Guest essay by Larry Kummer. From the Fabius Maximus website.
Summary: While scientists debate if we live in the Anthropocene era, let’s not fall into delusions of grandeur. Natural forces can wipe away cities and destroy regions despite our impressive powers. We have prepared poorly or not at all for most of these. This is a luxury we can no longer afford.
“We don’t even plan for the past.”
— Steven Mosher (member of Berkeley Earth), a comment posted at Climate Etc.
Some scientists have proposed designating the post-WWII era as the start of the Anthropocene, a new geologic time when humanity’s power becomes a major force shaping Earth’s geology. Here’s a good introduction by Paul Voosen in Science, describing the both sides of the issue.
If scientists decide to accept this proposal, it is vital not to misinterpret its meaning. Our power can reshape the surface of the world. We can destroy it quickly with nukes or slowly with pollution. Let’s not engage in delusions of grandeur. But we remain helpless before the ordinary processes of the Earth.
Eventually one of the certain-to-happen disasters will demonstrate our low place in the hierarchy of natural forces. We face a bewildering range of threats: a magnitude 9+ earthquake (such as these), a volcanic eruption of 7+ on the volcanic eruption index (such as these; VEI 8 is a supervolcano), a global pandemic (such as the 1918 flu or worse), a Category 5 cyclone (wind speed >157 mph, like these) hits a city, a powerful solar storm that wrecks the planet’s electronics (as a repeat of the 1859 Carrington Event would do), the impact of a largish asteroid or comet, or one of the many other perils of the Earth.
All these things have occurred in the past and will occur again. We lack the ability to predict their dates and locations — but we can prepare for them. But with a few exceptions we do not do so, as our ruling elites preferring to focus instead on threats with politically useful cures (i.e., those that justify increased government powers). That might be an expensive obsession.
Humanity faces many dangers, as it always has. For all our power we remain subject to nature’s whims. Our crowded world, sustained by complex global systems, could suffer a million deaths and vast physical damage. Failure to prepare rationally for the full spectrum of risks — natural and anthropogenic — is a luxury we can no longer afford. Our resources are limited, so we must use them wisely. See the next section for posts discussion how we can do so.
For More Information
For more information see all posts about shockwaves (high impact, low probability scenarios), and especially these …
- We are so vulnerable to so many things. What is the best response?
- Preparing for the future: should we be precautionary or proactionary?
- The first step to protecting the world from its many dangers.
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb looks at the risks threatening humanity.
- Collapsitarians and their doomster porn.
Hubriocene: Selff centered arrogant a-hole baby boomers that actually think their micro footprint on this world affects anything.
A-holeocene?
It’s not baby-boomers. The Anthropocene is a product of willfully unfocused thinking in service to Sociologists deluding themselves that they’re thinking important thoughts.
The so-called scientists most playing into the Anthropocene nonsense are climatologists like Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt, neither of whom are baby boomers. Kevin Trenberth fits the boomer bill, as does James Hansen (leading edge perhaps), but Stefan Rahmstorf doesn’t nor does Ben Santer.
So it’s not about generations. Its about incompetence.
Sociology in general has been seduced by Critical Theory into fuzzy-minded but immensely satisfying grand sweeping pronouncements about society. It’s no surprise they should find a salubrious connection with climate scientists, who have likewise jettisoned analytical science in favor of nonsensically grandiose pronouncements. Both groups have abandoned the reductionist program of science, both groups put their conclusions before their analyses, both groups honor incompetents.
The Anthropocene is their work-product.
“The Anthropocene is a product of willfully unfocused thinking in service to Sociologists deluding themselves that they’re thinking important thoughts.”
In this article, the Anthropocene Age is a geological designation, in which humanity is said to be a major force in shaping earth’s geology.
The Anthropocene Age scientific paradigm is not to be confused with the Anthropocene Age in terms of geology.
Although…the Anthropocene Age scientific paradigm does require interdisciplinary study of the effect of man on the environment. So not just geology but all science, all arts, and all of the soft sciences, will participate and be guided by the ruling paradigm. And of course when there is a scientific paradigm shift, the past must be rewritten in light of the new paradigm.
The aim is to blame every chemical, em wave, power source, and crop or domestic animal for triggering tipping points in the environment and for causing disease, and the goal sustainable development.
when the economy was based on manufacturing, things were different.
then came the ‘blow m… er.. service economy’
and then came the activism industry- of which blogs are one example.
do you doubt?
http://www.water-bar.org/
makes your inner annelid do that reverse peristalsis thing, don’t it?
For a good time call: http://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/395/1/255.short
867-5309.
