[ What a 2005 Bestseller Tells Us About Climate Change and Human
Survival. ]
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COLLAPSE 2.0  
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Michael Klare
August 18, 2023
ScheerPost
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_ What a 2005 Bestseller Tells Us About Climate Change and Human
Survival. _

Redlining the Temperature, Alan Levine

 

In his 2005 bestseller _Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or
Succeed_
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geographer Jared Diamond focused on past civilizations that confronted
severe climate shocks, either adapting and surviving or failing to
adapt and disintegrating. Among those were the Puebloan culture of
Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, the ancient Mayan civilization of
Mesoamerica, and the Viking settlers of Greenland. Such societies,
having achieved great success, imploded when their governing elites
failed to adopt new survival mechanisms to face radically changing
climate conditions.

Bear in mind that, for their time and place, the societies Diamond
studied supported large, sophisticated populations. Pueblo Bonito, a
six-story structure in Chaco Canyon, contained up to 600 rooms, making
it the largest building in North America until the first skyscrapers
rose in New York some 800 years later. Mayan civilization is believed
to have supported a population of more than 10 million people at its
peak between 250 and 900 A.D., while the Norse Greenlanders
established a distinctively European society around 1000 A.D. in the
middle of a frozen wasteland. Still, in the end, each collapsed
utterly and their inhabitants either died of starvation, slaughtered
each other, or migrated elsewhere, leaving nothing but ruins behind.

The question today is: Will our own elites perform any better than the
rulers of Chaco Canyon, the Mayan heartland, and Viking Greenland?

As Diamond argues, each of those civilizations arose in a period of
relatively benign climate conditions, when temperatures were moderate
and food and water supplies adequate. In each case, however, the
climate shifted wrenchingly, bringing persistent drought or, in
Greenland’s case, much colder temperatures. Although no contemporary
written records remain to tell us how the ruling elites responded, the
archaeological evidence suggests that they persisted in their
traditional ways until disintegration became unavoidable.

These historical examples of social disintegration spurred lively
discussion among my students when, as a professor at Hampshire
College, I regularly assigned _Collapse_ as a required text. Even
then, a decade ago, many of them suggested that we were beginning to
face severe climate challenges akin to those encountered by earlier
societies — and that our contemporary civilization also risked
collapse if we failed to take adequate measures to slow global warming
and adapt to its inescapable consequences.

But in those discussions (which continued until I retired from
teaching in 2018), our analyses seemed entirely theoretical: Yes,
contemporary civilization might collapse, but if so, not any time
soon. Five years later, it’s increasingly difficult to support such
a relatively optimistic outlook. Not only does the collapse of modern
industrial civilization appear ever more likely, but the process
already seems underway.

PRECURSORS OF COLLAPSE

When do we know that a civilization is on the verge of collapse? In
his now almost 20-year-old classic, Diamond identified three key
indicators or precursors of imminent dissolution: a persistent pattern
of environmental change for the worse like long-lasting droughts;
signs that existing modes of agriculture or industrial production were
aggravating the crisis; and an elite failure to abandon harmful
practices and adopt new means of production. At some point, a critical
threshold is crossed and collapse invariably follows.

Today, it’s hard to avoid indications that all three of those
thresholds are being crossed.

To begin with, on a planetary basis, the environmental impacts of
climate change are now unavoidable and worsening by the year. To take
just one among innumerable global examples, the drought afflicting the
American West has now persisted for more than two decades, leading
scientists to label it a “megadrought
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all recorded regional dry spells in breadth and severity. As of August
2021, 99%
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the United States west of the Rockies was in drought, something for
which there is no modern precedent. The recent record heat waves
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region have only emphasized this grim reality.

The American West’s megadrought has been accompanied by another
indicator of abiding environmental change: the steady decline in the
volume of the Colorado River, the region’s most important source of
water. The Colorado River Basin supplies drinking water to more than
40 million people in the United States and, according to economists at
the University of Arizona, it’s crucial to $1.4 trillion
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the U.S. economy. All of that is now at severe risk due to increased
temperatures and diminished precipitation. The volume of the Colorado
is almost 20% below what it was when this century began and, as global
temperatures continue to rise, that decline is likely to worsen.

The most recent report
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Panel on Climate Change offers many examples of such negative climate
alterations globally (as do the latest headlines). It’s obvious, in
fact, that climate change is permanently altering our environment in
an ever more disastrous fashion.

