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href="https://eand.co/is-this-the-beginning-of-runaway-global-warming-ba472b9143c8">eand.co</a>
<h1 class="reader-title">Is This the Beginning of Runaway Global
Warming? - Eudaimonia and Co</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">umair haque</div>
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<div class="reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">10-13 minutes</div>
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<h2 id="0a72">It’s Beginning to Feel Like We’ve Finally
Pushed the Planet Past its Final Tipping Point</h2>
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href="https://medium.com/@umairh?source=post_page-----ba472b9143c8--------------------------------"
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<p id="8f91">Something is going very, very wrong. <em>Haywire</em>.
It’s hotter in Washington, DC and New York than it is in
Lahore, Pakistan. London got <a
href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjNmsrlsOjxAhWGMlkFHaC_CwMQFjABegQIBRAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fuk-england-london-57816647&usg=AOvVaw0Un6jJFTB2jT8CF7ZhRsUp"
rel="noopener">more than a month’s worth of rain in a
few <em>minutes</em></a>. Entire <a
href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj33vfrsOjxAhXVFlkFHaKCBJcQ0PADegQIAhAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2Feurope%2Flive-news%2Fdeadly-flooding-in-europe-07-16-21%2Findex.html&usg=AOvVaw3n3L_OYEXKrg2W8mv7kuqO"
rel="noopener">regions of Germany are flooded</a>.
California’s burning — <a
href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjT6p3ysOjxAhVJMlkFHZYECFUQ0PADegQIFBAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sacbee.com%2Fnews%2Fcalifornia%2Ffires%2Farticle252828123.html&usg=AOvVaw1hDoeRvau8iFOmLYmEsUXm"
rel="noopener">again</a>. Parts of Canada rivalled the
hottest places on earth — and <a
href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjHj9n5sOjxAhWsElkFHQ0qAuMQFnoECAMQAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fworld-us-canada-57678054&usg=AOvVaw22GWIfTgw18CHrHVsXi2iH"
rel="noopener">went up like tinder</a>.</p>
<p id="80b0"><strong>Something is <em>very wrong</em>. </strong>Not
just wrong in a usual way, but wrong in a weird,
off-the-charts way. These are “extreme events” which
scientists have long feared. But they’ve even shocked
scientists with <em>how suddenly extreme and frequent
they are</em>.</p>
<p id="8983">Don’t take it from me.</p>
<p id="7509">“The far north of Europe also sweltered in
record-breaking June heat, and cities in India, Pakistan
and Libya have endured unusually high temperatures in
recent weeks. Suburbs of Tokyo have been drenched in the
heaviest rainfall since measurements began and a usual
month’s worth of July rain fell on London in a day.
Events that were once in 100 years are becoming
commonplace. Freak weather is increasingly normal.”</p>
<p id="e7ba">Then Daniel Swain, a climate scientists, <a
href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjUrJGTsejxAhU_F1kFHY13CuwQFnoECAIQAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2F2021%2Fjul%2F16%2Fclimate-scientists-shocked-by-scale-of-floods-in-germany&usg=AOvVaw2rrzUa8gigQTfIX8bYvgVx"
rel="noopener">says something that sounds particularly
ominous</a>. “This is not a localised freak event, it
is definitely part of a coherent global pattern.” Think
about that for a moment. He’s right. None of these
weird, devastating “extreme events” are unconnected.
London and Germany flooded and California baked and
Canada burned and Washington, DC got hotter than Lahore
<em>at exactly the same time</em>.</p>
<p id="46da">They’re part of a pattern.</p>
<p id="3c81">So what pattern is it?</p>
<p id="93f8"><strong>It’s <em>not </em>just what even
scientists expected from “climate change,” </strong><a
rel="noopener"
href="https://eand.co/this-is-why-we-should-stop-calling-it-climate-change-1468bd7e68f4?source=your_stories_page-------------------------------------"><strong>better
called global overheating</strong></a><strong>. </strong>You
can find tons of evidence of scientists being literally
shocked. “This is such an exceptional event that <a
href="https://www.climatechangenews.com/2021/07/07/north-american-heatwave-broke-records-climate-models/"
rel="noopener">we can’t rule out the possibility</a>
that we’re experiencing heat extremes today that we only
expected to come at higher levels of global warming.”
