An Undeniable Climate of Doom

Well folks, I've taken a long break from doom-mongering in an effort to save my sanity, but I seem to have failed. Like Michael Corleone's return to crime in Godfather III, the doomer bubble has pulled me back in. The truth of our approaching doom is coming from every direction now, from the faces of people I pass on the street to the words of men in the highest ivory towers and halls of power. In such a climate, embracing your inner doomer is the fastest path to sanity and survival. By abandoning hope now, you still have a chance of gaining first mover advantage over a world that is showing unmistakable signs of waking up.

I've been paying a lot of attention to the climate doomsayers recently, and have realized that even if we somehow avoid energy collapse it appears that large scale environmental disruptions are already baked in to the planetary pie. I take particular heed of the warnings of James Lovelock, the visionary 91 year old founder of the Gaia theory — a man too old to have an agenda other than speaking the inconvenient truth. According to Lovelock, our climate has three stable regimes: ice age, the current temperate age, and a warm age. Lovelock is convinced that the planet has passed a tipping point and will transition to 5 degrees celsius warmer temperatures by the end of this century, no matter what we do. This will produce catastrophic sea level rise, crop failures, disease and desertification which will drive humanity toward the poles and reduce the population to perhaps one billion.


James Lovelock says climate catastrophe will be fun!

Meanwhile, the always dramatic Ted Turner is warning that if drastic actions aren't taken to curb global warming, civilization will crumble in a few decades and we'll be roasting each other over spits for dinner. While Lovelock is very credible, Turner is mostly comical. I can understand why some accuse him of being part of a diabolical conspiracy to depopulate the planet, but the mere fact that a billionaire is talking like an off-the-charts doomer is disturbing in itself.


When the super-rich turn doomer it's time to run for the hills!

Understandably, ordinary people in the northern hemisphere remain skeptical of abstract forecasts of doom when their immediate concern is staying warm amidst record cold. Until some undeniable climate catastrophe hits us flush in the face, public opinion will remain divided and our leaders will continue to jet around the world to glamorous global warming conferences making grave pronouncements, convincing no one but themselves that they are making a difference. This activity is at least more humane than the practice of the ancient Mayan priest-kings — whose solution to environmental catastrophe was to sacrifice ever more citizens in the bloodiest possible fashion — but it will probably prove no more effective.

In the Third World, where doom lurks ever closer, current events give us a disturbing glimpse of our probable future. In Bangladesh, climate change is already creating refugees; in response the Indian government is building a 2500 mile barrier fence to completely encircle the nation of 160 million in an effort to keep them out. In the South Pacific, crops are already being destroyed by encroaching sea water and the first waves of refugees are relocating to places like New Zealand and Canada. But as this wave turns into a tsunami, how much longer will the ever tolerant West welcome these climate refugees? My guess is about as long as our affluence lasts, which means not long at all now.

If there's one industry that should boom in an Age of Doom it's the barrier fence business. Look for these to go up everywhere along the fault lines of the first and third worlds in the next few decades — the fences in Israel, Bangladesh and the American southwest are just a warm up for the massive fortress-building that is sure to ensue as millions pour out of failed, flooded, ecologically overshot states. I think of this process as entropy blowback — the outsourced problems of the first world finally have nowhere to go in a globalized world except back across our borders. The result will be wars, immigration crises, crime and collapse at home; barrier fences can only prolong the inevitable.

There is an interesting note of optimism amidst Lovelock's apocalyptic predictions. He claims that we are in a period like the late 1930's, full of forebodings of doom but which will actually turn out to be exciting and fun once the shit finally hits the fan. He gives one piece of advice in particular that every doomer should take to heart:

"Enjoy life while you can. Because if you're lucky it's going to be 20 years before it hits the fan."

I like Lovelock's idea that climate doom could be our finest hour — an opportunity to discover the heroism and purpose we all seek, but which is so absent from modern life. As the safety nets of our civilization start to come down in the coming years, a great adventure will begin — a trial by fire that will determine who is fit to live in a world no longer fit for living in.