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Wake Up, Freak Out
then Get a Grip
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Give me that!
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This really isn't about polar bears any more.
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At this very moment, the fate of civilization itself hangs in the balance.
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The way we have been calculating the future impacts of climate change up to now
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has been missing a really important piece of the picture.
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We are now dangerously close to the tipping point in the world's climate system
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this is the point of no return
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after which truly catastrophic changes become inevitable.
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Think of it like this:
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For the past three million years,
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our planet's climate has always been in one or the other of two stable states,
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small changes in solar incidence pushed us from one to the other.
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When we are in this cooler dip, the planet has an ice age.
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When we are in the warmer one, the planet's climate is very much as it is now,

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and has been throughout the whole of human history.
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The problem is that our use of fossil fuels
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is pushing us further and further out of our little stable dip
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and up the far slope of this hill.
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The tipping point is the point at which we cross the peak of the hill,
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and we no longer need to keep pushing
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to keep the planet moving towards a much hotter place.
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It will just keep rolling onwards, all on its own.
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This tipping point exists because of a set of positive feedbacks in the climate
systems
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mechanisms that can amplify the effects of man-made warming and lead to runaway
change.
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One of them is the Albedo Effect.
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White surfaces reflect more solar radiation than dark surfaces,
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so as global warming from greenhouse gases melts ice and snow,
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it leaves behind dark ocean or land.
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these surfaces now absorb more solar radiation than before - so adding to warmin
g
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which melts more ice and snow, and so on.
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Uncondensed water vapour is actually a more important greenhouse gas than CO2.
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Although we aren't actually emitting much water vapour directly,
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as the planet warms, evaporation rates increase,
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raising humidity and thickening the Earth's thermal blanket
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which in turn raises temperatures, which further increases evaporation rates,and
so on.
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Normally, about half the CO2 emitted each year from human activities
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is re-absorbed by a combination of forests, plankton, and the ocean itself.
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But the ocean surface is becoming more and more acidic
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as concentrations of CO2 dissolved in it rise.
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At the same time the water temperature at the surface is also going up,
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forming a layer of warm, acidic water that is spreading across the ocean surface
,
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killing off the plankton that locks CO2 out of the atmosphere.
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Worse, warm water holds less CO2 than cold water

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so as it heats up, it starts releasing some of the CO2 it had previously absorbe
d.
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Just like marine ecosystems, land-based ecosystems normally act as carbon sinks,
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taking carbon from the atmosphere and using it for growth.
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But as these eco-systems heat up, they become unbalanced
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plants become less and less effective
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while micro-organisms in the soil become more and more effective at putting it o
ut,
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causing the ecosystem as a whole to go from being a carbon sink to being a carbo
n source.
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As temperatures rise and rains fail, forests dry out, and fires don't get put ou
t.
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All of the forest's stored carbon goes up in smoke,
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adding to the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, further increasing warming,
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which further degrades the carbon sinks.
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In Siberia, a vast area of frozen peat bog the size of France and Germany combin
ed
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that we call the permafrost is melting,
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and as it melts, it releases huge quantities of methane.
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Methane is a greenhouse gas with a short lifespan in the atmosphere
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but while there it has a warming effect more than 20 times as powerful as carbon
dioxide.
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The more methane is released, the more it adds to warming,
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the more the permafrost melts, and the more methane is released.
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The arctic tundra is not the only place with large stores of frozen methane.
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Lurking under the sea bed there may be as much as 10 trillion tons of methane
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stored as frozen crystals at sites around the world.
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If we raise ocean temperatures by enough - and nobody knows how much is enough,
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we could trigger the sudden release of this stored methane into the atmosphere.
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The last time this happened, global temperatures rose abruptly by 10 degrees.
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So, these are some of the feedback mechanisms
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that explain why our global climate system has a tipping point.
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Each feedback in the system has its own internal tipping point,
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and it is the relationships within this complex, mutually reinforcing system,

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that have been missing from our climate prediction models.
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So far we have only pushed up global temperatures by around 0.8C
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but because of the 40 or 50 year time lag between emissions and temperature rise
,
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the emissions already in the atmosphere
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commit us to raising temperatures by around another 0.6C over the coming decades.
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which could easily be enough to place us right at the peak of the hill
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or even over it.
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If we do pass this critical threshold, global temperatures could soar by as much
as 6C.
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If this happens, the natural world will suffer a mass extinction event
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which will wipe out the majority of the plants and animals with which we share t
he planet.
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although there will be a lot more rats, flies, cockroaches and mosquitoes
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as the world's ecosystems go into meltdown.
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The first human impacts will come in the form of steeply declining access to fre
sh water,
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as rainfall patterns change, glacier-fed rivers dry up,

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and rising sea levels contaminate reservoirs.
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As crops fail, forests burn, deserts spread and coastal regions flood permanentl
y,
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people will start to pack up their things in their billions
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and move on in search of a better life elsewhere.
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But where?
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Humanity might survive this.
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But what will 'humanity' mean in a world where countries which will remain habit
able
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like Britain, spend most of our resources fighting to keep out the starving mill
ions
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who can no longer live in their own countries because of what we have done?
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The world is awash with weapons.
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Enough firearms to arm one in every seven human beings on the planet.
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As the world's ability to support the huge numbers of people alive today dwindle
s,
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we will not die peacefully in our sleep.
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OK, here's the good news:

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None of this is inevitable yet.
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This is not the time to panic or to despair.
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This is the time to act, while we still can.
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We need to recognize that there is a huge question mark
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over whether governments and corporations are capable of responding
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to this threat in the time we have left.
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They have had 20 years already and still have less than nothing to show for it.
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This is because they remain committed to a doctrine that prioritises
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short term profits and endless economic growth over the survival of life on eart
h.
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There is no great mystery about what we need to do
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to reduce emissions in line with the science.
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we simply need to consume less.
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But that is out of the question in a society
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which is founded on the ever-increasing consumption of material resources and en
ergy.
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Nobody has all of the answers

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but we do know that this is not the only way to live,
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and given that it is almost certainly going to kill us all,
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we'd better start looking urgently at some of the alternatives.
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It's now very clear that in order to actually win the fight against climate chan
ge,
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making big changes to the way we each live our own lives is not going to be enou
gh.
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we're also going to have to actively confront powerful vested interests
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who will stop at nothing to prevent the changes we need from taking place.
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We have to be more than just consumers.
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These are extraordinary times.
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Preventing runaway global warming is the most important task in all of human his
tory.
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and it has fallen to us to do it.
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If we don't, then everything else we work to achieve in our lives
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will be destroyed, or become meaningless.
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Those who came before us didn't know about this problem,

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and those who come after will be powerless to do anything about it.
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But for us, there's still time!
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We'd better get a move on though.
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English version by Leo Murray