WEBVTT - Welcome to the Crumbles 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:07.480 Episode one. Welcome to the Crumbles. The screaming starts while 0:00:07.520 --> 0:00:09.799 you're rolling a shopping cart down the aisle of your 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:13.480 local supermarket. You're trying to determine which canned meat looks 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:16.760 most appetizing. The price of fresh meat has been rising 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:19.440 steadily for the last few years, but two months ago 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:23.759 a ransomware attack shut down several massive meat processing plants 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:27.240 in Brazil. In Texas, the last four months of wildfires 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.320 also took their toll, burning thousands of acres of pasture 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:33.519 land and hundreds of thousands of heads of cattle. So 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:35.960 you were trying to decide between the spam and the 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:38.559 canned chicken. When you heard the commotion start a few 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:41.879 wiles down from your position, you knew immediately that it 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:44.519 had to be about coffee. In the last month, you've 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:47.280 seen two fist fights and a dozen screaming matches start 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:49.280 by the corner of the store that had once held 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:53.000 dozens of friendly, colorful bags of different coffee brands. The 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:55.240 last time it had looked that way was a long 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:58.760 time ago. Before the great plantations of Central America had 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:03.280 succumbed to blight, fire and drought, there was still coffee 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:06.600 capitalism always found a way, but it was harsher and 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:08.959 more bitter than it had been before, and it was 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:12.880 also much more expensive. Each customer was limited to one 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:16.320 half pound per week when it was in stock. You've 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:19.360 gotten lucky today and bought a bag, But evidently another 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:22.759 customer had been less fortunate. He seemed to be screaming 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:25.560 at a staff member, berating her for the problems caused 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:27.840 by a supply chain that had been breaking for the 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:31.360 last decade. You couldn't back it up with data, but 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:33.679 you feel like this sort of thing happens more and 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:37.400 more often every year, not just the supply chain disruptions, 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:40.680 but the outbursts of violence and rage. You don't even 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:43.640 stop to watch the videos on social media anymore. If 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:46.640 customers screaming and starting fights over the ground, beef that 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:49.640 wasn't there for their Fourth of July barbecue or whatever. 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:52.760 You can't tell me there's no coffee. I've seen a 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:55.360 dozen assholes with coffee in their carts. If they have 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:56.920 a right to it, I have a right do it. 0:01:57.320 --> 0:01:59.440 You turn away from your cart and sneak a glance 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:02.600 down the other aisle in spite of yourself. The angry 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:05.320 man is heavy set around six feet tall and wearing 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:07.919 a T shirt with a faded, thin blue line flag 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:10.799 on its back. He's yelling at a reedy young man 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:14.119 wearing the uniform of a grocery store clerk. This poor 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:17.359 kid had probably been stalking apple sauce a few minutes earlier. 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:20.440 Now he was the target of this man's entitled rage. 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:23.000 I know you keep more in the back. I don't 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:26.560 give a shit about your excuses. Get it. As the 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:29.760 young clerk tries to explain again that there's no coffee 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.519 left in the store, a security guard rounds the corner 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:35.080 at the other end of the aisle. He yells hey 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:38.239 and puts a hand on the taser at his belt. Sir, 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:42.280 you need to leave. I'm not leaving without my coffee. 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:45.600 You realize with a start that a small crowd has 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:48.800 started to form behind you. You feel sudden anxiety at 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:51.239 the fact that you've left your cart undefended, and pull 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:53.320 away from the scene to put your hands on it. 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:56.160 You were lucky enough to get coffee and the last 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:58.560 carton of eggs, and a lot of customers in the 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:02.840 store would happily steal either. Mercifully, your card has survived 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:06.600 the altercation unmolested, You wheel it away from the ongoing 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:10.560 confrontation towards the self checkout. Maybe you can avoid the 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:13.520 worst of the line that way. The yelling stops, and 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:15.800 as you wheel your cart up to the checkout counter, 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:18.720 you see the angry man's storm out of the grocery store, 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:22.040 cursing under his breath. The security guard and the clerk 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:24.880 follow a few feet back and stop when he exits 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:27.720 the building. They both sigh with relief, and for a 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:30.320 few minutes, you lose yourself in the task of running 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:33.720 your products through the self checkout. As you prepare to pay, 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:36.160 you happen to look up just in time to see 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:38.800 the angry man re enter the store through the front door. 