Nov 27 2009
Tipping Point
When I was a teenager, I firmly believed that the Apocalypse was at hand, that the end of the world as portrayed in the Bible and interpreted by Christian Fundamentalists was just about to take place. This belief framed my worldview until I studied enough history and philosophy to convince me otherwise. Now I see things differently. Now I realize that the world is constantly changing. Now I see that the Apocalypse occurs every day for someone somewhere on the planet. Every time a culture perishes or a species goes extinct, it is the end of the world as we know it.
Like all other apocalyptic narratives, Global Warming is predicated upon a set of inflexible beliefs. It goes something like this: The amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is rapidly increasing, and soon it will trigger a wholesale collapse of the entire planetary ecosystem. Most of that increase is due to human activity. We have to change our ways and radically reduce the amount of greenhouse gas we emit before it’s too late. The most important part of this narrative is the last part: before it’s too late. No apocalypse worthy of the name omits that disclaimer.
Environmentalists warn of a tipping point – a point of no return. Once there are enough greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, an irreversible breakdown of the planetary ecosystem will occur. But there’s still time, we are told. If we act now, we can still stop it. Hmm. That sounds an awful lot like the kind of hard-sell pitch that hustlers make on television late at night. Act now. . . before it’s too late!
How will we know when it’s too late? Scientists are generating all kinds of computer models to tell us just that. They assume that it’s possible to know all the critical elements of a planetary ecosystem as complex as ours. Are our scientists really arrogant enough to think they can determine the tipping point? Evidently so.
Clearly, for the thousands of species of plants and animals that have gone extinct, it is already too late. For the glaciers that have disappeared in the north, it is already too late. For those who want the weather to make sense again, it is already too late. The sea level is rising. It’s up a couple inches already. Soon it will be up to mid-calf. Will it be too late when it reaches our knees? How about our waists?
The tipping point concept is more politics than science. It smacks of high drama. Like all apocalyptic narratives, it is designed to inspire us, to force a behavioral change that will save us from ourselves. But the stark reality of our situation is much less forgiving. If we act now, then maybe we can salvage what’s left of an ecosystem that has been so good to us for so long. If we act now, then maybe we can reverse the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere during the next hundred years. Then again, maybe not. Either way, we will continue suffering the consequences of industrialization for centuries to come. Either way, the world will change. There’s no going back to the way things were.
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