See update for November 6, 2021, at end of post.
On the whole, what George Monbiot writes on climate change, essentially that humans fiddle, consuming to exacerbate the crisis at hand and diverting ourselves from it, while the planet burns, is right. I think he errs in calling the rules mathematical and in calling the outcomes predictable,[1] though he comes by the error honestly.[2]
The mathematical and predictable claims are hubris, particularly on the part of the former, but the nature of emergent properties rests in their unpredictability. We can know only that as we approach tipping points, the system will change, and that restoring the system requires a return to the conditions that produced it in the first place, not merely an attempt to retreat back across those tipping points.[3] The needed return, to the conditions which produced the neolithic, which originated from an ice age,[4] is far beyond our power and so we can hope only to arrest our course, the course Monbiot describes well,[5] before we pass those points.
Because emergent properties are unpredictable, we cannot recognize them until they already exist, when a new system with its own set of stabilizing and destabilizing feedbacks has already established itself.[6] We therefore cannot know we have crossed these thresholds, passed these tipping points, until well after, when it is already too late. It is possible, perhaps probable, we have already passed them.
And because we do not know the outcome, we can only surmise that systems which can support human life are only a few among numerous possibilities; the mathematical likelihood—not a certainty—is that a new system will not support human life. We may already be doomed.
The urgency of the climate crisis, therefore, arises from a mere hope that we are not already doomed. But if Monbiot is right—here, I think he is[7]—our prospects for averting that outcome are vanishingly small. They are our only chance.
Update, November 6, 2021: George Monbiot notes the discrepancy between the rhetoric at the Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26) and governments’ support for fossil fuel extraction.[8] Reading this, I couldn’t help thinking of Joe Manchin’s steadfast support for coal extraction and fossil fuel industries.[9]
- [1]George Monbiot, “Surface Tension,” November 2, 2021, https://www.monbiot.com/2021/11/02/surface-tension/↩
- [2]Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life (New York: Anchor, 1996); Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi, The Systems View of Life (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University, 2014).↩
- [3]Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life (New York: Anchor, 1996); Joanna Macy, Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory (Delhi, Sri Satguru, 1995); Edgar Morin, On Complexity (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton, 2008).↩
- [4]William J. Burroughs, Climate Change in Prehistory (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University, 2008).↩
- [5]George Monbiot, “Surface Tension,” November 2, 2021, https://www.monbiot.com/2021/11/02/surface-tension/↩
- [6]Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life (New York: Anchor, 1996); Joanna Macy, Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory (Delhi, Sri Satguru, 1995); Edgar Morin, On Complexity (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton, 2008).↩
- [7]George Monbiot, “Surface Tension,” November 2, 2021, https://www.monbiot.com/2021/11/02/surface-tension/↩
- [8]George Monbiot, “Groundtruthed,” November 5, 2021, https://www.monbiot.com/2021/11/05/groundtruthed/↩
- [9]Daniel Boguslaw, “Joe Manchin’s Dirty Empire,” Intercept, September 3, 2021, https://theintercept.com/2021/09/03/joe-manchin-coal-fossil-fuels-pollution/; Geoff Dembicki, “Joe Manchin Makes $500K a Year From One of the Dirtiest Coal Plants in West Virginia,” Vice, July 28, 2021, https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3x8bw/joe-manchin-senator-millions-coal-grant-town-west-virginia; David Moore, “Manchin Bailed Out a Power Plant That Helps His Family Profit From Coal Waste,” Truthout, August 7, 2021, https://truthout.org/articles/manchin-bailed-out-a-power-plant-that-helps-his-family-profit-from-coal-waste/↩