Do we need to be really radical to avert Climate Crisis or is there scope for a gradual transition?

If every warning seems needlessly dire and every transformative solution seems too radical for our time, this opinion piece might help you make the decision.

Source: KC Green | Gunshow Comics

In the hot summer of 2013, I was travelling in the hinterlands of Maharashtra where I first heard about some environmental organisation called 350. I was on assignment with Greenpeace India and was researching to write about how the farmers and local communities were endlessly suffering one of the most severe and prolonged droughts in the region while irrigation water was being diverted to thermal power plants. 350 was also working in the same region. I wasn’t sure what it meant or what they do.

Over the two weeks of my reporting journey in the hot arid districts of Beed, Ahmadnagar and Jalgaon, I saw horrific sights of rural distress, fractured livelihoods and outmigration. That was also my first tryst ever, working on social and environmental issues. I still had my corporate job as a software developer and I was merely testing the waters, you know on my “famous” quest for purpose and meaning. And even though I finished the assignment with great difficulty, it left me questioning myself if I am cut out for this kind of work where I would have to seek and stare misery in the face only to report on it and not actually affect a change. I remember a defiant teen in a ghost village, where many had migrated to the city to find stale food as beggars or any menial work, challenging me to answer what will happen, if he tells me of his miseries. I was shellshocked and disturbed for days, then I suppressed the memory like so many of us do when confronted with the brutality of our society.

I figured I was not ready, emotionally. So I crossed out social work and documentary/photojournalism from my list of careers I wanted to pursue and moved on to adventure and travel writing.

Seven years later, I return to that fateful afternoon time and again. To the teen who must now be a man, who questioned my intent and the impact of my work. I know for a fact that nothing much has changed in Maharashtra’s infamous drought stricken region. I see the same stories still being reported from different villages with different characters, but the underlying story of misery and exploitation remains the same.

Which brings me back to 350.org, strange name for an environmental group, don’t you think? Why did they choose that name?

*imagine drumroll here*

350 signifies the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere!

I first learnt about this organisation in 2013, forgot all about it. But now that I’m in the climate movement, the significance of this dawns on me. 350.org was founded in 2008 when the atmospheric CO2 concentration was already at around 380 parts per million(ppm), up from the stable 280 ppm seen during the millions of years before industrial times. The world crossed the CO2 threshold of 350 ppm in 1986. And in 2008 when 350.org was founded by a group of university friends in the United States along with now celebrated environmentalist and author Bill McKibben, their aim was to bring down the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide’s concentration down to 350 from 380 ppm.

In 2008, 350 ppm was considered the safe concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Today, in 2020, we have recorded the highest atmospheric CO2 concentration ever, at 417 ppm! Remember, this is permanent. We do not have artificial ways to suck carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at scale and our natural systems (forests & oceans) can’t recycle all this extra CO2 anymore, so all this stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years as of now.

( Read: How the World Passed a Carbon Threshold and Why It Matters on Yale Environment 360 )

I’m in no way affiliated with 350.org but I keep thinking of that ambitious goal. Can you imagine the optimism and opportunity of having limited CO2 to 350ppm? A goal that seems as far fetched as an actual ice age given we’ve just broken several heat records.

Okay, how bad is it exactly then?

As promised, I’ll not sugarcoat the apocalypse for you. Things are pretty fucked up. Most of the headlines and predictions may seem to border on climate alarmism. But consider this -

Time taken for CO2 ppm to 

• increase by 70 from 280 (pre-industrial) to 350 (in 1986) - 130 years | Avg. growth rate : 0.53 per year

• increase by 50 from 350 (in 1986) to 400 (in 2014) - 28 years | Avg. growth rate : 1.78 per year

• increase by 17 from 400 (in 2014) to 417 (in 2020) - 6 years | Avg. growth rate : 2.83 per year

Source: co2.earth

These are crude calculations but as you can see, our emissions are not slowing down and actually on the path to a meteoric rise.

(Note: We have now moved away from using absolute CO2 concentration numbers as a measure of global warming goals, because it is hard to estimate what’s the right amount of CO2 corresponding to the desired temperature rise. We now work with Carbon Budget [<—nice infographic] that quantifies how much more CO2 we can put in the atmosphere so that countries can plan accordingly. But the CO2 concentration is still an important measure to see by how much and how fast we are altering the atmospheric composition.)

And IPCC’s fifth assessment gave us a deadline of merely 10 years to make things marginally worse than now. Yes, our future is a real life contest with several worst case scenarios and the game we are playing is how to win the “best” worst case scenario. Our “best” worst case scenario is to limit warming to 1.5°C for which our carbon emissions will have to steadily reduce at a rate of 7.6% per year till 2030 starting this year. For 2020, coronavirus managed to achieve that emission reduction but we have no energy transition plan for the next years so I don’t know how we will achieve that goal.

Another important thing to note here is that IPCC is very conservative about their predictions. They want to be super sure about any prediction they are making, and 1.5 degree and 2 degree warming are the absolute bestest case scenarios. We’re actually headed straight towards a 3 degree or 4 degree warming but to avoid climate alarmism, we talk using the lower estimates. As our luck would have it, even the conservative estimates will be a nightmare to live through.

