Before writing another word I want to thank all of you who have reached out to me through my website, on Facebook, Twitter, and by email to check on my status during the horrific Colorado floods of last week. At this writing, over 12,000 people have been evacuated, nearly 18,000 homes destroyed or damaged, 5 confirmed dead, and hundreds more missing. I consider myself extraordinarily blessed not to have been harmed or have experienced any damage to my home; however, all around me in every direction is devastation—evacuated families, schools closed, and people who still cannot return to their workplaces.
My second “must-say” is that I love living in Boulder. During the past four years of living here, I have marveled not only at the beauty all around me, but the warmth of Coloradans; the ecological sensibilities of this town; its commitment to local, organic food; its emphasis on exercise and outdoor living; and overall, the quality of life that Boulder offers. I’ve deeply appreciated my association with Boulder’s Local Food Shift (formerly Transition Colorado). I’m also privileged to be part of a Growing Resilience group which focuses on emotional and spiritual preparation for a uncertain future.
Thus, my love of my local place causes great pain when for example last year, so much of Colorado was devastated by raging wildfires that persisted for weeks on end, and of course, I am even more saddened as I write these words by the deluge that rocked our state this past week. I have lived in the American West for more than 40 years having landed in Colorado in 1972 before moving on to California in 1978. Later I lived for many years in New Mexico, and then had the opportunity to live for one year in Vermont. Like many readers, I have contemplated where the best locations might be for hunkering down and building strong resilience for the future. I now realize that there is no “safe” place in which to do this, nor is there any place on earth untouched by climate chaos.
The Bolder Boulder
Yet another asset offered by Boulder is that it is Ground Zero for climate research. It is home to NOAA, The National Center For Atmospheric Research and The University Corporation For Atmospheric Research. Since an enormous amount of climate research originates in Boulder, not surprisingly, Boulder residents may be more aware of catastrophic climate change than residents of other cities, but I am not particularly optimistic about this awareness. So far, most of the conversation here about climate change ends with references to Bill McKibben and 350.org. For me, McKibben’s efforts miss the mark because he fails to grasp the larger picture. In recent years, I have come to concur with Guy McPherson, former Professor of Natural Resources, Ecology, and Evolutionary Biology that “350.org is a joke and is disingenuous.” Within the past two years, McPherson has collaborated some of the finest research available on climate change and disseminated it through his blog and a host of public appearances. (One of those appearances will happen October 16 in Boulder at the University of Colorado.)
As I sit in the aftermath of last year’s vehement wildfires in Colorado and this year’s unprecedented flooding, I feel increasingly saddened but less surprised by both natural disasters.
Meteorologist, Eric Holthaus, explains the climate weather pattern that produced the flooding:
Here’s how it happened: A blocking pattern has set up over the western United States, drawing a conveyor belt of tropical moisture north from coastal Mexico. Blocking patterns form when the jet stream slows to a crawl, and weather patterns get stuck in place. When all that warm, wet air hit the Rocky Mountains, it had nowhere to go but up, pushed further skyward by the mountains themselves. By some measurements, the atmosphere at the time of the heaviest rains was the among most soaked it has ever been in Colorado.
What is more, Holthaus asserts, it will keep happening:
Blocking patterns are fertile ground for extreme weather. A blocking pattern near Greenland was also to blame for steering Superstorm Sandy toward the east coast of the United States last fall. Persistent high pressure this year in the western United States has led to what is (so far) California’s driest year on record. That, in turn, fueled last month’s massive Rim Fire in Yosemite National Park, which grew to a size larger than New York City.
The Collapse Of Industrial Civilization
Many readers are aware of my writing during the past six years on the collapse of industrial civilization. Some would prefer that I use the term “Transition” or “The Great Turning” or some other nomenclature. However, as I have written elsewhere on a number of occasions, I believe it is important to clearly assess where we are in present time. The infrastructures of both nations and old paradigms are rapidly unraveling. At some point we may look in the mirror and be able to accurately name a particular date when a “great turning” was complete or when the myriad transitions that are now occurring have come to an end. Nevertheless, in the early stages of the transition/turning, it is important to notice the unraveling and name it as such. The accoutrements of industrial civilization are collapsing, unraveling, disintegrating, as are the values that have held it in place for more than 300 years.
Catastrophic climate change is a fundamental aspect of collapse. Alongside economic meltdown and energy depletion, climate change may be the 800-pound gorilla that expedites the demise of the current money system and a civilization run by fossil fuels. But more urgently appalling is the reality that it accounts for the extinction of 200 species per day. According to the Nature Conservancy, climate change is also exacerbating health risks throughout the world.
The collapse of industrial civilization is a process, not a singular event. Rather it is a host of events, some dramatic like wildfires, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, and droughts, and other events that are barely perceptible. It does not look like Hollywood blockbuster sagas such as “Independence Day” or “The Day After Tomorrow.”