It’s also evident that Diamond’s second precursor to collapse, the
refusal to alter agricultural and industrial methods of production
which only aggravate or — in the case of fossil-fuel consumption —
simply cause the crisis, is growing ever more obvious. At the top of
any list would be a continuing reliance on oil, coal, and natural gas,
the leading sources of the greenhouse gases (GHGs) now overheating our
atmosphere and oceans. Despite all the scientific evidence linking
fossil-fuel combustion to global warming and the promises of governing
elites to reduce the consumption of those fuels — for example, under
the Paris Climate Agreement
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2015 — their use continues to grow.

According to a 2022 report
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by the International Energy Agency (IEA), global oil consumption,
given current government policies, will rise from 94 million barrels
per day in 2021 to an estimated 102 million barrels by 2030 and then
remain at or near that level until 2050. Coal consumption, though
expected to decline after 2030, is still rising in some areas of the
world. The demand for natural gas (only recently found
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be dirtier than previously imagined) is projected to exceed 2020
levels in 2050.

The same 2022 IEA report indicates that energy-related emissions of
carbon dioxide — the leading component of greenhouse gases — will
climb from 19.5 billion metric tons in 2020 to an estimated 21.6
billion tons in 2030 and remain at about that level until
2050. Emissions of methane
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another leading GHG component, will continue to rise, thanks to the
increased production of natural gas.

Not surprisingly, climate experts now predict
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average world temperatures will soon surpass 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7
degrees Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial level — the maximum
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planet can absorb without experiencing irreversible, catastrophic
consequences, including the dying out of the Amazon and the melting of
the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets (with an accompanying rise in
sea levels of one meter or more).

There are many other ways in which societies are now perpetuating
behavior that will endanger the survival of civilization, including
the devotion of ever more resources to industrial-scale beef
production. That practice consumes
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amounts of land, water, and grains that could be better devoted to
less profligate vegetable production. Similarly, many governments
continue to facilitate the large-scale production of water-intensive
crops through extensive irrigation schemes, despite the evident
decline in global water supplies that is already producing widespread
shortages of drinking water in places like Iran
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Finally, today’s powerful elites are _choosing_ to perpetuate
practices known to accelerate climate change and global devastation.
Among the most egregious, the decision of top executives of the
ExxonMobil Corporation — the world’s largest and wealthiest
privately-owned oil company — to continue pumping oil and gas for
endless decades after their scientists warned them about the risks of
global warming and affirmed that Exxon’s operations would only
amplify them. As early as the 1970s, Exxon’s scientists predicted
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firm’s fossil-fuel products could lead to global warming with
“dramatic environmental effects before the year 2050.” Yet, as has
been well documented, Exxon officials responded by investing company
funds in casting doubt on climate change research, even financing
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tanks focused on climate denialism. Had they instead broadcast their
scientists’ findings and worked to speed the transition to
alternative fuels, the world would be in a far less precarious
position today.

Or consider China’s decision, even as it was working to develop
alternative energy sources, to increase
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combustion of coal — the most carbon-intense of all fossil fuels —
in order to keep factories and air conditioners humming during periods
of increasingly extreme heat.

All such decisions have ensured that future floods, fires, droughts,
heatwaves, you name it, will be more intense and prolonged. In other
words, the precursors to civilizational collapse and the
disintegration of modern industrial society as we know it — not to
speak of the possible deaths of millions of us — are already
evident. Worse yet, numerous events this very summer suggest that we
are witnessing the first stages of just such a collapse.

THE APOCALYPTIC SUMMER OF ‘23

July 2023 has already been declared
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hottest month ever recorded and the entire year is also likely to go
down as the hottest ever. Unusually high temperatures globally are
responsible for a host of heat-related deaths across the planet. For
many of us, the relentless baking will be remembered as the most
distinctive feature of the summer of ’23. But other climate impacts
offer their own intimations of an approaching Jared Diamond-style
collapse. To me, two ongoing events fit that category in a striking
fashion.

The fires in Canada: As of August 2nd, months after they first erupted
into flame, there were still 225 major uncontrolled wildfires
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degree of control but still burning across the country. At one point,
the figure was more than 1,000
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To date, they have burned some 32.4 million acres of Canadian
woodland, or 50,625 square miles — an area the size of the state of
Alabama. Such staggering fires, largely attributed to
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effects of climate change, have destroyed hundreds of homes and other
structures, while sending particle-laden smoke across Canadian and
American cities — at one point turning
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York’s skies orange. In the process, record amounts
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carbon dioxide were dispatched into the atmosphere, only increasing
the pace of global warming and its destructive impacts.

