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We Are All Climate Refugees Now

Aug 2, 2018 Jeffrey D. Sachs

This summer's fires, droughts, and record-high temperatures should serve as a wake-up call. The longer a narrow and ignorant elite condemns Americans and the rest of humanity to wander aimlessly in the political desert, the more likely it is that we will all end up in a wasteland.

NEW YORK – Modern humans, born into one climate era, called the Holocene, have crossed the border into another, the Anthropocene. But instead of a Moses guiding humanity in this new and dangerous wilderness, a gang of science deniers and polluters currently misguides humanity to ever-greater danger. We are all climate refugees now and must chart a path to safety.

The Holocene was the geological age that started more than 10,000 years ago, with favorable climate conditions that supported human civilization as we know it. The Anthropocene is a new geological era with environmental conditions that humanity has never before experienced. Ominously, the Earth’s temperature is now higher than during the Holocene, owing to the carbon dioxide that humanity has emitted into the atmosphere by burning coal, oil, and gas, and by indiscriminately turning the world’s forests and grasslands into farms and pastures.

People are suffering and dying in the new environment, with much worse to come. Hurricane Maria is estimated to have taken more than 4,000 lives in Puerto Rico last September. High-intensity hurricanes are becoming more frequent, and major storms are causing more flooding, because of the increased heat transfer from the warming waters of the oceans, the greater moisture in warmer air, and the rise in sea levels – all made more extreme by human-induced climate change.

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US President-elect Joe Biden may have promised a “return to normalcy,” but the truth is that there is no going back. The world is changing in fundamental ways, and the actions the world takes in the next few years will be critical to lay the groundwork for a sustainable, secure, and prosperous future.

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Jeffrey D. Sachs

Writing for PS since 1995
328 Commentaries

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, is Director of Columbia’s Center for Sustainable Development and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He has served as Special Adviser to three UN Secretaries-General. His books include The End of Poverty, Common Wealth, The Age of Sustainable Development, Building the New American Economy, and most recently, A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism.

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B Wilds Aug 15, 2018

While there are many new and exciting ways to recycle and cut energy waste it seems public officials are almost afraid to talk about conservation. It is as if they will offend someone or that big business and their lobbyist have made this subject taboo.

The fact is a lot could be done at little cost. While it could be argued that cutting back on waste would lower the GDP it would have many positive benefits such as improving our standing in the world community. The article below delves deeper into the dreaded "C" word, conserve!

http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2018/07/politicians-shy-away-from-dreadful-c.html
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B Wilds Aug 15, 2018

The horrific wildfires blowing throughout America's western states and California, in particular, have raised the concern of many people as to the type of situations we may see in the future. In our busy world we often overlook or discount what may be the "canary in the coal mine." A great number of hot and cold record-breaking temperatures have been shattered across the world over the last few years and some of the quirks in our weather patterns now hinge on the bizarre. More on this subject in the article below,

http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2018/08/weird-weather-events-and-signs-of.html
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Reinhard Schropp Aug 9, 2018

Holocene, then Trumpocene, and all this in just two years. Quite impressive ;o)
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Twit Twit Aug 7, 2018

we could stop burning carbon today and we will still have massive sea level rise and environmental-societal disaster. zero carbon energy is a great goal, but actually we need to do something more radical. there are methods to geo-engineer cooling. one simple one (yes, it involves burning fuel) is to introduce sulfur into airline fuel for high altitude (switch tanks from low to high altitude, which is easy to do). this would lower global temperatures much like a volcano spewing sulfur into the upper atmosphere. this is the real way to go forward -- we need to geo engineer at the same time as we need to get to a carbon neutral or negative future. the carbon for such fuel could be farmed from the atmosphere using technology that exists but needs to be scaled up. we need to STOP wringing our hands about climate change and DO something.
- John Egan Aug 8, 2018
  
  Who is "we" and how do you define "need"?
  
  Your response falls into the category of what I call green colonialism. I suspect that people fleeing crushing poverty in Africa and risking drowning to cross the Mediterranean have a fundamentally different set of needs. I suspect people fleeing violence and war in Yemen and Central America have a different view of needs.
  
  Furthermore, the history of human geoengineering is not exactly sterling. We dam the Mississippi River system and the delta sinks for lack of sediment. We suppress forest fires for a century and the fuel load builds up to the point that a conflagration results. We shoot all the predators and ungulates denude the landscape.
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- John Egan Aug 8, 2018
  
  Who is "we" and how do you define "need"?
  
  Your response falls into the category of what I call green colonialism. I suspect that people fleeing crushing poverty in Africa and risking drowning to cross the Mediterranean have a fundamentally different set of needs. I suspect people fleeing violence and war in Yemen and Central America have a different view of needs.
  
