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SKY IS COST at PNAS – Frustrated with that?


Dr. Willie Soon alerted me to this story in an email.

This is a press release for professors with rotating eyes.

Every time I read a story, such as this one, I have a strong urge to start chanting a famous Passover ritual, the retelling of the Ten Plagues: Blood, Frogs, Lice, Pests….


Professors call for more research on climate change-related threats to civilization

UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

One piece of opinion published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesA peer-reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences, urgently calls for more research into the specific pathways through which civilization can collapse due to climate change.

Dr. Daniel Steel of the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia.

“A better understanding of the risks of collapse is essential for climate ethics and policy.”

In the paper, Dr. Steel and his colleagues, Dr. C. Tyler DesRoches from Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability and Dr. Kian Mintz-Woo from University College Cork, define the collapse of civilizations. evidence is the loss of society’s capacity to maintain essential administrative functions. , especially maintaining security, the rule of law, and providing basic necessities such as food and water.

The co-authors consider three civilizational collapse scenarios:

  1. local collapse of specific, vulnerable sites;
  2. the collapse of some urban areas and countries while others suffered adverse climate-related impacts such as food and water scarcity;
  3. global collapse as urban areas around the world are abandoned, nations are no more, and the global population declines.

It is not only the direct effects of climate change – such as droughts, floods and extreme heat – that may create the risk of collapse, but also less well-studied mechanisms.

As Dr Steel and his co-authors explain, climate change can also have indirect effects on systems such as trade and international cooperation, which in turn can lead to political conflict. , dysfunction and war. The authors also say that these impacts could reduce civilizations’ ability to adapt, leaving them vulnerable to other shocks, like pandemics.

“The danger that climate change poses to civilization should not be left to the contemplation of journalists, philosophers and filmmakers. Dr. Steel said.


JOURNEYS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073 / pnas.2210525119

RESEARCH METHODS

Comments / editorials

RESEARCH SUBJECTS

Do not apply

ARTICLE TITLE

Climate change and threats to civilization

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-10-2022
From EurekAlert!

Here are some of the original comments. Dum Dum Dum

In a speech on climate change from April 4 this year, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres highlighted the “empty commitments that put us on the right track to an unlivable world.” and warned that “we are fast approaching climate catastrophe” (first). Although obvious, Guterres’ claims are not new. Guterres has made similar remarks on previous occasions, as have other public figures, including Sir David Attenborough, who warned in 2018 that inaction on climate change could lead to “the fall of our civilizations” (2). In their paper, “The World Scientists’ Alert to the Climate Emergency of 2021” – now more than 14,700 signatories from 158 countries – William J. Ripple and colleagues state that Climate change could “cause significant disruptions to ecosystems, societies and economies, potentially making large areas of the Earth uninhabitable” (3).

The consequences of climate change can be very serious – and in some cases, catastrophic. Scholars need to start discussing the mechanisms by which climate change can cause the actual collapse of civilizations. Image credit: Flickr/Spencer.

Because civilization cannot survive in uninhabitable or uninhabitable places, all of the above warnings can be interpreted as affirming the ability of man-made climate change to cause civilization collapse (or “climate collapse”) to a greater or lesser extent. However, despite discussion of many adverse effects, the climate science literature, such as those compiled in the assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has largely does not talk about whether climate change could threaten civilization under what conditions. Although a body of scientific research exists on historical and archaeological collapse cases (4), discussions of the mechanisms by which climate change may cause the collapse of civilizations are presently dominated by journalists, philosophers, novelists, and writers. film making. We believe this will change.

Here, we call for the mechanisms and uncertainties associated with climate collapse as a topic of paramount importance for scientific research. Doing so requires clarifying what “civilization collapse” means and explaining how it connects to topics covered in climate science, such as increased risks from natural phenomena. Extreme weather events start fast and slow. This kind of information, we assert, is important to the public and to policymakers, for whom climate collapse could be a serious concern. Our analysis builds on the latest research, including Kemp et al.PNAS’s view draws attention to the importance of scientifically exploring the ways in which climate outcomes can impact complex socioeconomic systems (5). For example, we go further by providing more detail on the breakdown of society, distinguishing three increasingly serious situations. Furthermore, we emphasize avoiding say doom bias and recommend studying crash mechanisms combined with successful resilience and recovery, considering these as two sides of the same coin.

Simplify situations

We define the collapse of civilization as the loss of a society’s capacity to maintain essential governance functions, in particular to maintain security, the rule of law, and to provide basic necessities such as food and water. Civilization collapse in this sense can be accompanied by civil strife, violence, and widespread scarcity, and thus have extremely negative effects on human welfare. Such collapses may be broader or narrower in scope, so we consider three representative scenarios.

Full comments at PNAS are here.

I wonder that Roger Pielke Jr. think about this.


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