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:41.440 You see the gun in his hand an instant before 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:43.600 he raises it up just a few feet from the 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:57.160 clerk's face and fires. On June, Victor Lee Tucker Jr. 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:01.320 Thirty walked into the Big Bear Supermarket into Kalb County, Georgia. 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:05.320 A story employee, forty one year old Lakita Willis, noticed 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:07.960 he was not wearing a face mask and violation of 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:11.480 the store's policies. Lookita informed Victor that he would have 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:15.120 to wear a mask to continue shopping. Victor Tucker left 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:17.240 the store in a huff and returned with a gun, 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:20.159 which he used to murder Lakita Willis and wound the 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:24.680 store security guard, an off duty sheriff's deputy. Lakida and 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:27.120 that security guard are not the only victims of this 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:30.039 sort of violence. At a Flint, Michigan, dollar store, a 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:32.760 forty three year old father of eight and employee was 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:36.360 shot dead over a mask. The city of Stillwater, Oklahoma, 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:38.760 was forced to reverse a mask ordinance when it led 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:42.680 to a surge of violence against service industry employees. We 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:46.479 could go on, but we won't. This is it could 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:50.760 happen here a podcast about collapse dedicated to chronicling where 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:53.440 we all of us are headed in the very near 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:57.159 future if things continue on their present course. The first 0:04:57.160 --> 0:04:59.640 season of this show focused on the possibility of a 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:03.000 second to American Civil War, and compared to that, perhaps 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:06.359 a shooting in a grocery store over coffee seems low stakes. 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.240 When Hollywood turns its eyes towards the subject of collapse, 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:14.560 they nearly always focus on the exciting parts. Buildings tumbling down, 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:18.080 mass violence in the streets, bandits and gunfights, and explosions, 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:20.520 and all the stuff that looks rad on a silver screen. 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:23.320 But that's not how collapse looks to most of the 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:27.240 people who are forced to endure it. Civilizations die by 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:31.080 paper cuts more often than by bullets. Everyone listening has 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:34.200 and the last year in Change watched the global society 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:36.800 we live in take a solid body blow in the 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:40.240 form of COVID nineteen. Many of the terrible things we 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.560 experienced that year. The supply line crunches, the culture war 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:48.080 over masks, the anti lockdown protests, the explosion of conspiracism 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:51.000 among millions of people stuck at home online. These things 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:53.719 are easy to attribute to the freak coming of a plague. 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:56.919 But COVID was not a speed bump. It was the 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:00.279 harbinger of a new era. It revealed how fra duel 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.800 much of the infrastructure of modern life truly was. I 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:07.080 wrote this episode while the city of Portland, Oregon, braced 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:10.560 itself for an unprecedented heat wave, with temperatures nearing a 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:14.480 hundred and twenty degrees. Last year's fire season saw Portland 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:17.640 blanketed and a cloud of rancid yellow smog. More than 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:20.000 half a million people living in Oregon had to flee 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:24.080 their homes over ten percent of the state's population. Stores 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:28.880 ran out of respirators, fire axes, and emergency supplies. The 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:31.640 American West's heat wave is a product of the same 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:34.919 thing that may soon strip the coffee from your store shelves, 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:39.840 climate change. In April of one, US coffee stockpiles hit 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:43.599 a six year low, even with Brazil's record twenty twenty crop. 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:47.960 That country is now experiencing its most severe drought in decades, 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:51.960 which will sink production further. The global coffee deficit, the 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:55.080 amount of the Earth's coffee production falls below demand, is 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:58.400 expected to hit ten point seven million bags this year. 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:01.800 The previous project was a short fall of eight million. 