  Furthermore, the history of human geoengineering is not exactly sterling. We dam the Mississippi River system and the delta sinks for lack of sediment. We suppress forest fires for a century and the fuel load builds up to the point that a conflagration results. We shoot all the predators and ungulates denude the landscape.
  A new reply to this comment has been posted.
- John Egan Aug 8, 2018
  
  Who is "we" and how do you define "need"?
  
  Your response falls into the category of what I call green colonialism. I suspect that people fleeing crushing poverty in Africa and risking drowning to cross the Mediterranean have a fundamentally different set of needs. I suspect people fleeing violence and war in Yemen and Central America have a different view of needs.
  
  Furthermore, the history of human geoengineering is not exactly sterling. We dam the Mississippi River system and the delta sinks for lack of sediment. We suppress forest fires for a century and the fuel load builds up to the point that a conflagration results. We shoot all the predators and ungulates denude the landscape.
  A new reply to this comment has been posted.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
John Egan Aug 7, 2018

Holocene - - Anthropocene - - Interglacial?

Not denying the very profound human impacts on planet Earth - particularly a population that may top 12 billion by 2100 - but the term "Anthropocene" is filled with hubris.

Perhaps one should add "Pleistocene" - aka the "Ice Age" - to the mix. Since the Holocene only accounts for the past 12,000 years and the Pleistocene 2.5 million years - still only a smidgen of geologic time. Thus, the Pleistocene is 200 times the length of the Holocene.

The Holocene could represent the end of the Pleistocene; however, the latter has been characterized by dozens of interglacial periods lasting 10,000 to 50,000 years with dominant glacial episodes lasting 40,000 to 100,000 years.

How do you know that the Holocene is not simply another interglacial?

PS - Not only have global temperatures shown a steady drop throughout the Pleistocene, but since the Eocene optimum 65 my BP, global temperatures have declined steadily, as well, perhaps as much as 10C degrees.
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Anton van der Merwe Aug 6, 2018

The biggest tragedy, and this represents a failure of the educated elite, is that we had and still have the means to preven climate change - nuclear energy. Somehow people still fear nuclear energy despite its far better safet record than fossil fuels and the fact that, unlike renewables, it can replace fossil fuels entirely. The is the fault of the most highly educated amongst us who have mostly never taken the trouble to learn about exactly what the data is on radiation and the harms it causes. This has lead to safety levels of radiation which are ridiculously expensive and inecessary. For example the nuclear energy industry is required to spend as much money to save one life as it costs to save 25 million lives with vaccines. Few people know that after the two worst nuclear accidents ever (Fukushima and Chernobyl) only 40 people have died from radiation (all at Chernobyl). Fear of radiation has done far more harm than radiation, and may, ironically, destroy human life.
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D. V. Gendre Aug 6, 2018

No doubt we should be respectful to our planet and keep it clean. But having said that:

The last glacial period ended just about 15'000 years ago. Logically we are now moving towards the next warm period that will peak in about 150'000 years where bananas will grow in Germany and grapes in Greenland. This process is not linear. Thats why a majority of scientist claimed in the 70's that we are heading to the next ice age.

Furthermore the earth's orbit today is less oval than earlier. In other words the earth doesn't move as far away from the sun as it did in the past. That changes the climate. The poles are moving and that changes the climat. Solar activity changes and therefore the climate. Carbon dioxid (one factor of many) changes and that changes the climate.
As one can see there is a single factor that is man made. All other factors we can't do anything about it to influence the climate!

This climate science has become a religion, like earlier when the church claimed the earth is the center of the universe (backed by most scientists!). The hunt for "deniers" is luckily not as brutal today but unfortunately with the same fanatism.
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nigel southway Aug 5, 2018

The problem is over population and over globalization more than anything else…

Unless we stop the immature nations from making babies that are born mainly into poverty we will never fix this mess.

Plus, the more we global trade the worse our carbon footprint and it’s also more an issue of pollution than just global warming.

Trump was correct to pull out of the Paris accord. it will just make global pollution worse.
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Richard Stewart Aug 5, 2018

"Such a politics is possible. In fact, the public yearns for it. "

Agreed. 'The public' yearns for a superior power to solve all 'the public's' problems.

Mr. Sachs seems to believe the answer(s) will come from 'better politics.'

I believe the answer(s) are more likely to come from 'less political involvement in the free market.'

This does not mean no involvement. Pollution is an externality, the free market does not automatically incorporate it into prices.

But, when 'the public' expects politics to solve every problem, every time, politicians willingly expand government to accommodate, regardless of either cost or success.

