature’s accelerators. The ideas that go through my head, brave or craven, thoughtful or knee-jerk, include
Better see Denali National Park and Fiji before it’s too late!
Gotta work harder on this Sustainability stuff!
Maybe my family should relocate sooner rather than later.
The Paris Agreement and that 1.5 degrees Celsius goal is a crock.
But then I remember Buddy’s and my fears less than two yeas ago, “working below the scale of the problem, our plans self-deceiving, our thoughts delusional,” and then how quickly human efforts and attitudes moved up a level, enough to give us hope of reducing the climate threat.
Today, knowing about Nature’s tipping points, I feel renewed doubts. But maybe our efforts and attitudes can move up yet another level and reduce this bigger climate threat too.
We can hope the tipping points are not soon, sudden and cataclysmic.
At what stage, and at what rise in global temperatures, will these tipping points be reached? No one is entirely sure. It may take centuries, millennia or it could be imminent. [World Economic Forum]
And there’s hope about specific threats as well! A Swedish research project last year suggests that
melting permafrost released one tenth as much methane as expected, suggesting emissions from thawing Arctic tundra could be less than previously feared. [Yale Environment 360]
Maybe we CAN deal with the added climate risks being imposed by Nature. Maybe coming generations CAN adapt to a new normal.
Thanks David and Buddy for doing all that research to give us comprehensive and frightening doses of reality. Many of these problems could be reduced by tech evolution...but only with healing political, cultural, societal fractures that would allow full mobilization of government resources. seems unlikely to me. It leaves me with the approach in Andrew Lloyd’s recent book, “l want a better Catastrophe. “. Thanks David.