Climate change is obvious. Statistics show that the Earth’s climate has been steadily warming in recent years. The reasons are debat...
Climate change is obvious. Statistics show that the Earth’s climate has been steadily warming in recent years. The reasons are debatable, but it is becoming increasingly clear that human activity is the most significant factor in change. The most serious consequence of the change is not that the climate becomes a few degrees warmer, but the increasingly extreme weather. Storms are getting stronger and causing more and more damage. Torrential rains cause floods while rainfall decreases, and droughts occur. Heatwaves occur, and fires destroy forests due to lack of rainfall. Where used to be farmland, there becomes to be desert. Due to global warming, permanently frozen places are melting. Land ice is becoming water, and sea levels are rising. Rising water levels threaten the coasts and coastal towns with floods and flooding. As the cooling effect of the permanent ice ceases, the atmosphere becomes unstable and atmospheric movements intensify. If we do nothing about it, climate change will reshape the Earth’s biosphere and human habitats as well.
Can we stop climate change? Can we reverse a process that has already started? The Earth's climate is a very sensitive system of equilibrium, even small changes can have a big impact. The most significant cause of current climate change is the release of carbon what is stored in the form of hydrocarbon into the Earth’s atmosphere over a few decades in the form of carbon dioxide over a few decades. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, along with rising water vapor and methane, retain the heat released by the Sun into the atmosphere.
Combating climate change seems scientifically simple, technically, and socially more difficult. We should stop burning hydrocarbons and remove the accumulated greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. The process of reducing and stopping the burning of hydrocarbons is already underway, but it is progressing slowly compared to preventing climate change due to technical and even more so social barriers. There are only plans to extract the accumulated gases. Climate change seems inevitable, and we have probably already gone beyond the point where the process that has been set in motion could still be reversed. Perhaps it would not help if we had not yet reached the irreversible state, because we would not be able to stand up to it anyway because of the short-term interests of societies.
Of course, it makes sense to fight climate change by reducing carbon emissions, but we can only gain time with it.
It can already be seen that another extinction process, measurable to the previous great extinction waves, has begun in the living world. Life on Earth is not in danger. The living world will sooner or later adapt to changed living conditions. Human society as an existing structure will also survive the changes, but the challenge is enormous. It is the job of scientists and leaders in society to reduce the shocks to humanity. Because, realistically, we can only slow down, but cannot reverse, or even stop climate and biosphere change at best, and as we are not yet able to leave the terrestrial biosphere permanently and self-sufficiently yet, our only option may be to increase our ability to adapt to environmental changes.
Humanity is pretty good at adapting. We are able to make a lasting, self-sufficient living in almost any earthly climate. Human societies have populated a significant portion of the mainland. However, the previous adaptation took a long time, now only decades are available instead of tens of thousands.
As a result of climate change, human living conditions in large geographical areas will change in a few years. Of course, we can also defend ourselves against natural change with resistance. We can air-condition our immediate environment, bring the missing water from further afield, and modify food production so that there is enough food available. However, these changes are extremely costly, only richer societies can afford, and often even exacerbate the causes of climate change. There is probably no time left to defend ourselves globally through resistance.
Cities, the population, seem impossible to transform locally into a new way of life in the time that is still available. Life of the societies will be accompanied - in some areas already - by migration. Ethnic groups that are unable to defend themselves against, or adapt to the changed living conditions, they start to migrate to find a new habitat for themselves. Migration is already causing enormous social and cultural tensions, although it is inevitable.
Of course, it is possible to defend against migration by preventing or fighting against migration, but it is not worth it. This method does not reduce climate change and leads to clashes between groups of people and societies. For reasons of power-engineering, it seems sensible for some politicians to prevent migration. It can help to gain and retain local power, but it does not address the real problem, and it leads to an increase in social tension. It only works in the short-term and only increases the problems. It would be more sensible for politicians to accept this and use other power-engineering tools to gain and retain leadership.
What are the challenges ahead?
- We must accept that climate change is an unstoppable process.
- We have to work to make it slower, but we can only gain time.
- Applying science and technology to increase resistance to climate change is a possible way to defend ourselves, but perhaps this is more difficult and cannot be achieved globally in the time available.
- It is also possible to transform our lives so that we can exist in a changing environment, and to some extent, we must, as the biosphere is changing everywhere, but in the time available, this method cannot be applied globally either.
- Climate change is faster than the development of new living conditions in all human habitats.
- Forced population reductions are not a suitable way to combat climate change.
- The relocation of the population to a new place of residence is inevitable during climate change.
The migration does not necessarily mean long-distance movement between countries. Moving to another location due to adaptation to climate change is largely sufficient for people to move from cities that are becoming uninhabitable to smaller settlements that provide more livable conditions.
What should we do? How can we fight against climate change?
The primary task of society leaders in relation to climate change would be to prepare society for migration and its consequences. The social challenges are enormous both in societies that leave their place of residence and also in those that accommodate migrants. These processes must be prepared in such a way that the already significant shock to migration is accompanied by the least possible social tensions. This is the biggest challenge, and historical experience shows that this social movement peacefully cannot be realized. We have to be optimistic. We need to trust and work solutions that societies and their leaders can be, and able to cope with the challenges facing societies.
We also need to use increasingly advanced science and technology to withstand more successfully, or even more so, to adapt more quickly to a changing environment. Of course, science and technology can help in many ways, what and how we want to use them to solve problems, goals need to be set for us humans.
What should be the primary task of science and technology in relation to climate change?
The primary goal of science and technology must be to develop methods that ensure the functioning of society, the production of the necessary materials and tools, and the maintenance of services in the inevitable circumstance of migration. We can accomplish this task by using the widest possible application of teleworking.
Teleworking, as the next socio-economic revolution, has already mentioned in previous thought. The use of teleworking in the conditions of climate change can be our most effective tool of maintaining the function of society, because it allows the workers not to be present at the place of production, manufacture, service, allows more freedom to move to a new place. Teleworking is important for climate change not because we can do the tasks remotely, but because we can do the tasks from anywhere. It makes society flexible to relocate so that it remains the opportunity for society to function as needed in the time of migration. During the inevitable movement, the functions of society can be ensured by creating and applying broad teleworking.
Secondary effects of teleworking, such as reduced daily commuting, are also a mitigating factor in relieving the causes and effects of climate change.
Our most effective weapon to fight against climate change is the technology of the remote presence and the remote workplace.
The most important task of our scientific and technical development must be the development of this technology. This area is expected to be the area of the next socio-economic revolution, and it is also our most effective tool of facing climate change.
No comments