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:05.040 In the vignette that opened this episode, I mentioned a 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.200 meat shortage caused in part by cyber attacks on meat 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:14.000 processing plants that actually happened. On May thirty first one, JBS, 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:17.400 the world's largest meat supplier, was hacked, shutting down much 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:21.120 of their operations on Australia, Canada, and the United States 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:23.720 from a rite up. In the Wall Street Journal quote 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:27.200 the culprit a ransomware attack didn't just hit its target, 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:29.960 it royaled the U s food industry from hog farms 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:33.200 in Iowa to small town processing plants in New York restaurants. 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:35.800 The hacks set off a domino effect that drove up 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:39.240 wholesale meat prizes, backed up animals in barns, and forced 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:42.920 food distributors to hurriedly search for new supplies. The attack 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:46.360 was the latest clash between cyber criminals and companies integral 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:48.800 to the functioning of the U. S economy. It was 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:51.360 another disruption to the U. S food industry after the 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:55.280 COVID nineteen pandemic last year forced weeks of plants shutdowns, 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:58.800 and this year an economic rebound has stretched suppliers ability 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:02.560 to meet demand. Now I read that whole quote because 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:05.560 it illustrates the way all these problems build upon themselves. 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:10.120 Our supply chains are what mathematicians call a chaotic system. 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:12.840 If your knowledge of chaos theory comes primarily from Dr 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:15.520 E and Malcolm, the gist of it is this certain 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:19.280 complex systems can be impacted in huge, unexpected ways by 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:22.720 seemingly minor changes because so many things are interacting at 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:24.520 once that a change in one can set off a 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.920 chain of other changes. The most common framing of this 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:31.480 observation is the phrase a butterfly flapping its wings in China, 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.360 can cause a hurricane in New York, and variations of 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.400 the same. The world we live in and the infrastructure 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:40.360 that makes our daily lives possible, is such a system. 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:43.560 We've all seen ample evidence of that over the last year. 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:47.160 It really hit home from me earlier in twenty one 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:49.040 when a friend of mine who works as an ear 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:51.800 nurse at a local hospital sent a message to a 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:55.120 signal chat for my local friend group and warned, the 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:59.960 hospital is full. Don't get hurt. Initially, we all assumed 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.760 coronavirus was the cause, but no, he explained very few 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:05.959 of the cases that had filled his r and multiple 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:10.120 overflow rooms had anything to do with a viral infection. Instead, 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:13.160 the cause was a mix of things, people celebrating in 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:16.720 dumb ways as the state reopened, overdoses and car accidents, 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:19.880 et cetera. In normal times, these might not have drained 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:22.760 the system, but a huge number of doctors and nurses 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:26.360 quit during the worst of the plague. My friend calls 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:29.640 the period wherein now where aspects of modern society that 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:32.480 once seemed immutably solid start to fall apart all at 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:36.000 once as the crumbles. I find this a much more 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.040 useful framework for discussing the future than the dreams of 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:43.959 collapse shared by apocalypse obsessives. One April second study showed 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.640 that at least one in five healthcare workers have considered 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.880 quitting as result of the virus. More than thirty six 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:53.080 hundred u S healthcare workers died in COVID's first year. 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:55.840 These strains hit the medical system in the midst of 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:59.840 an ongoing drought and healthcare workers. By five the u 0:09:59.920 --> 0:10:01.840 S is likely to face a shortage of more than 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:05.319 four hundred thousand home health aids, twenty nine thousand, four 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:09.240 hundred nurse practitioners, and between fifty four thousand, one hundred 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:12.920 and one hundred and thirty nine thousand physicians. We went 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:16.079 into the pandemic with a shortage of doctors and nurses. 