“The obvious acceleration of the breakdown of our stable
climate simply confirms that — when it comes to the
climate emergency — <a
href="https://www.rawstory.com/we-are-in-deep-deep-sh-t-climate-experts-shocked-at-severity-of-floods-in-germany-and-belgium/"
rel="noopener"><em>we are in deep, deep shit</em></a><em>.”</em></p>
<p id="4cde">The pattern we’re seeing now is something
new, something that exceeds even the worst expectations
of science, something that’s genuinely shocking and
disturbing in fresh ways.</p>
<p id="eef9">I’d put it like this, in the form of a
question.</p>
<p id="ad45"><strong>What if this is the beginning of
runaway global warming?</strong> It seems worth
asking.</p>
<p id="3553">Again, <a
href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiP5_O6sujxAhW_GVkFHYBzDRwQFnoECAYQAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2F2021%2Fjul%2F16%2Fclimate-scientists-shocked-by-scale-of-floods-in-germany&usg=AOvVaw2rrzUa8gigQTfIX8bYvgVx"
rel="noopener">don’t take it from me</a>. “Some
experts fear the recent jolts indicate the climate
system may have crossed a dangerous threshold. Instead
of smoothly rising temperatures and steadily increasing
extremes, they are examining whether the trend may be
increasingly ‘nonlinear.’”</p>
<p id="164c"><strong>Let me translate that. It appears as
if we’ve <em>broken </em>something. Something
really, really fundamental. </strong>And without that
something, as a limiting factor, the planet is now
beginning to heat much, much faster than expected, in
severe, ominous, and devastating ways.</p>
<p id="0a67">You can think about that another way, if you
like. A tipping point was hit. Earlier than expected. A
point at which the system races to an entirely different
equilbrium, a new place of balance. Hence, the vicious
speed and sudden fury with which the climate appears to
be transforming. Positive feedback sets in — system
changes reinforce themselves — and bang! Game over.</p>
<p id="3a3f"><strong>What might some of those tipping
points and broken systems be? There are plenty of
candidates. </strong>The ocean currents which
circulate cool water and disperse the heat of water
warmed by the sun — there’s plenty of evidence already <a
href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjlmvnevOjxAhVsFlkFHTV2D7sQFnoECB4QAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fclimate.nasa.gov%2Fnews%2F2950%2Farctic-ice-melt-is-changing-ocean-currents%2F&usg=AOvVaw2yJaybR3JUNI1RZAgomhky"
rel="noopener">they’re being affected badly.</a> The
melting of the polar ice caps — which again is obvious
to see, and has a double hit, because ice reflects heat,
but earth absorbs it. The monsoon which much of the
world relies on for water and coolness. The permafrost,
which <a
href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwir1sOGvejxAhXbMVkFHUluBNoQFnoECDIQAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fe360.yale.edu%2Ffeatures%2Fhow-melting-permafrost-is-beginning-to-transform-the-arctic&usg=AOvVaw2L6YnFLYVh3WRqHu3f20hf"
rel="noopener">traps methane and other greenhouse
gases</a>. The boreal zones — like in Canada —
essentially <a
href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwigo8aOvejxAhXuGVkFHQOcCO4QFjACegQIBBAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedaily.com%2Freleases%2F2015%2F08%2F150820144722.htm&usg=AOvVaw2IZRBxdjunVXiIMoGCMIcI"
rel="noopener">dying off as forests</a>. The lungs of
the earth, <a
href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiQ49GWvejxAhUJGFkFHSzNAO4QFnoECAcQAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwwf.panda.org%2Fknowledge_hub%2Fwhere_we_work%2Famazon%2Famazon_threats%2Fclimate_change_amazon%2F&usg=AOvVaw2zqPsaA4_XpsLZDiN8oiEn"
rel="noopener">the Amazon</a>.</p>
<p id="aa1a">Those are just some of the planet’s major
ecosystems. And the really alarming thing is that many
of them have just hit tipping points, or are getting
awfully close to them.</p>
<p id="cef7">The Amazon’s the first one to hit a tipping
point which we know of and can call one: it emits more
carbon than it takes in, crippled, battered, left for
dead. Bang. That’s one crucial planetary ecosystem <em>dead</em>.