634-5789 – for an old time
Future generations will know it as Rollingonthefoorlaughingmyassoffocene.
maybe the Putrescine…
When the next glaciation gets well under way and the continental shelves begin reappearing, the uncovered cities and villages will be a good marker for the start of the Anthropocene. I’d think that there would also be some of the earliest stone tools. As for the end marker, there will be another layer of stone tools. In between those boundary layers, will be a sandwich of copper, bronze, iron, steel tools and quixotic jumble of plastic and mixed-material devices.
Tons of interesting comments here, my apologies if I’m duplicating someone else’s points; The disaster movies we saw around Y2K made a good sampling of possible extinction level events for humanity, and should have driven home the point that all our eggs are literally and figuratively in one basket: Earth.
Business has a tool called gap analysis, which takes into account where we are and where we want to be, and tries to work out the intermediate steps. In our case, we want to work out what to do in order to survive until our tech improves to the point where we can travel to and live on other planets. An example of a no-no would be having so much orbital junk that planetary escape is no longer feasible. This should be a workable short-term goal….
Well, if some freshly developed scientific species comes along in, say, 70 million years – say, 69.95 million years after the demise of us, those geologists will certainly be able to point to a very defined layer of some very unusual geological happening at that time. Further examination will prove that an advanced civilisation did indeed exist about 70 million years earlier – imagine the sensation in that future civilisation!
And I am sure they will find a word to describe it – anthropocene is a good enough word.
Douglas Adams already did: “The Shoe Event Horizon.”
I should have been more specific : I wrote “69.95 million years” – let me now correct that to 69.99995 million years from now. I completely forgot that mankind, because of climate change, will gone from the face of the earth very, very soon. Sorry!
OT but worthy:
W.P. Kinsella, the Alberta-born author of “Shoeless Joe,” the award-winning novel that became the film “Field of Dreams,” has died at 81.
There is something very special about baseball – the great American game. Bill Kinsella captured the magic.
Regards to all, Allan in Calgary
The climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which Mankind has no control. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate. Our real ecological problem is Mankind’s out of control population. It is a problem that we do have the power to solve. If Mankind does not control his own population then Nature will, catastrophically.
The human race lives in an increasingly complex world, and we are largely governed by scoundrels and imbeciles. Remedying this very serious problem is our greatest challenge, and we are doing a damned poor job.
There are over 200 nations on our planet, and only about 10% of them have effective Rule of Law. These, not coincidentally, are the wealthy ones. The rest are poor, because without Rule of Law, and Respect for Rule of Law, prosperity withers. The populations in these poor countries live their days in fear of government brutality, hunger, disease, and the premature death of those they love.
Even in the wealthy few nations, Rule of Law is under threat, because we continue to elect scoundrels and imbeciles. A prime example in the wealthy few is the widespread preoccupation with global warming hysteria, and the squandering of many trillions of dollars of scarce resources on this false crisis.
The is no real global warming crisis, except in the minds of fools. The reason this is false crisis exists in the wealthy countries is that only the wealthy can afford to be this stupid. The poor countries are looking on, seeing how they can get a handout – most of which will go to enhancing the lavish lifestyles of their corrupt elite.
A prime example of the stupidity of our politicians is their war against fossil fuels. Fully 86% of global primary energy is from fossil fuels – oil, coal, and natural gas. For most of us, fossil fuels keep our families from freezing and starving to death – it IS that simple.
Despite trillions of dollars in wasted subsidies, only about 2% of global primary energy is from renewables, and even that figure is exaggerated. Intermittent wind and solar power are forced into the electrical grid ahead of much cheaper and more reliable conventional energy, resulting in increased electricity bills, increased winter mortality among the elderly and the poor, and destabilized electrical grids. Politicians, radical greens, scoundrels and imbeciles see this as a good thing (note: the aforementioned terms are not mutually exclusive).
There are real problems in our world that demand our attention, but we are wasting our resources on the false crisis of global warming – in a world that is probably about to cool due to natural causes that we barely understand.
Regards to all, Allan
Notes:
The following numbers are from the 2015 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, for the year 2014:
http://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/pdf/energy-economics/statistical-review-2015/bp-statistical-review-of-world-energy-2015-primary-energy-section.pdf
Global Primary Energy Consumption by Fuel is:
86% Fossil Fuel (Oil, Coal and Natural Gas),
4% Nuclear,
7% Hydro,
and 2% Renewables.
That 2% for Renewables is vastly exaggerated, and would be less than 1% if intermittent wind and solar power were not forced into the electrical grid ahead of much cheaper and more reliable conventional power.