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:19.360 At least some of the six hundred thousand American deaths 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:21.920 from the virus were certainly due to a lack of 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:27.040 qualified medical professionals, and now COVID has further exacerbated that shortage, 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:29.880 ensuring that the next great strain on our health care 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:33.480 system it's even harder, which will drain away more professionals, 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:36.720 which will make the next pandemic or natural disaster even 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:40.760 more devastating. This is the way the crumbles work. Problems 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:45.199 feed into calamities and turn into catastrophes. A healthy society 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:47.840 has the wherewithal to diagnose its problems and patch the 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:50.680 holes in its systems when they appear. We do not 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:54.080 live in a healthy society. The problems that will confront 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:57.120 us over the next fifty years rising sea levels, out 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:00.040 of control wildfires, crop failures, greater waves of ref you 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.600 geez are no less imposing than the COVID nineteen pandemic. 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:06.800 The virus could have been halted by something as simple 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:09.800 as getting everyone to wear masks and avoid crowded indoor 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:13.000 spaces for a few weeks. The United States could not 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:16.880 handle that. In April, I watched a crowd of anti 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:20.000 lockdown protesters surround a group of doctors and nurses in 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:24.560 the Oregon state capital Salem. The healthcare professionals carried signs 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:28.120 that said please, we just don't want you to get sick. 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:32.720 Protesters spat at them and screamed diaper mouth, mocking the 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:37.120 face masks they wore. Several of these protesters carried rifles. 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:40.440 As you probably guessed by now, this is not a 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:44.679 particularly optimistic podcast, but It's also not my intention to 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:47.720 infect you with a sense of doom. The worst problems 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:50.920 we face all have solutions, or at least strategies for 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:54.959 adaptation and harm reduction. To my mind, our most pressing 0:11:55.040 --> 0:12:01.880 problems fall into three broad categories. One the environmental consequences 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:05.680 of modern civilization. This is going to be by far 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:08.240 the most unibomery point I make to day, but it 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:11.320 cannot be avoided. As I type this, fires are burning 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.720 throughout Oregon, even in the famously wet northern reaches of 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:18.120 the state. Towns in northern California with huge amounts of 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:21.400 rainfall thirty eight inches in some cases are so low 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:24.240 on water that citizens have been restricted to fifty five 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:27.960 gallons per day. Prior to twenty twenty one, Portland's record 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:31.320 high temperature was a hundred and seven degrees this June, 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:33.640 before the hottest part of the year. It beat that 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:37.880 record for three days straight. The year before twenty twenty, 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:41.440 Australia suffered a mega fire, the largest in its history, 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:45.040 which burnt more than twenty three hundred square miles. All 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:48.320 these fires are just preludes. The world is only getting 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:51.000 hotter from here on out. As I write this, the 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:54.920 United Nations Climate Science Advisers issued a draft report warning 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:58.040 that the worst projected impacts of climate change are hitting 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:01.920 much faster than previously expe did. We will probably reach 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:07.080 one point five degrees celsius of warming by twenty twenty six. Now, 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.360 for years, staying under one and a half degrees celsius 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:13.479 has been the goal. The target amount of warming. Mainstream 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:17.480 climate scientists and climate conscious politicians wanted to limit us too. 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:20.200 If we were to stop all other forms of emissions 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:23.760 right now, agriculture alone would carry us over the one 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:27.160 point five degree celsius line in just a handful of years. 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:31.720 Most institutional messaging posits one point five degrees of warming 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:35.920 as the acceptable, even relatively pleasant option. A UN Climate 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:38.320 Change tweet from earlier this year made that point in 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:42.600 image form, showing depictions of the Earth's atmosphere in green, yellow, 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:46.599 and red one point five degrees celsius, two degrees celsius, 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:50.160 and three degrees celsius plus with the text. The difference 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:52.640 between one point five two degrees and three to four 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:55.840 degrees average global warming can sound marginal. In fact, they 0:13:55.880 --> 0:14:00.240 represent vastly different scenarios for the future of humanity. It 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:02.600 is true that two or three degrees of warming would 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:04.920 create a radically different world than less than one and 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:08.120 a half. But the data and our lived experience has 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.559 made it increasingly clear that one point five degrees, which 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:15.040 we will hit period in the near future, is a 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:29.800 calamity of almost incomprehensible dimensions. The phenomenon we're all staring 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:33.480 down the barrel is called climate tipping. One example of 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:36.920 this would be unprecedented heat waves causing mass wildfires, which 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:40.200 release more carbon into the atmosphere, which speeds up warming, 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:44.200 which accelerates the whole cycle onward and upward. Scientists in 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:47.120 Europe recently found that climate tipping is likely to cause 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:49.880 sudden shifts in the Gulf Stream, which will cause sudden 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:54.160 and massive temperature changes in normally tempered zones like western Europe. 