Did anyone much notice or even care? Did you? Are you
just clueless, the way our institutions want you?</p>
<p id="234b"><strong>Then there’s the melting of ice
sheets, whether in the Arctic, Antarctic, Greenland.</strong>
Their disintegration has been swift and severe — faster,
again, than predicted. Have they <em>already</em> hit a
tipping point?</p>
<p id="3b55">How about the ocean currents? There’s plenty
of evidence, too, they’re slowing down, changing in
strange ways unseen for millions of years. <em>Tipping
point?</em></p>
<p id="b083">I could go on.</p>
<p id="029c">The problem is this. Science can only really
confirm these tipping points <em>after they happen</em>.</p>
<p id="7d13"><strong>That’s not to say science isn’t
valuable.</strong> It’s invaluable, because it lets us
predict that these systems are fragile and <em>shouldn’t
be messed with at all</em>.</p>
<p id="7b2c">If you don’t know when you’re going to push a
system past a tipping point — a nonlinear feedback point
beyond which it races to a new equilibrium, but that one
might, well, destroy your civilisation and life…then you
should probably <em>stop doing what you’re doing
immediately</em>, and try to preserve the system from
any further perturbation.</p>
<p id="70f5">In other words, we should have tried to
attain much, much more ambitious targets, decades ago.
Not just a reduction in carbon emissions, but <em>zero
carbon</em>. Instead of idiot billionaires going to
Mars, that should have been our generation’s moonshot.
Or even finding ways to restore the ice sheets. Or
revivify the great forests, like the Amazon. We think of
building apps as an engineering challenge. <em>It’s not</em>.
Revivifying ecosystems, protecting ice sheets, hitting
no carbon at all — those are today’s <em>real</em>
engineering challenges.</p>
<p id="4eda"><strong>They’re so vast nobody knows how to
do them — nobody even has a clue. If I say to you,
hey, <em>how do we bring an ice sheet back to life</em>?</strong>
You’ll give me a blank stare. Elon Musk can’t tell me.
Jeff Bezos can’t tell me. So why do we <a
href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwirip_evujxAhWRKVkFHfwxDKkQFnoECAIQAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Feand.co%2Fwhy-do-americans-idolize-the-super-rich-5590d80471ce&usg=AOvVaw30mJjjrZcyay7bE1cFpOaB"
rel="noopener">worship these fools as geniuses</a>, at
least plenty of us? We have literally no idea how to fix
these problems — and that is what we have to try to do,
because science can only confirm the worst for us, after
it happens.</p>
<p id="0f8e">We need to concentrate what dwindling
resources we have left as a civilization, as societies,
on fixing problems <em>we have no idea how to fix yet</em>.
Anyone know how to stop, say, Germany from flooding? Not
just deal with the damage of the floods — but <em>prevent
the flood</em>? Anyone know how to <em>reverse a
planetary tipping point</em>?</p>
<p id="c1fd"><strong>Nobody does. And we had better try to
find out, fast.</strong> We need to invest trillions
upon trillions in this stuff, in the most radical way
imaginable — think what “zero carbon” really means. <em>Or
else</em>.</p>
<p id="2f9d">Or else? Well, take a look around. We’re
being <a rel="noopener"
href="https://eand.co/this-isnt-a-heatwave-it-s-a-dying-planet-ac1c9eb529d1?source=your_stories_page-------------------------------------"><em>boiled
alive</em></a>. We’re being drowned. Burned. Our
civilisation is literally beginning to go up in flames,
flood, drought, and plague. And it looks a whole lot
like <a
href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwit8PjrwOjxAhU0GVkFHWkOAQQQFnoECAMQAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Feand.co%2Fthree-decades-three-revolutions-or-our-civilization-will-collapse-de2758d94f63&usg=AOvVaw3WLENdwGu445C5O04wCxR2"
rel="noopener">this is <em>just the beginning</em>.</a></p>
<p id="5f1f">If I think back, even in my own life, <em>it
didn’t used to be like this</em>. Washington DC and
New York City weren’t remotely as hot as Lahore or New
Delhi. And Lahore and New Delhi, in turn, weren’t nearly
as hot as <em>they </em>are now. Canada wasn’t going
up in flames. Europe wasn’t flooding.</p>
<p id="362e"><strong>That’s not “anecdotal evidence,”
that’s <em>reality</em>. The climate really was
vastly different, on a level you can now notice every
day. </strong>The seasons were different. The days
and nights were different. The storms were different.