Were government simply reduced to doing what government does well, and were we not expecting it to police other nations, give us a free ride when we reach a magic age, lower our medical bills, tell us what to eat, and make our lives totally safe and risk free at all times and in all places, then maybe, just maybe, we could pay attention while government did its best to address the pollution problem, and slap its hand when it performed poorly.
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Mirek Fatyga Aug 4, 2018

Funny, how one part of entitled global elites loves, just loves to accuse the other part of entitled global elites of being nothing but nefarious, entitled global elites. Some future funny man (or woman, God forbid I would be judged a sexist) will write up the collected works on global warming debate and produce a book that will tickle the funny bone of many generations to come. Particularly if the world climate does follow the most likely path and slides back into an ice age (Milankovich cycles, anyone?).

I am sorry to say, but Prof Sachs ,together with a large portion of scientific global elites, have been engaging in a systematic campaign of global propaganda for so long that they might have even begun to believe it? In that, they may just resemble Donald Trump who increasingly seems to fervently believe in his own mental constructs MS13 and Mexican Rapists, and the like. Speaking of political cynicism getting away from you.

Prof Sachs, being an economist by training, has no excuse here. None. While climate modelling will forever remain an opaque, likely impossible science, simply counting adverse weather events is not. It is the most basic statistics that even an economist must be able to do. And this simple exercise does lead today to some unequivocal conclusions: nothing has been increasing (or decreasing) beyond statistical fluctuations. Not droughts, not floods, not hurricanes, not tornadoes. No nothing. Losses might be increasing because people build where they shouldn't (if they wanted to avoid losses), and dumb insurance industry, aided and abated by governments, keeps rewarding their bad judgment. Epic fires get started by reckless people ,and there are more of them, and it only takes one. Houses get burned down and people die because houses get built in areas prone to fire. Areas well known to be prone to fire before whole subdivisions goe built there.

Can we focus on the real problems of the real world, before frightened and confused masses choose fascism over democracy, in the world full of nukes? Please? If fate handed you the floor, do endeavor to use it wisely, and for public good?

Few facts, prof Sachs. The world population more than doubled in my lifetime. In some places, like the Middle East, it quadrupled (where would these wars be coming from?, hint, hint). To cut and paste Western Civilization upon this population the global oil production would have to double if we want to match the EU use, quadruple if we want to match the North American use. Do you think it can? Get to work if you are an Economist, because it is kind of a pressing question. If it can't, we need substitutes. We need to find ways in which markets stimulate substitutes instead of balancing supply and demand through persistent poverty. The political right will always find ideological justification for the latter, which can persist for centuries, just like divine rights of the kings.

As an Economist, why would you not focus on that? To be a little pompous here, God gave you the public floor. When you face Him, what will you have to say for yourself?
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urzulaz Aug 3, 2018

That's not just elites, people generally prefer living and thinking short term and not caring much about distant future events.
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Norman Pagett Aug 3, 2018

we all colluded in the great burning
If Rockefeller had printed OIL KILLS PLANETS on every petrol pump and oil barrel, we would still have burned as much as possible as fast as possible
Rockefeller made billions, but we all helped him spend it, and eagerly.
So can we lighten up on the wailing and teeth gnashing over global warming?
No good looking elsewhere for reasons. WE are the culprits.

Measures could have been taken 40 years ago but they were not, because all employment, all food supply, and all basic infrastructure depend exclusively on fossil fuels.

Politicians then knew perfectly well what would happen if oil/coal burning was cut back. A recession far worse than the 20s. And no, 'alternatives' don't work.

if you doubt that, check what happened in 2007/8 when there was a spike in oilprices and a subsequent downturn in employment. Imagine that, not with expensive oil, but with no oil.
People demand employment. Oil provides that employment. We have no viable alternatives.
Yes, our oil supplies are going to fail, because supplies are not infinite. That will be the reason we stop burning it, not collective social conscience

We burned the house down while we were enjoying our oilparty. It was good while it lasted. This maybe explains where we went wrong:

https://medium.com/@End_of_More/the-oilparty-is-over-c06d3c723655
- Betsy Whitfill Aug 3, 2018
  
  Even now in Texas there are significant earthquakes resulting from OK and TX fracking. But you cannot sue for damages to your home foundation because fracking oil and gas are in the national interest. Residential gas pipes break and houses suddenly blow up. People die...but not so many as to raise the public ire. No one listens to the arguments for solar and wind until all the oil and gas is gone, although TX leads the nation in wind energy production. You are right Norman, all of us are complicit...and continue to be.
  - briancorbettnelson Aug 7, 2018
    
    Betsy - It's not fracking that caused the earthquakes in TX and Ok. It's the re-injection of produced water into shallower geologic intervals that were never supposed to hold that much water. They have a better understanding of the issue now and are re-injecting into deeper zones. Finally, like any industry, you can sue oil and gas companies for damage caused to your home or property related to any oil and gas issue not just water disposal.
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  - Peter Schaeffer Aug 4, 2018
    
    Betsy Whitfill, If you don't tell the truth, you are going to get caught. Your statement that "But you cannot sue for damages to your home foundation because fracking oil and gas are in the national interest" isn't even close to true. See "Hydraulic Fracturing and Tort Litigation: A Survey of Landowner Lawsuits" from the ABA. You didn't tell the true. You got caught. Next time, stick to the truth.
    - Betsy Whitfill Aug 4, 2018
      
      Please cite chapter and verse in which private homeowners have successfully sued oil and/or gas producers for causing foundation damage to their homes.
      - Peter Schaeffer Aug 4, 2018
        
        Find the ABA article using Google. Not hard. There have been many successful lawsuits. No oil and gas producer has ever been able to successfully use the "national interest" argument as a defense (according to the ABA article). You lied. You got caught.
        