Aside from its unprecedented scale, there are aspects of this year’s
fire season that suggest a more profound threat to society. To begin
with, in fire terms — or more accurately, in climate-change terms
— Canada has clearly lost control of its hinterland. As political
scientists have long suggested, the very essence of the modern
nation-state, its core _raison d’être_, is maintaining control
over its sovereign territory and protecting its citizens. A country
unable to do so, like Sudan or Somalia, has long been considered a
“failed state [[link removed]].”

By now, Canada has abandoned
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hope of controlling a significant percentage of the fires raging in
remote areas of the country and is simply allowing them to burn
themselves out. Such areas are relatively unpopulated, but they do
house numerous indigenous communities whose lands have been destroyed
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who have been forced to flee, perhaps permanently. Were this a
one-time event, you could certainly say that Canada still remains an
intact, functioning society. But given the likelihood that the number
and extent of wildfires will only increase in the years ahead as
temperatures continue to rise, Canada — hard as it might be to
believe — can be said to be on the verge of becoming a failed state.

The floods in China: While American reporting on China tends to focus
on economic and military affairs, the most significant news this
summer has been the persistence of unusually heavy rainfall in many
parts of the country, accompanied by severe flooding. At the beginning
of August, Beijing experienced its heaviest rainfall
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such phenomena began being measured there more than 140 years ago. In
a pattern found to be characteristic
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hotter, more humid environments, a storm system lingered over Beijing
and the capital region for days on end, pouring 29 inches of rain on
the city between July 29th and August 2nd. At least 1.2 million people
had to be evacuated
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flood-prone areas of surrounding cities, while more than 100,000
acres
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crops were damaged or destroyed.

It’s not that unusual for floods and other extreme weather events to
bedevil China, causing widespread human suffering. But 2023 has been
distinctive both in the amount of rainfall it’s experienced and
the record heat
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gone with it. Even more strikingly, this summer’s climate extremes
forced the government to behave in ways that suggest a state at the
mercy of a raging climate system.

When flooding threatened Beijing, officials sought to spare the
capital from its worst effects by diverting floodwaters to surrounding
areas. They were to “resolutely serve as a moat for the
capital,” according to
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Yuefeng, the Communist Party secretary for Hebei province, which
borders Beijing on three sides. While that might have spared the
capital from severe damage, the diverted water poured into Hebei,
causing extensive harm to infrastructure and forcing those 1.2 million
people to be relocated. The decision to turn Hebei into a “moat”
for the capital suggests a leadership under siege by forces beyond its
control. As is true of Canada, China is certain to face even greater
climate-related disasters prompting the government to take who knows
what extreme measures to prevent widespread chaos and calamity.

These two events strike me as particularly revealing, but there are
others that come to mind from this record-breaking summer. For
example, the Iranian government’s decision to declare
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unprecedented two-day national holiday on August 2nd, involving the
closure of all schools, factories, and public offices, in response to
record heat and drought. For many Iranians, that “holiday” was
nothing but a desperate ploy to disguise the regime’s inability to
provide sufficient water and electricity – a failure that’s bound
to prove ever more destabilizing in the years to come.

ENTERING A NEW WORLD BEYOND IMAGINING

Half a dozen years ago, when I last discussed Jared Diamond’s book
with my students, we spoke of the ways civilizational collapse could
still be averted through concerted action by the nations and peoples
of the world. Little, however, did we imagine anything like the summer
of ’23.

It’s true that much has been accomplished in the intervening years.
The percentage of electricity provided by renewable sources globally
has, for example, risen significantly
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the cost of those sources has fallen dramatically. Many nations have
also taken significant steps to reduce carbon emissions. Still, global
elites continue to pursue strategies that will only amplify climate
change, ensuring that, in the years to come, humanity will slide ever
closer to worldwide collapse.

When and how we might slip over the brink into catastrophe is
impossible to foresee. But as the events of this summer suggest, we
are already all too close to the edge of the kind of systemic failure
experienced so many centuries ago by the Mayans, the ancient
Puebloans, and the Viking Greenlanders. The only difference is that we
may have no place else to go. Call it, if you want, Collapse 2.0.

Michael T. Klare, _The Nation_’s defense correspondent, is
professor emeritus of peace and world-security studies at Hampshire
College and senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association in
Washington, D.C. Most recently, he is the author of _All Hell
Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change_.

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