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Scientists have a system for identifying episodes of life on Earth, starting with the Paleozoic (ancient life) Era about 600 million years ago and including the Cretaceous, which ended when Earth was hit by a massive asteroid, causing the extinction event that covered Earth with a shroud of ash and obliterated the dinosaurs. Life on Earth recovered, and we are now in an era that has been tentatively named the Anthropocene, the recent age of man.
There is much speculation about how this era will end, if at all. An article in The Economist evocatively entitled “Tomorrow and tomorrow and…” notes that “It is possible to imagine an Anthropocene that endures. This would be a world where human activity on its current scale continues, but human institutions rein in their excesses. Its carbon cycle is rebalanced; its climate cools; the chemistry of its abused oceans is tempered; its ice sheets and rainforests are restored.”
“It is also possible to imagine an Anthropocene which fades away as the economy and the environment are decoupled. Humans continue to thrive, but they take their largely virtual pleasures in fusion-powered, AI-optimized, indoor-farm-fed, everything-recycled cities — jewels of light on a planet slowly returning to wilderness.”
The article concludes by speculating that a geopolitical rupture will see a nuclear war that will end the Anthropocene, saying “Alas, it is easy — perhaps too easy — to imagine instead an Anthropocene which is nasty, brutish and short... perhaps, in time, civilization would grow back up, perhaps not.”
Of course, the first scenario where “human institutions rein in their excesses” is literally the only viable course. At temperatures of 104 to 122 degrees, our bodies stop working optimally. Outside temperatures above a certain level are deadly. The University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute estimated that this 4th of July may have been the hottest day recorded on Earth.
So, what will it take for people to realize that climate change is a compounding phenomenon that will eventually make life on Earth impossible unless they, as part of a global community, take measures to stop it?
Young people are leading this effort. In Montana, a group of 16 young plaintiffs sued the state for violating their constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment by allowing fossil fuel development — and they won. The judge ruled in favor of the group, because Montana’s constitution requires that “The state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment for present and future generations.” On this basis, she stated that “A policy that “does not allow agencies to look at greenhouse gas emissions is unconstitutional.” Harvard Law School professor Richard Lazarus said this decision is “clearly a major, path-breaking win for climate plaintiffs.”
The Montana judge also noted that “every additional ton of GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions exacerbates plaintiffs’ injuries and risks locking in irreversible climate injuries.”
Here the judge is referencing the deadliest aspect of climate change: the longer we wait, the more difficult it is to reverse. Climate change is compounding; it builds upon itself. For example, heat kills forests that would have absorbed and reduced greenhouse gas, and dead trees lead to more forest fires, leading to more climate change.
Anchorage’s long, cloudy summer — particularly the recent spell of incessant wind, strong enough to fell trees — gave us a sense that something is wrong. In rural Alaska, rising oceans are threatening people’s homes.
Visiting Alaska this month, U.S. Secretary of Interior, Deb Haaland said “Climate change is the crisis of our lifetime, and we cannot ignore the disproportionate impacts being felt in the Arctic.” Admirably, President Joe Biden has canceled oil leases in ANWR.
People everywhere are experiencing climate change, yet some argue that it is not happening. Among politicians, there is a danger that addressing climate change will be seen as a liberal agenda, whereas denying it will be the conservative course.
Nature does not care. The window of time for making essential changes is running out. The sooner people acknowledge that they are making the Earth unlivable, the sooner they will take the actions needed to reverse the compounding effects of climate change. The alternative is unacceptable.
Janet McCabe and her husband David came to Alaska in 1964. She is a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a member of Alaska Common Ground and Commonwealth North.
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