Can We Stop Climate Change Without Dismantling Capitalism?

The Cross of the Moment

By Jacob Freydont-Attie (2015)

Film Review

Can climate change be addressed without dismantling capitalism? The current track record of world leaders suggests not – especially with the election of the world’s most prominent climate denier to the US presidency.

The Cross of the Moment is a documentary exploring the climate change dilemma and various options for limiting global warming and mitigating the effects of catastrophic climate change. It’s produced in a panel discussion format, with the filmmaker posing specific questions to prominent astrophysicists, climate scientists, political economists and climate activists (including Bill McKibben, Gary Snyder, Derrick Jensen, Peter D. Ward, Jill Stein, Bill Patzert, and Guy McPherson). I’m not normally a big fan of talking heads, but the optimism conveyed by this film – in stark contrast to the usual alarmist arguments – definitely held my attention.

I was especially impressed with Bill McKibbon’s elegant explanation of why changing light bulbs and other market-based behavioral changes aren’t going to end global warming. The climate activist lays out an elegant argument why systemic structural changes is needed to wean humanity off of fossil fuels and why fossil fuel companies aren’t going to allow this without a major global movement to counter their power and greed.

The other panelists present a range of views on the specific structural/systemic changes that are necessary to prevent climate changes from wiping out our ability to produce food. Most seem to agree that fossil fuels could be totally phased out – and replaced by renewable energy – by 2050. They estimate this could be done for a total capital cost of $15 trillion (which according to the IMF is less than we currently spend annually to subsidize the fossil fuel industry*).

The film offers a number of viewpoints on how to bring this about. One economist favors a carbon tax; another would totally ban wasteful industries such as packaging (the third largest global industry after energy and food) and junk mail (which produces 51 millions tons CO2 annually in the US alone). Two activists express the view that the political corruption exerted by the fossil fuel industry couldn’t be overcome without dismantling capitalism altogether.

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* According to the IMF, fossil fuel companies benefit from $5.3 trillion a year in subsidies.

 

The Approaching Mass Extinction

Under a Green Sky

By Peter D. Ward Ph.D

Smithsonian Books 2008

Book Review

Under a Green Sky is a compilation of the research linking mass extinction events with prehistoric episodes of global warming caused by high atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane. Ward explores the likelihood that current, unprecedented increases in both greenhouse gasses will likely cause a man-made mass extinction within the next 200 years.

The Asteroid that Wiped Out the Dinosaurs

The dinosaurs were wiped out by a mass extinction 144 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous era. Most evidence suggests it was triggered by a massive asteroid striking the Earth. This collision produced massive quantities of dust that blanketed the earth, significantly reducing the solar radiation reaching the surface of the Earth. This, in turn, led a planet with a universally tropical climate to experience a decade or more of freezing temperatures. Most of Earth’s plant species were killed off, along with the animal life that relied on them.

Accord to Ward, the fossil evidence suggests that this K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary) extinction was only one of multiple extinction events occurring in the presence of adverse living conditions that couldn’t support complex plant and animal life. Fossil remains suggest that smaller extinction events occurred every 26 million years, mostly triggered by massive increases in volcanic activity, leading to high atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and methane.

Under a Green Sky details Ward’s role in the excavations that support this conclusion, as well as the scientific methodology used to determine prehistoric CO2 levels, e.g. the size of plant soma* and differential ratios of carbon and oxygen isotopes.

What the Next Mass Extinction Will Look Like

The book concludes by outlining the mass extinction event Ward predicts for the 22nd century if atmospheric CO2 and methane levels continue to increase at their current rate. Based on past extinction events, this is the scenario he predicts:

1) A decrease in equator/polar temperature differences leads to total disruption of the thermohalene conveyer currents** responsible for oxygenating the ocean depths. Cold oxygenated water is steadily replaced with warm oxygen-poor water.
2) Sulfur-eating bacteria proliferate in the anoxic water (termed a Canfield Ocean) and release toxic hydrogen sulfide (the rotten egg smell associated with thermal hot springs).
3) Hydrogen sulfide rises into the upper atmosphere where it destroys s down the ozone layer protecting us from solar ultraviolet radiation. A massive increase in UV radiation kills off the phytoplankton, the ultimate food source of all ocean swelling animals.
4) A combination of intense heat and toxic hydrogen sulfide kills off many land based higher plants and animals.
5) The ocean turns purple, due to green and purple sulfur-eating bacteria. The sky turns green, owing to the proliferation of yellow dust from drought-stricken continents in the mid-latitudes.

Ward calculates that Antarctica’s ice sheet will have totally melted by 2200 and Greenland’s by 2300. By 2050, a steady rise in sea levels will have flooded all the world’s coastal cities, as well as all the deltas that presently contribute to global food production. Millions of people will die from famine (due to drastically reduced agricultural yields), extreme weather events and resource wars.

*The soma are tiny organs in plant leaves that capture sunlight to combine CO2 and water to produce plant sugars. They become more numerous as atmospheric CO2 concentrations increase.
**Plant fossils contain varying concentrations of carbon-13 and carbon-14 isotopes and oxygen-16 and oxygen-18 isotopes (the number varies according to the number of neutrons in the atom’s nucleus) depending on the relative atmospheric concentration of CO2 and oxygen when the plant was alive.
***Thermohaline circulation is an ocean conveyor belt that moves a massive current of water around the globe, from northern oceans to southern oceans, and back again. See Ocean Conveyer Belt