The rain and wind was different. It didn’t used to be
like this — and it got “like this” way too fast, way
faster than anyone much expected, except those once
dismissed as “pessimists” and “alarmists.” But it looks
like <em>they were right</em>. The planet appears to be
overheating faster and harder than anyone much thought
possible. So fast that you and I can <em>literally now
feel it</em> over the tiny, infinitesimal geological
scale of one human lifetime. Shudder.</p>
<p id="4ae6"><strong>Let me say it again, because I think
this point really matters. The planet appears to be
overheating so fast, so rapidly, so suddenly, that you
and I can feel it <em>in our own lifetimes</em>. </strong>That’s
<em>incredibly</em> fast. It’s why climate scientists
are shocked. Usually, the climate changes in relatively
slow ways — maybe fast for <em>it</em>, but compared to
a human lifetimes, eons. Thousands of years, even
millions.</p>
<p id="4d3f">The climate does not change within decades
unless <em>something fundamental is broken</em>. It
doesn’t change so swiftly and severely that you and I
can talk about how different the seasons were just a
decade or two ago — or even a few years ago — unless
something has gone deeply wrong, in the most basic
planetary systems. We should not be able to feel climate
change as rapidly and severely as we are — within the
span of a single human lifetime — unless something truly
mega-catastrophic is happening.</p>
<p id="8f73">Think about today’s young people. Even
they’ll talk about the summers being cooler. About
storms and floods being less frequent. About winters
being colder. The extremes of weather being way, way
less extreme. They’re <em>kids</em>. They’re not just
innocent and cute and nice — they’ve only been alive for
twenty or thirty years or less. That’s how fast our
planet appears to be overheating. That’s incredibly,
shockingly, ominously fast.</p>
<p id="7268"><strong>We should be incredibly worried. It
is <em>not normal</em>. Even within the pretty
catastrophic range of “normal” for climate scenarios.
</strong>We’re beyond even that abnormal normal. We’re
rapidly, severely outpacing <em>our very own worst
predictions</em> for planetary climate catastrophe. So
fast, so hard, that you can feel it in your memory. That
you remember: it didn’t used to be like this. Just a few
short years ago. Within the mayfly span of a single
human lifetime. And it seems to be accelerating every
year, overheating, warming, how searingly hot it is,
even in what used to be some of the coldest places or
times on earth, in your life, in our world.</p>
<p id="1673"><strong>That’s really, really bad. <em>It
shouldn’t be happening like this</em>, “climate
change.” </strong>It’s too fast, too severe, too
weird, too sudden, accelerating too hard, spinning out
of control. It’s <a rel="noopener"
href="https://eand.co/none-of-this-is-normal-5a8bd67544c2?source=your_stories_page-------------------------------------">way
beyond us now, shocking us every season</a>, hitting
us much, much harder than most of us ever thought it
could or would, catastrophic discontinuity exploding off
the axes of the graphs we used to confidently show each
other to prove how intelligent we were. <em>I can
barely go outside today. </em>You?</p>
<p id="34c5">So let me ask you again: <a rel="noopener"
href="https://eand.co/this-is-our-last-warning-from-a-dying-planet-9711e005f62?source=your_stories_page-------------------------------------">is
this now the beginning</a> of runaway planetary
overheating?</p>
<p id="1c40">Umair<br>
July 2021</p>
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