Thus, as I process the natural disasters Colorado has experienced in the past two years, I am saddened by the attitude of some Boulder residents who argue that these events could not be indicative of a total unraveling of industrial civilization. It is no secret that Boulder is a bubble, that is, an affluent, upscale, politically liberal community in which some individuals take pride in the swelling of their portfolios and swoon over every progressive Democratic candidate running for office. In such a milieu, one does not utter the “C” (collapse word) without expecting happy-talk-laden pushback.
To its credit Boulder is the home of a number of activists who are vehemently opposing fracking in all of Colorado and especially in Boulder County. Likewise, a strong movement exists here to create a publicly-owned power and utility company which would transition over time from coal and natural gas to solar energy.
Nevertheless, Boulder must begin to grapple with long-term climate chaos. The so-called “100-year flood” of this past week may happen again in another month. Additionally, Boulder must confront the larger picture of industrial civilization’s collapse and all of the implications for Colorado and the local community. What we have experienced in the past seven days is not a dress rehearsal. We are in the throes of catastrophic climate change and the total unraveling of life as we have known it. Look around you Boulder. This is what collapse looks like.
During the past week many people were unable to go to work, schools were closed, and life in Boulder on many levels came to a standstill. In some stores groups of people gathered and shared with each other the details of their situations. There was a palpable feeling of camaraderie, neighbors helping neighbors, and the sense that we were all in it together. We all slowed down and breathed together as flood waters rose and relentless rains refused to stop.
It may be that the gift in this painful devastation is an awakening to our predicament and a willingness to call it what it is. We no longer inhabit a bubble. We are living the same heartbreak as the Oklahoma citizen who just had his mobile home swept away by a tornado or the bankrupt farmer who can no longer plant crops on land that has become yet another dustbowl. The only bubbles now are those floating on top of what the media has been calling ‘biblical’ flood waters. The playing field has been leveled, along with our homes, and all dress rehearsals are over.
“… Guy McPherson, former Professor of Natural Resources, Ecology, and Evolutionary Biology that “350.org is a joke and is disingenuous.”
How many minutes into this very long video are the 350.org comments? I can’t always devote the time on the spot.
Alternatively, you (or someone else) could provide a transcription of the relevant words. Thanks!
Thanks for your comment James, and my link to Guy’s hour-plus presentation is intentional. Anyone as informed as you are on these topics must watch the entire presentation. This is “required” homework for anyone who wants to understand the ramifications of climate change and why near-term extinction is what we’re actually looking at rather than a little “global warming.” Please take the time to watch the entire presentation. I also encourage you to follow Guy’s site, Nature Bats Last, at http://www.guymchperson.com.
I can sympathize and empathize. Up here on the NorCali coast, I and my dear mate have been through two wildfire evacuations and and a month-long flood stranding over the past few years. All this, while only a dozen miles away it was business as usual. The feelings of shock and powerlessness in the face of overwhelming natural forces is a truly humbling experience, and one that manages to live on in the body long after the immediate threat has passed.
As with your community in Boulder, this area is a hotbed of allegedly progressive values and sentiments, but even so, denial about the overarching dilemma still runs deep. I wish I could say something like ‘no fear’ or ‘just sit back and enjoy the show’, but when the planetary becomes personal, glibness doesn’t cut it anymore. With a good deal of trepidation, I find myself wondering what’s next.
Thanks for the comment Izzy. As always, it’s greatly appreciated.
It is good to hear about your experiences with people pulling together, I know that the majority of people believe they are doing good, even if they are brainwashed in the current paradigm into supporting the opposite. I would hope that if a long-term disaster occurred people would begin adapting in much more novel and ancestral contexts than is portrayed on cable TV. I agree that climate change is an issue which CO2 impacts greatly, but with regard to “blocking patterns” there are .
“This is ‘required’ homework for anyone who wants to understand the ramifications of climate change and why near-term extinction is what we’re actually looking at rather than a little ‘global warming’.”
I’ll watch the video. But I must say that Guy McPherson has a habit of interpretational bias in which the facts and their interpretational context get muddied up somewhat (to say the least). An example was the time he presented future CO2 emission projections as if these were not projections but factual data! Then he offered his future temp projection based on this projection and insisted that, therefore, we’re gonna be cooked to death in the future. Period. As if it weren’t a projection based on a projection.
I called him on it and he did not answer to my challenge.
Are we at risk of possible NTE? Probably! But it may as well be that we’re merely near such a tipping point, even very dangerously near that tipping point. And if this is so what we need is a radical global human response to the emergency, not resignation to an inevitable near term demise.
I profoundly regret the failure of climate scientists and activists to properly and publically respond to the claims made by the NTE folks. But I can assure you that only a very, very tiny minority of climatologists take such claims seriously.
We should be very careful not to create a self-fulfilling prophesy here.
Carolyn, thanks for the report from Boulder in the broader context of climate change. I read the very article you quote by Eric Holthaus before yours here. Where does he say the recent flood was due to climate change?
James, thanks for your perspective on Guy McPherson. I appreciate his courage and passion and his knowledge. Yet, I too have wondered about his bias, to what degree he is biased in his interpretations of data. Can you share a bit more about why you think he is (you say “to say the least”, so it sounds like you have a strong opinion of this. Can you back it up, without being as biased as you accuse Guy of being?
