Adapt And Thrive… Or Fade Away

Earlier this year, the UN Secretary General warned, “If we do not change course by 2020, we risk missing the point where we can avoid runaway climate change, with disastrous consequences for people and all the natural systems that sustain us.”

- Perses Bilimoria

Most of us following and researching climate change, may suspect that this statement was triggered by ‘Three Years to Safeguard Our Climate’ (3-Years), first published in 2017. A meticulous examination of that document by several climate scientists, revealed that in several critical areas it was understated; some might say considerably understated.

The fundamental situation underpinning the concerns expressed in ‘3-Years’ was that the climate has entered a highly dangerous non-linear mode, or accelerating rate of change, and therefore requires an immediate non-linear response. Based on the post analysis of the ‘temperature’ paper by Jim Hansen et al., there is considerable mathematical evidence that the onset of this mode was 2002/2003, i.e., we have more likely been in this mode for around 15 years!

The reality is we must first slow, then stop, reverse, and finally stabilise the nonlinear mode.

A rather obvious conclusion is that a gross understatement has been made by the body politic; at that by those who are genuinely striving to bring attention to the need for change. Consider that if we compare the current rate of response, with the non-linear mode, then it is eminently arguable that we are already in early stage runaway climate change. The unanswered question is when does this transition to an uncontrollable rate of change and thus the timing of when the climate spirals out of control spawning a cascade of events that will make this planet very, if not totally, inhospitable for our species?