Climate Change: The antifragility of Gaia and how to avoid the forthcoming human extinction

Prolegomena

As I was writing these lines from my living room in London two years back, sweating amidst the ice melting temperatures that UK as a whole had experienced, I had recalled some additional coincident news from all over Europe and across Northern Hemisphere during this time : Temperatures were nearing, if not exceeding 33 deg.C in UK for prolonged periods of time in summer (refs.1-3) without any drop of rain falling from the sky, record high temperatures well over 40 deg. C  scorched northern Europe(ref. 4) as well as Japan (ref.5),  monster size forest fires errupted in California  (ref.6) and tragically also in Greece, where the worst wildfires on record burned alive more than 90 humans (amongst them were some infants) and devastated their properties, in the otherwise affluent Athens suburb Mati, spotted on the map next to the sea (ref.7). Meanwhile my immediate family members in Greece I recalled had informed me that unusual weather with prolonged rainfall had damaged grape crops (over 200km away from Mati) while the same damage took place a few years before too, due to an unusually intense heatwave which occurred just before harvest and dried the grapes to dust on the vines in scorching temperatures.

However, I could never envision that a virus would emerge so soon and spread over the whole planet so quickly soon after these extreme weather reports, causing so much human devastation and initiating such a profound financial and political instability and chaos on global scale.

Yet, the above combined phenomena are so pragmatic and too salient, as well as appalling, for the humankind to keep them separate and must start thinking about their root causes. What are the underlying mechanisms that cause them and how we can make a sense of them and more important how we can deal with them effectively now and in the future?

Climate Change – An unintended effect of human civilisation.

To understand the reasons why climate change happens and how devastating diseases form on our planet, and the likely intervention points, we need to employ systems theory in an effort to delineate the major interactions between humans and the Earth (Gaia) and the associated forces in play (refs. 8-9).

Figure 1 shows how the humanity operated historically in a series of balancing loops. The desire for wealth increases resource consumption as well as pollution. Increase of pollution self regulates the system as it results in increased number of diseases and ultimately regulates (balances) the world population. Notice that additional modifiers are the availability of resources which in turn can act as population modifiers via famine or even wars when not present in sufficient quantities to satisfy human appetites and competitions. These loops are shown in blue lines. The spread of education mainly since last century, for example as it happens in western societies, results in reduction of births and it is an additional balancing effect moderating the system. However, the concurrent spread and increase of public health resulted in decrease of child mortality and explosive increase of human population as disease rates are reduced. The COVID 19 virus can also be perceived just as one of the diseases moderating human acting to reduce human population counteracted by specific public health elements such as antiviral drugs and vaccines.

Figure 1. Humankind system shown as a series of balancing loops (blue lines). Notice that widespread education reduces birth rates, but public health amplifies them (green lines) (ref.8). 

The following Figure 2 shows the devastating effects of human activities on Earth (Gaia). Owing to explosive growth of human population, resource consumption has increased tremendously over the last two centuries resulting in increased pollution, manifested primarily as increase of carbon dioxide (CO2) in atmosphere.  The red lines show how nature tries to balance the effects of CO2 increases, effectively by removing CO2 directly from the atmosphere via photosynthesis or by dissolving excess CO2 in rainwater and storing it in solid rocks via complicated planktonic activities. However, the overproduction of CO2 due to human activities surpassed the capacity of Earth to remove excess CO2 via those mechanisms and in order for the planet to maintain temperature stability other and more violent ‘natural’ mechanisms are triggered beyond human control. These occur primarily via intense weather phenomena as well as melting the ice glaciers at both North and South poles or even the spontaneous generations and spread of diseases such as the COVID 19 virus on global scale. The net effects of these natural self-regulation mechanisms manifest the Earth’s antifragility as living organism. Natural evolution kicks in, reacting in effect to eliminate the very reasons that caused the disturbances in the first place i.e. humans (ref.10). Violent storms and excessive weather phenomena as well as melting of glaciers have the same results viz. reduction in the available resources and increase of famine. In turn as these effects become prolonged wars will erupt, as a result for the ever-diminished level of resources and increased competitions for their control. Ever increasing resource consumptiom will also contribute to new disease generation and effect famine and wars too. All these in effect will mark the decline of human population and the violent destruction of civilisation until the mother Gaia re-establishes equilibrium even if it means that all humans need to die. Besides Gaia is much older than humans and it does not need them for its survival. Its antifragility surpasses the antifragilities of the species living on it.  Other species can occupy the space humankind will leave behind. Nature (was not and) will not be forgiving until the equilibrium of the system is finally achieved.

Figure 2.  Humanity and Gaia systems interaction - The catastrophic effects of human activities to humanity itself (ref.8).

Climate Change - A prolonged discussion but the system Gaia is indifferent for humans

It has been discussed for long that climate change is primarily an ethical problem that affects human civilisation (ref.11), but the conversation became tangled amongst the voices of climate change activists, climate change deniers, business lobbyists and politicians . The ensuing confusion left the majority of people on earth clueless about the numerous and unknown perils we as humans are about to face, salient signs of which have already been highlighted in the previous opening paragraph. 

Gaia is complex and antifragile organisation and reacts in asymmetric manners to human activities. Violent and extreme weather phenomena or diseases such as the COVID 19 are some manifestations of these asymmetries. Humans are simply part of this complex system and evidently do not comprehend the asymmetries of the system (Gaia) which are manifested for example by the onset of aggravated climate changes or unknown and catastrophic new diseases, untill some critical limits are reached. Those limits are unknown to humans and only recently acquired empirical knowledge shows that they exist.

