Childhood’s End

The Future of Humanity, Part 4

Photo by Sergio Casillas on Unsplash.

This is Part 4 of my 7-part series on the future of humanity. The series starts here.

“Elements of modern human civilization — our cities, agricultural practices, fossil fuel dependence — have not withstood the test of time, nor can they.” — Tom Murphy, Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet, p. 406.

Anticipating a 2–4°C warmer world

It’s time to look more closely at how an energy transition in a 2–4°C warmer world is likely to play out. It’s not a pretty picture. In fact, we end up learning rather quickly that all the dire warnings we have been hearing from the IPCC and others about possible catastrophic effects of climate change are probably underestimations because they are based on models that do not include many of the second-order “unknowns” that might emerge in a hotter world: potential interaction effects (effect A and effect B occur simultaneously and exacerbate each other), cascading effects (A triggers B, which triggers C, etc.), and tipping points (A reaches a level that produces an irreversible and extremely hazardous effect).

It is instructive and perhaps revealing that while governments and politicians continue to sing the tune of a 1.5°C warmer world, climate scientists are becoming more concerned about the need to…