I would respectfully suggest that we live in the Anthropomorphic Age. The age where we project our anxieties and hubris on to the world around us and see ourselves instead of recognize the vast natural processes that actually operate the world. For those afflicted, they don’t see natural processes in a storm or flood or heatwave
They only see their inner fears and superstitious beliefs. Another good name that comes to mind when listening to the climate obsessed is “Age of Fools”.
The misanthroposcene will ultimately be known as the human interglacial.
The Yellowstone hot spot was very active during Laramide time in the Eocene.
http://geosciencebigpicture.com/2013/10/12/yellowstone-hot-spot-or-not/
The Cascadia subduction zone does not even register among worldwide Benioff zones of small earthquakes along the shear zones, and it is probably transitioning to strike slip.
Yet it unquestionably has produced hugely destructive events.
Here are some gps vector arrows scaled to motion rate.
Correction: only some scientists, with nothing better to do, believe in the anthopocene!
In the mathematical sense that Earth is finite, this is accurate. However, from a human perspective, our resources are effectively unlimited, if we exploit them wisely.
For centuries, Malthusians have trotted out one invisible bogeyman after another (Malthusians pre-date Malthus by at least a few thousand years). The disaster is just over the horizon, just around the corner or like a bear lurking in the woods.
The Earth is finite; but humans have barely tapped its resources… We will still barely be tapping the Earth’s resources when we hit the 10 billion mark about 90 years down the road… And the Malthusians will still be warning us about the bear in the woods.
The only thing the world has a genuine shortage of is honest and competent people in gov’t. Almost all of our problems are due to political interference with market forces.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/25/the-simon-erlich-wager-at-seven-billion-people/
David,
“However, from a human perspective, our resources are effectively unlimited, if we exploit them wisely.”
Wow. You should write this up as a political platform, explaining how our representatives can act on your advice. That would be interesting to see.
My guess is that you’re radically misinterpreting what I said, ignoring the common sense meaning of the words.
(Duplicated from above)
We have functionally limitless energy available right now at acceptable prices.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/ulum-ultra-large-uranium-miner-ship/
With cheap energy you can make any other material resource needed.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/there-is-no-shortage-of-stuff/
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/there-is-no-energy-shortage/
Including food
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/grains-and-why-food-will-stay-plentiful/
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2013/05/04/knowing-beans-and-lentils-and-peas-and/
BTW, we’ve got a few hundred pounds per person of copper and manganese in nodules on the sea floor, plus so much iron you could build a moon, but just as one cool example of resource substitution ( ignoring the gigatons of aluminum in rocks that we don’t use because cheaper ores exist) look at this interesting use of basalt:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2014/12/21/unlimiting-resources-basalt-for-a-high-tech-stone-age/
Or do you think we will run out of basalt, seawater, and feldspar (and other aluminum) rocks?
THE only limiting resources are imagination and invention, and the only thing that limits them is pessimists…
Larry,
I may have misinterpreted the meaning of your words; however this: “Our resources are limited, so we must use them wisely,” struck me as:
Our resources are limited, so government must tell us how to use them.
I may just be too radical of a libertarian.
David,
“‘Our resources are limited, so we must use them wisely,’ struck me as: Our resources are limited, so government must tell us how to use them.”
That’s a thick set of ideological goggles you’re wearing. Must be like living in the magic mirror room of a carnival.
EM Smith,
“Or do you think we will run out of basalt, seawater, and feldspar (and other aluminum) rocks?”
I think you’ve read too much sci fi. Anything is possible in the future. But future miracles don’t affect the resources we have at this moment. We make decisions to deploy the limited resources we have in our lifetime, not with what future generations will have.
For Editor of the Fabius Maximus website at 11:28 AM–
Basalt fibers exist today as a structural material, with some useful properties. I get the idea you don’t really know what E.M. Smith is talking about, if you can lump existing technology into the “future fantasy” category.
The advantage — or you could say the “preparedness” — in a country like the US during a natural disaster lies in its distribution and shipping.
Places like Walmart and Home Depot have the most efficient shipping system in the world. In emergencies, this means that as soon as roads are passable, these trucks can arrive with food and with medical and building supplies. In some cases, before a storm hits or before record low temperatures hit, these stores stock up on supplies for that exact situation. People can board up their windows and buy bottled water, etc..
Politicians, on the other hand, just show up for pictures after the fact, and hand out checks.
So the take-home point is, the gas and diesel engines which can still function after an EMP or after a CME allow the most preparedness that can be expected, here on the planet earth. That means fossil fuel engines which can function without computer parts if needed.