Therefore, albeit reversal of climate change might entail numerous tweaks of the Gaia system, the most impactful combinations are currently unknown to us meaning that a blind human intervention is also likely to accelerate our devastation as species. It is possible however, based on the experience we acquired from our coexistence with Gaia, to identify intervention points that can alleviate if not fully reverse the above effects.

This means that in essence humans need to not only stop polluting in the form of CO2 but also to remove the accumulated excess of it from the Earth’s atmosphere. From there we can work backwards to identify impactful intervention points to leverage such reduction.

Figure 3 below shows some ‘acupuncture’ points (ref.12) which when act together it is anticipated that they will work to achieve CO2 reduction from the Gaia’s system.

Figure 3. Possible intervention points where humanity can act to mitigate climate change and save humanity (ref.8).

Fundamentally the political will needs to be in place in order to reform not only the established ways we live and consume natural resources but our respective centralised political systems which increasingly lack variability and differentiation.  This will require reassessment of what we consider wealth and how we share it amongst us, what economic activities we need to cease and which ones we should develop and accelerate. It is understood that the development and diffusion of renewable energy technologies can reduce some of the amount of CO2 into the atmosphere but as it was mentioned previously additional technologies need to be devised to remove existing CO2 surplus in an effort to quickly rebalance the system to levels that we knew were safe before modern times. Geoengineering can form the basis on which a host of technologies will be developed to help capture CO2 directly from the earth’s atmosphere, store it safely and/or for safe uses (refs.8, 13,14). 

Figure 3 shows that in parallel, proliferation of education amongst humans will also help to reduce human populations on our planet (based on current evidence from developed western countries), thus alleviating the resources consumption rates and the ensuing pollution. Reduction in pollution it is expected to rebalance the system Gaia to safer levels and inhibit assymetric formation of diseases that can be even more catastrophic to humankind compared to COVID 19.

As CO2 pollution does not recognise boundaries the prerequisite political, societal and economic transformations will also be required to take place on a global scale meaning that, for example, sovereignty of existing states or even superpowers will be diminished, and established country boundaries will be reshaped and blurred if not revoked completely (ref.9).  Even though the overarching intervention points in Figure 3 seem easy to identify, the anticipated leveraging socioeconomic transformations of the humanity are tremendous, largely unknown and their possible ramifications even more perilous if changes are not enacted with acknowledgment of systems, as asymmetries exist everywhere and antifragilities for the most part are hidden from humans (refs.15-17) as manifested by the current COVID 19 virus.  Detailed system maps will elucidate additional critical points. Furthermore, new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence can prove invaluable to identify optimal forms of new socioeconomic structures and ascertain perils that are opaque to human minds and help implement changes in the required timeframes to ensure we avoid the worst vengeance of mother Gaia. 

Epilegomena

Climate change is beyond doubt an anthropogenic and unintended consequence of the human civilisation arising from our limited knowledge of our role within the greater system Gaia of which we are part. Given that Gaia has stronger antifragilities than humans it is attempting to reverse the root cause that upsets the system balance i.e. humans. This is carried out in asymmetric ways as linear behaviours seems to have been exhausted within the system, causing unpredictable and catastrophic events to humans e.g. in the form of weather phenomena or in new and vicious diseases such as COVID 19 virus.  If humans are to survive and not outdone by any other species, they need to reassess their purpose and functions on Gaia and use our limited ingenuity and vast accumulated knowledge to reinvent our civilisation. New tools such as artificial intelligence can prove critical in augmenting our understanding of our new positions in the Gaia system and help us configure anew our socio-political systems and in a timely fashion so that Gaia remains the ancestral mother of the humankind, protecting us from the looming perils of other unknown primordial ‘deities’.

References

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2.     https://www.express.co.uk/news/weather/955733/UK-hot-weather-long-range-summer-forecast-bank-holiday-BBC-weather-Met-office, accessed on 11 Aug. 18.

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5.     https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-44935152, accessed on 11 Aug. 18.

6.     https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/06/us/california-fires/index.html, accessed on 11 Aug. 18.

7.     https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44932366, accessed on 11 Aug. 18.

8.     https://systemdynamics.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010-Day2-Sherwood-Slides.pdf, accessed on 10 Aug. 18.

9.    https://www.nccarf.edu.au/sites/default/files/attached_files_publications/Maani_2013_Decision-making_for_climate_change_adaptation.pdf, accessed on 10 Aug. 18.10.  Taleb, N. (2012) Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder: Penguin Books page 178.

11.  Grasso M, et al. (2015). The moral complexity of climate change and the need for a multidisciplinary perspective on climate ethics, Climate Change, February2015, Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10584-014-1323-9.pdf, accessed on 11 Aug. 18.

12.  Classroom Notes, Managing Complexity Course, held at Hult International Business School, London, 3-6 Aug. 2018. 

13.  https://www.geoengineering.ox.ac.uk, accessed on 12 Aug. 18.

14.   https://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/proceedings/01/carbon_seq/7b1.pdf, accessed on 11 Aug. 18.

15.  https://www.e-ir.info/2015/11/08/climate-change-and-the-re-imagination-of-state-sovereignty, accessed on 12 Aug. 18.

16.  https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/how-renewable-energy-will-change-geopolitics, accessed on 11 Aug. 18.

17.  Crutchfield P. (2009). The Hidden Fragility of Complex Systems - Consequences of Change, Changing Consequences, appears in Cultures of Change: Social Atoms and Electronic Lives (October 2009),                                                                                            Retrieved from http  ://csc.ucdavis.edu/~cmg/papers/FOCS.pdf, on 12 Aug. 18.