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Gerry H Aug 3, 2018

Unfortunately there is no turning back. The changes that have been made will have their effects for centuries to come. Altering the proportions of atmospheric gases means that as a result, climatic systems will keep on changing until a new equilibrium is achieved, however long that will take. This is not a matter of opinion, it's just physics.
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Emanuel Müller Aug 3, 2018

The Earth has a limited life time of around 5 billion years, at which point of time it will be snuffed out of existence by the expanding Sun. However, conditions compatible with life are expected to exist only for the next 2 billion years.
It should be noted that human life, as well as mammalian life and other forms of life on Earth are not useful or meaningful to the universe in any noticeable way, furthermore, what we perceive as higher life forms, e.g. humans, are apparently just derivatives of bacteria-like creatures, themselves just derivatives of random atomic processes.
In other words, what we regard as life is, in a purely materialist model, simply an unintended expression of the properties of matter and to destroy life one would have to destroy matter itself, a daunting project by all measures.
In a non purely materialistic model, e.g. reincarnation, there would be no threat on our essential life, as we can't be destroyed materially and could just reincarnate somewhere else when the conditions are ripe, we would however need to realize that the conditions that we create for the future generations are actually conditions that we create for ourselves.
- Betsy Whitfill Aug 3, 2018
  
  Muller: well said. I assume what you are saying about creating future conditions for ourselves (on another planet, perhaps?) refers to the law of karma. You do intimate the pure arrogance of us Earthlings....who would trash our home without shame and assume someone would make a new home....and it had better be comfortable and supportive of our personal ambitions for wealth!!!!!
  - Emanuel Müller Aug 3, 2018
    
    I mean the conditions we create on Earth now and for the future will be inherited by either stochastic mechanisms devoid of free will calling themselves humans, or by people that are literally us, like in reincarnation, or that are extremely similar to us like in some forms of monotheisms where God creates souls, put them into one time testing phase on earth before selecting out those that go to Heaven or something, while the rest go wherever.
    That what we give to the future generations, might actually literally be what we give to ourselves, as future generations might be us reincarnated.
    - Betsy Whitfill Aug 3, 2018
      
      Yes indeed. I for one will put in for Sirius, a highly evolved planet where the beings are much more civilized.
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Peter Schaeffer Aug 2, 2018

"Yet, as long as a narrow and ignorant elite condemn Americans and the rest of humanity to wander aimlessly in the political desert, the more likely it is that we will all end up in a wasteland from which there will be no escape."

How ignorant can you get? Most of the world's CO2 emissions (63%) are from developing countries. All of the growth in CO2 emissions is from developing countries. The largest CO2 producer (by far) is China. However, supposedly the "ignorant American elite" is responsible for this problem.

Fake News at its worst.
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Peter Schaeffer Aug 2, 2018

During the entire Obama administration, not a single major hurricane made landfall in the U.S. The explanation (at the time) was "global climate change". Now we are supposed to believe that recent hurricanes are also a consequence of "global climate change". How dumb does JDS presume his readers are? Of course, there is also the "minor" point that China (not the USA) is (by far) the largest producer of CO2 (and other GHGs as well). Strangely, the word "China" was not notable by its absence in this diatribe. Of course, no opportunity to denounce Trump is ever missed, not matter how irrelevant.
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Betsy Whitfill Aug 2, 2018

Share International Foundation has been publishing the warning of climate disaster for decades now. Who has listened? Not the climate disaster deniers nor the lately frenzied climate disaster promoters. Current calls are too little and too late. There is need for better help than is available in our current level of consciousness. As A. Einstein said (paraphrasing) you can't solve a problem with the consciousness that created it. And so it is with climate and so many other current crises. The Teacher for humanity and His group are available for consultation, if anyone would care to call on Them. Shall we give it a try, or just continue to fiddle while California, Texas, Greece, France burn?

"It will soon become clear that without help men have but little time to rectify the problems, ecological, political and economic which cause chaos, danger and heartache to the majority of Earth’s people. It is a situation unique in Earth’s history." http://www.share-international.org/magazine/old_issues/2016/2016-10.htm#masters
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