I have challenged Guy by presenting him with what some of his critics say and Guy has written back each time and offered me reasonable explanations for those critics, as reasonable as I can determine. I invite you to contact him again and insist on a response. Whatever you can share I’d appreciate it, thanks.
Thx again, Carolyn. I am glad you were personally unscathed, yet it’s hardly a consolation when we watch others suffer, and our community in chaos.
Adam: “Can you share a bit more about why you think he is (you say “to say the least”, so it sounds like you have a strong opinion of this. Can you back it up, without being as biased as you accuse Guy of being?”
Well, Adam, I have two primary reasons for not leaping onto McPherson’s “it’s too late to prevent NTE” [paraphrase] bus.
(a) McPherson has published articles in which he has effectively conflated projected future greenhouse gas emissions with actual physical data. His prognosis was an interpretation of a probable outcome of an “if,” but that if was effectively swept under the proverbial rug in a sort of sleight of hand magic trick. That he did so suggested to me that, for unknown reasons, McPherson might be less interested in prognostic accuracy than in … I dunno, frightening people?
Or maybe he just assumes that humanity simply will not alter its current trajectory regards greenhouse gas emissions. Which is a fair guess to make — but it isn’t fact, data or science.
Unlike the overwhelming majority of believers in NTE (or similar pronoses) I’ve interacted with, I do believe it is POSSIBLE for humanity to voluntarily, rapidly and dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I also believe there is some reason to believe that we could also significantly stimulate and increase nature’s capacity for sequestration of carbon (e.g., through “biochar,” etc.). So I don’t think the future is yet written.
(b) McPherson’s view represents the very farthest end of a spectrum of prognoses and a very extreme position. This alone does not count as evidence against his view, but it does beg the question: Why (for example) do the thousands(?) of scientific studies evaluated in the most recent IPCC report not suggest a prognosis, or near-term risk level, anywhere near the ball park where McPherson bats?
True, the IPCC is perhaps almost(?) as much a political as a scientific “entity,” with conservative tendencies. True, the IPCC has sometimes wildly missed the mark in its projections of how much and how fast the climate would change (e.g., summer Arctic sea ice melt). But could the explanation for the great chasm between the scientific mainstream (and the IPCC) and McPherson really amount to a refusal to acknowledge positive feedback mechanisms (as some have suggested)? Surely the word’s scientific community has by now aknowledged such obvious dynamics as these?!
According to the newspaper accounts of the recent IPCC report I’ve seen, the IPCC says that “the worst effects” of climate change can be averted if we don’t exceed a doubling of current CO2 tonnage already released into the atmophere. (Such a doubling would total a trillion tons, which the IPCC suggests as the upper limit of *relative* “safety”.)
So there is an enormous, profound, vast gap between the world’s largest body of scientific experts on climate change and Guy McPherson. How many scientific studies were included and how many scientists in this IPCC report? Thousands, I presume. How many Guy McPhersons are there?
Personally, I very strongly suspect that the IPCC is dramatically WRONG in suggesting (or saying — which is it?) that almost another half trillion tonnes of CO2 can be spilled over the next 25 years without rendering Earth a burning cinder. After all, there are ALREADY very dangerous and foul things happening on our dear planet as a result of the first half of that trillion tonnes. It’s obvious (to me, anyway) that we’re much nearer to a catastrophic biospheric calamity such as “runaway climate change” than the IPCC seems to be suggesting. So, since science is probabalistic and since I’m NOT a climatologist, my best guess is that truth and reality must lay somewhere between McPherson’s and the IPCC’s prognosis. UNLESS! Unless somebody can provide me with a VERY STRONG explanation for why the IPCC and all of mainstream climatology has been hijacked by a conspiracy to WILDLY play down the level of risk we’re facing. I do not consider such a hijacking of “science” to be impossible. I’m open to this possibility. But a case needs to be drawn up … and it better be a strong case with ample factual evidence.
So I guess my Part (b) amounts to my needing an EXPLANATION for a vast conspiracy on the part of the IPCC and mainstream climatology.
For only such a vast conspiracy could help me weigh the weight of voices on the spectrum.
After all, I’m not a climatologist. I figure the climatologists are supposed to help us poor non-expert schmucks understand their scientific results.
This (below linked) article says of the IPCC ” … they are super-cautious (see “IPCC’s Planned Obsolescence: Fifth Assessment Report Will Ignore Crucial Permafrost Carbon Feedback”).”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/09/27/2691471/ipcc-report-warming-extreme-weather/
Hey, wait a minute. Wasn’t the failure of the Fourth Assessment (six years ago!) to adequately address principal feedback mechanisms a point of controversy then?
So is this a matter of “caution” or of wilful ignorance — which would be suggestive of just the sort of conspiracy I alluded to being possible in my earlier comment here.
Does the IPCC’s Fifth Asessment adequately (or even significantly) include the salient or principal feedback mechanisms? If the answer to this is “no” I’m ready to move the weight on my board nearer to McPherson’s end of the spectrum. For this would indeed suggest a failure of the IPCC to adequately assess the state of the available climate science.