Then there is something very uncertain called Climate Tipping Points. These thresholds are like the high points of roller coasters, there’s a very slow ascent to the peak but once we hit that highest point, things careen rather wildly. Only in our case, we don’t have the track to guide us through the adventure and keep us safe. So it’s essentially a free-fall once we hit those climate tipping points, to which we are dangerously close.

Meaning, we have a 10 year safe deadline, with have no transition plan yet and things continue to get significantly worse.

Considering all this, I would say we have no other choice but to be aggressively radical!

But how does the world change? Isn’t it always a gradual process?

Umm, I don’t know.

It’s not practical or it’s not plausible is the most used phrase when it comes to any radical change that threatens the status quo (existing state of things). It’s even more true for climate solutions.

Ban coal! Not practical, no technology.

Stop deforestation! Not possible, we want money.

Don’t burn fossil fuels! Hah, nope, economy.

Usually there’s a constant tug of war between liberals and traditionalists that moves the needle towards progress without abruptly disrupting the status quo. But come to think of it, the few risk taking liberals always need to be radical in their approach, voice and demand because they are always pitted against a stronger majority that holds power. What looks like a gradual change today is not actually a slow process achieved through civil debates, but it is the sum total of radical demands and activism by the progressives or the persecuted who are pushing the needle consistently.

Fortunately, like the tipping points of climate change, tipping points of societal change also behave in the same way. Radical movements build for years before reaching a pinnacle after which an idea is accepted as the norm. 2015 was a hallmark year for climate movement when the whole world agreed to recognise climate change as a global threat by signing Paris Agreement. 2019 was another hallmark year when the phrase “climate change” properly entered public consciousness, mine included. Also, the first global international report on climate change came out 30 years ago in 1990 and the first global conference of world leaders to act on climate happened 25 years ago in 1995.

You could look at all this in two ways -

1. Considering the global efforts over the past three decades failed to produce any satisfactory results and we only have another decade left to act for the “best” worst case scenario, we are doomed.

   Or

2. Considering what started as scattered scientists looking at atmospheric & planetary readings in their faraway labs has today turned into a global movement that has become a real pain in the neck of greedy politicians and corporates in mere decades, we have come a very long way.

Our natural instinct for self-preservation would compel one to go with the first option I suppose, because wanting change is a heartbreaking prospect. But despite the seemingly discouraging situation, we have made a lot of progress (while there still remains a lot more to be done). Only, we will have to be radical in our demands, and no half measures should be seen as an acceptable bargain.

Read this extremely well written, hopeful essay on societal change & climate crisis - The neoliberal era is ending. What comes next?

(It is a long essay, one that you will not regret having read. But sit down with it only when you have 30 minutes at least.)

Fine, there is always hope and I will be radical. Now what do I do?

The most important lesson to remember about climate crisis is that it isn’t a sprint race with a fixed finish line. It is a multiplayer game with endless levels where the monster keeps feeding off our weakness. The only way to vanquish this threat would be to cooperate and constantly stay one step ahead of it.

We move the needle forward, millimetre by millimetre. Inch by inch we build the movement that’ll usher in change sometime in near or far future. All environmental and social movements have come to fruition only after decades of radicals pushing their agenda consistently. Climate movement is no different. Wanting change in our lifetime is what causes great dissatisfaction but once we decouple the results with our responsibility to act, things become far easier.

And how do we do that? I offer you this stunningly lucid tweet that condenses the answer, except replace “discrimination” with “exploitation”. Because that’s what climate crisis is, environmental and humanitarian exploitation.

Jonathan Rosa @DrJonathanRosa

If your proposed response to “systemic” or “institutional” discrimination focuses on modifying individual behaviors, then you do not understand the meaning of systemic or institutional

The world changes only when we transform the system overall.

***

“I’m trying.”

That’s what I will tell that teen if I meet him or someone like him today. That there is a rainbow at the end of this storm that will be seen by the next generation if not us

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Now, if you’re looking to read about solutions already, it’s not time yet. Yes, there are solutions being worked upon and new ideas being developed world over but before you act and protest, know what we’re up against before jumping to easy solutions. It is because of this lack of understanding and patience that inadequate solutions are widely seen as the silver bullet to climate crisis - tree planting, population control, reducing personal emissions, market will find the solution, capitalism with a consciousness etc etc. Don’t be impatient to solve that we don’t understand yet, especially not a global planetary crisis. I promise there’ll be a solutions focus to this newsletter soon, but not before we have made progress on untangling this complex mess. Once we know what’s the problem, we can demand adequate solutions. Otherwise it’ll be a futile picket line protest demanding the government to “act on climate” and they will happily give us hollow promises and greenwashing while the plunder continues.

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An Article on Climate Change that I enjoyed reading this week, on who is to blame for climate change and how to frame issues of responsibility and culpability for the unfolding climate disaster -

Who is really to blame for climate change? on BBC.

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This is the second of the 52 newsletters I plan to send out in 2020 covering all things climate crisis, including original reporting, opinion pieces and explainers. This newsletter is entirely funded by public contributions. If you’d like to support my work as well, you can contribute any amount to my reporting fund, or buy a print.

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Don’t forget to hit reply or leave a public comment to tell me what you liked about this second edition, what didn’t work for you, what are looking forward to and any other suggestions? Lastly, let me know if you find any mistakes. Also do share this with your friends and family so we can all collectively kick up a storm!