The Rise of the Yukon/Onward for the Glory of Siberia/Patagonia is the New Buenos Aires

Rough draft

Blogsalot mentioned in his last post that he would be blogging about his thoughts on global warming. Well, I figured I'd lay out just what I thought as well and see how we stack up.

I will probably post a more thorough explanation later.

First off, we must realize that global warming (GW, same as George W. Coincidence?) is a done deal; even if tomorrow super intelligent aliens came down and gave us a new form of energy that would forever eliminate the need for fossil fuels, the planet would continue to warm for several decades.

In other words we have already done tremendous damage to our precariously balanced climate, and there is no changing that. Global warming will happen, there is no stopping it, it has already begun, and thanks to a series of climatic positive-feedback loops it will happen at an ever more rapid pace.

So we're stuck.

This unfortunate predicament is compounded by the fact realistically even if the industrialized countries of the world all became super-hippie liberals tomorrow who only ate vegan food and drove bio-diesel cars (certainly the US and specifically Texas will never do this) the industrializing nations of he world: China, India, Brazil, etc. would find it if very difficult to both go green and continue their economic expansions.

Finally, the mediocre attempts to get the rich countries to go green are just that: whimsically mediocre. The Koyoto protocol would do nothing more than delay global warming by a few years, if that.

So what to do now that we are faced with a planet on the brink of radical change?

Well we should begin by realizing, as I have tried to demonstrate, that the change is inevitable and upon us. The liberal program of greening our society to divert disaster is an illusion, wishful thinking, and ultimately a distraction. We must shift our attention from the impossibly slim chance of slowing or reversing the coming changes, and concentrate on how we as a species will cope with this change. This is not to say that we should pollute more or completely turn our backs on green solutions. Certainly we should not aggravate the current situation and we can try to slow things down a bit, but we should not be deluded into thinking that this represents a solution, the solution to this problem will have to be as drastic as the changes.

Secondly, we must realize that the problem of global warming is one that lies not with the planet itself but with the contingent and historical way that we have populated it and in which we exploit it. We should disabuse ourselves of that cherished myth of industrialized man: the noble savage and a lost balance with nature. The truth is that nature itself is unbalanced and that we as a species have always been in the business of altering it. The Native Americans caused a mass extension of mega-fauna (part of the reason there were so many Bison on the great plains when the white man got there is that the Indians had killed off their predators and thus unbalanced the ecosystem). Aboriginal Australians did the same on their continent. The list goes on and one: primitive man was not actually the prototypical environmentalist.

Our species has survived drastic shifts in climate in the past, living through both hotter and much colder times. We did so because of the tremendously adaptability due to our use of technology. Now our technology has advanced to the point where it has, for many billions of us, displaced nature, to the point that we live in entirely man made worlds. We created these worlds, cities, infrastructure, etc. with the expectation of a stable climate, but this is not the case.

However, this very contingency is a reason for hope. The planet is not dying, the environment has not been destroyed, it has been altered, to a new balance that is not in accord with the world we have created.

This is not, therefore, inherently a tragedy for the human race, but it is a tragedy for the old ways of life. Global warming will mean that many industrialized societies as well as many traditional ones will have to change drastically, this does not mean that humanity must perish, or that millions must die, but that we must break from our ossified current order and establish one that will work with the new world to come. This can occur peacefully, voluntarily and with minimal human toll, or it can be and will likely be, tremendously bloody.

Some of the change to our civilization might include:

1) Desertification and unviable heat: Places like Phoenix and Riyadh will find their regions so hot as to be essentially incapable of sustaining human life. While an average high of 120 might be viable in Phoenix currently, temperatures of 130 or 140 would require, essentially, a domed city that spends billions on air conditioning. I predict that Phoenix will have to be abandoned, or drastically shrunken, in the next 50 years.

Certain places will become hotter while also suffering from a decline in available water. The cities of Southern California might suffer a similar fate of heat as Phoenix, but in addition they will find it more and more difficult to get water as the Sierra snowpack melts and the Colorado dries up. A choice will have to be made as to which cities are worth the giant infrastructure projects that will be needed to water and power them and which will be left to dwindle or die.

Similarly the San Joaquin valley, one of the most agriculturally productive regions on earth, might find itself increasingly unprofitable as water becomes more scarce and as temperatures rise. Again a choice will have to be made.

2)


Finally:

Where will the refugees of flaming Phoenix flee to? Where will the parched farmers of the San Joaquin relocate? The answer is North. As it stands today huge parts of the planet remain empty wilderness. Canada is larger in land area that the US but has a tenth of the population, Siberia in Russia contains about the population of California in an area the size of China. The refugees of the South will move north, both human and other. Previously frozen and untenable land will become arable, water will continue to flow to some of these wetter regions.

The millions in China that will live in an ever more ruined ecology will yearn for the unused space of Eastern Russia, the dried out suburbanites of Phoenix will pick up and move to more favorable climes. This will happen one way or another, the question is if will be an easy transition.

The northern countries might find themselves a new kind of superpower, a new heartland for the world.

Consider such a proposal: China with an overburdened land wishes to depopulate and is in need of resources. In exchange for Chinese investment, Russia (which suffers from a declining population) allows large scale immigration to populate its far east, with chinese construction crews building tremendous new cities. There is no practical reason why this should not happen. Primarily racisim, xenophobia, and nationalism will stand in the way of this shift.

This then is what might ruin our species, not the climate, but our suburn insistance to hold on to old prejudices.