Climate Change, the Drought, and Social Stability
I look at Michael Klare (Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts) as a kind of Craig Shields on intellectual steroids. He and I agree on essentially everything; the only real difference is his super-extensive command of the facts, and his ability to draw bold and important conclusions from dozens of different data streams.
Here’s a great article on climate change, the 2012 drought, and its implications for the stability of our civilization.
I see the article as basically correct. Although I very much doubt that human beings will become extinct, civilization is likely to be very seriously damaged. The death rate could become comparable with the plagues of Europe during the middle ages.
Frank I think you’re in the ballpark about the potential impact on the species.
The Black Death is estimated to have killed about 25 million people died across Europe in just under five years between 1347 and 1352. The population just prior was an estimated 75 million so that’s a third of the population dead in five years’ time.
The closest modern equivalent pales in comparison – the “Spanish Flu”. That pandemic lasted from January 1918 to December 1920, spreading even to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands. Between 50 and 130 million died; that makes this outbreak one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history. Even using the higher estimate of 130 million people, that toll amounts to only 14% of the world’s population (which was 1.86 billion at the time). Some 500 million, or 27%, were infected.
We just passed 7 billion globally in March. The 1918 flu would have resulted just under a billion dead, while the plague would have killed 2.3 billion – a little less than the combined populations of India and China spread across the world.
Considering that the estimates of the sustainable carrying capacity of the planet without fossil sunlight (and lacking a replacement) are between 500 million and one billion humans, your comparison may in fact be a bit rosy, but gives a flavor of what our species is facing. Starvation and war are potent killers, particularly when combined with a widespread shortage of potable water.
The difference, of course, is that the death toll is quite avoidable to a very great degree, if we simply overcome socio-political inertia and stop the bribery, and force collective movement to modern sunlight in a sustainable infrastructure and agriculture using techniques that are already known. We have the techniques and we have the money, we just have to push the two together down the proper path.
It all gets back to bribery – always. That’s job one.
“he Black Death is estimated to have killed about 25 million people died across Europe in just under five years between 1347 and 1352.”
True, but actually it was worse than that. There were multiple plagues, each of which killed many people. Some communities were completely wiped out, mainly because people did not know how to protect themselves. So probably, with the multiple plagues, more than half of Europe’s population was wiped out.
We really need a project comparable to the Manhattan Project to develop a safer and more economical nuclear technology. I highly recommend reading the book, “Super Fuel: Thorium, the Green Energy Source for the Future” by Richard Martin; it is available from the usual sources. In my opinion, being competent to discuss nuclear power requires familiarity with liquid fluoride thorium reactor technology. Although I regard our current nuclear technology as a mistake, it is still far safer than the fossil fuel technologies we are using and must be temporarily greatly expanded while a better, more economical, and safer nuclear technology is being prepared for implementation on a large scale.
Energy conservation, while important, can make only a very minor difference. Actually, we must greatly increase energy use to lift poor nations out of grinding poverty and produce more potable water via sea water desalination, both of which will take considerable energy. Intermittent energy sources, like renewables, have only a limited rôle to play such as by providing very limited power in areas where connecting to the grid is not practical.
Many of us have been describing this roadmap for quite some time now. How exactly it plays out? Who’s to say, but it is with certainty that third worlders take the hit first. It is with certainty that when humans have a life threatening situation they abandon all pretense and do whatever it takes to acquire what they need.
The world will not take care of all of its peoples and various armed conflicts will occur. Nothing really to be done about it since we are way past the limits of sustainability in food growth. For those who believe the Russian tundra is the next new place for agriculture, careful what you ask for. If the permafrost retreats sufficiently to utilize that land, then due to all the embedded methane hydrates we are truly SOL.
The Third World is not monolithic. Surely some parts of the Third World will be hit, on average, harder than much of the First World, but I suspect that some parts of the Third World will weather global warming quite well.
There is a lot of guess work here and room for multiple opinions. It will be some time before all the results are known. How many years it will take to find out I don’t know; at my age, it may be that I won’t still be around to see the worst of it.