The “Anthropocene”: Man in His Self-centered Arrogance.
So where is the safest place to live on this earth? Not that I have a choice.
Maybe the lunchroom at Carlsbad Cavern’s National Park, NM? It is 800 ft. below the surface.
And I’m sure they have extra food stored away…if a Carrington Event occurred how would that event influence living there? I guess the elevator wouldn’t work…
“It is now evident that Carlsbad Cavern was one of the last caves to be dissolved in the Guadalupe Mountains-around 4 to 6 million years ago.”
It has survived for 4 to 6 million years, that’s a long time without having been hit by an asteroid, major earthquake, tsunami (of course), etc.
Inside Cheyenne Mountain in uniform… with rank…
I think one should be a little careful about interpreting the word “collapse”, and maybe not relegating all who use (or used) it to the tinfoil hat brigade. Population collapse is (or was) a respectable word in science until it got appropriated by the hatters. Nowadays scientists are sometimes more likely to use the word “decline” to avoid the doomster scenarios, but there are serious reasons to fear (hope, maybe) that a major decline in the human population lies in the not too distant future, a decline that would fit the word “collapse” as it is used in population dynamics.
http://news.mit.edu/2013/warning-signs-of-population-collapse-0410
If we observed any other natural population growing as the human one has done, what would we predict?
Le Chatelier told us that a system under stress reacts in a direction to relieve the stress. In order to make predictions about the direction of reaction one must understand the dynamics of the components of the system. The least understood part of our system is between our ears. Most of our political systems and social assumptions are based on a “blank slate” understanding of human nature. These assumptions are being proven wrong every day, although there is yet a vigorous rear-guard defense being fought by the bien pensant.
Events (such as the SMOD or an all-out nuclear launch) that would bring about a “Mad Max” future are extremely low probability. With existing and technically feasible weapons, events that would make a major dent in the human population require little more than “business as usual” unless one assumes that the relative peace of the last 70 years, the “Pax Americana,” marks a change in human behavior.
In a Venn diagram of our current world there are two growing, but currently non-intersecting circles: those who have the technical ability to unleash major plagues, and those who would unleash them if only they could. What are the chances the circles will never intersect?
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/24/zika-is-just-the-first-front-in-the-21st-century-biowar/
“Zika Is Just the First Front in the 21st Century Biowar”
“Why a new era of synthetic biology could make the dangers of the atomic age seem quaint.”
fred,
“If we observed any other natural population growing as the human one has done, what would we predict?”
Just as the rapid rise in population hasn’t yet produced the collapse long predicted by doomsters from Malthus to The Population Bomb Ehlrich (1968) — so a decline in population need not produce the horrific consequences implied by “collapse.”
Consider Japan. Japan’s government has worried about its overpopulation since the Meiji Restoration when they had about 3 million people (1868). They encouraged emigration to Korea, to no effect. They had 50 million in 1910, 100 million in 1967, and a peak in 2008 at 128 million — all crowded into a narrow urban belt along the coast.
At their current level of fertility, by 2100 their population might be half of today’s, back to the level of 1930. If fertility continues to fall, population might fall to 60 million (1925) or even 50 million (1910). The effect on Japan’s environment would be wonderful. Japan could become a garden with the cleaner technology of that future era (a common question in grade-school history will be “Teacher, what is ‘pollution’?”).
For more about this see:
* Must our population grow to ensure prosperity?
* A rocky road lies ahead to a far smaller world population.
* For example: Why Japan can become an economic star of the 21st century.
I like this one:
http://thedailyquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/i-am-the-storm-devil-motivational-daily-quotes-sayings-pictures.jpg
Absolutely the most terrifying implications ever.
It is important not to send out a message of refusal to recognise any human impact on the environment. This is not scientifically defensible and risks portraying a reactionary nihilistic insularity in a way which further radicalises and provides ammunition to eco-activists. Increasing unhelpful polarisation.
Concern for real human threats to the environment must be based on scientific reality, however, and not get sucked down the plughole of the Paul Ehrlich-esque grotesque and farsically erroneous doom prophecy simply based on very bad science. It’s not enough to have save-the-planet saintly motivation. We really have to get the science right. That is why the CO2 warming question most definitely is not settled. Those who would sweep scientific process and truth aside for the sake of the “cause” are serving only their own tribalistic narcissism and do no service to future generations.
This line isn’t original with me, although I can’t immediately remember the source – but the name should be the ‘Adjust-o-cene’.
Hubris, the most human of traits. We never seem to shake it, nor even think about it, but it never ceases to trip us up. Proving again and again how stupid we are.