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:57.640 The last devastating heat wave to hit France and twenty 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:02.520 nineteen killed at least fifteen dred people. This particular study 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:06.000 was the result of scientists from eighteen universities working in tandem. 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:10.360 Their spokesman, doctor Michael Gill, told fizz dot org quote 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:13.800 these results indicate that climate tipping is an imminent risk 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:16.720 in the Earth system. Even the safe operating space of 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:19.800 one point five or two degrees above present generally assumed 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:21.880 by the I p c C might not be all 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:25.720 that's safe. According to the precautionary principle, we must consider 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:28.720 abrupt and irreversible changes to the climate system as a 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:31.920 real risk, at least until we understand these phenomena better. 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:35.640 The central problem is that our previous models were far 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:38.960 too optimistic, largely in their assumptions about how gradual the 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:42.600 warming caused by carbon release would be. Another recent study, 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:46.200 published in Science Advances, analyzed twenty years of data to 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:50.120 study the transfer of carbon dioxide between land plants in 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:54.320 the atmosphere. Its findings suggest that if present trends continue, 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.680 forests in twenty forty will absorb only half as much 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:01.080 carbon dioxide as they do now. So when we hit 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:04.680 one and a half degrees celsius, which we will permafrost 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:08.200 will start to thaw, releasing methane, which will warm the planet. 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:12.480 Forests will hold less carbon, more fires will burn, an 0:16:12.640 --> 0:16:16.680 estimated hundred and fifty million people will die due to pollution. 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:19.640 These factors all make it likelier that we will hit 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:23.000 two degrees celsius of warming or even higher, at which 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:27.800 point we will experience catastrophic permafrost thawing alongside another two 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:30.920 hundred and thirty billion tons of carbon burping out of 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:34.000 the soil. The effects of this will be catastrophic for 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:37.120 all of us, but they will be particularly disastrous for 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:41.600 the traditional victims of capitalism Africans. I want to quote 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:44.600 from an article in The Independent by Ugandan writer Vanessa 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:49.440 Naicaate quote. This year, abnormally warm temperatures and heavy rains 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:52.440 have led to swarms of locusts destroying hundreds of thousands 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:55.560 of hectares of crops in East Africa. Twelve million people 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:58.720 in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are in dire need of food. 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:01.440 Lake Chad has runk to a tenth of its original 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.840 size over the last fifty years. Half of Nigeria has 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:07.880 no access to water. It is hard to be encouraged 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:11.960 by stories of meatless burgers or moonshot technologies when communities 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:16.520 around you are battling an endless and worsening cycle of drought, famine, cyclones, 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:19.840 floods and destruction. This is my world at one point 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:23.679 to degrees celsius of warming. This is not progress. Vague 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:26.320 distant targets for twenty thirty or twenty fifty will not 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:29.400 keep the world well below two degrees celsius of warming, 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:32.760 as the Paris Agreement promised. I can tell you a 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:35.879 two degrees celsius hotter world is a death sentence for 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:39.800 countries like mine. Now, when you lay it all out 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:43.040 like that, it can be pretty overwhelming. For perspective's sake, 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:45.320 it is important to note that nearly all of the 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:48.760 carbon that's causing these problems was released into the atmosphere 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:51.639 within the span of a human lifetime. It is, in short, 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:55.880 the result of industrial society and its consequences. Right now, 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:58.280 there is more carbon in the atmosphere than at any 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:01.080 point in the last eight hundred thousand years, and perhaps 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.159 as far back as fifteen million years. But all this 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:07.560 carbon started flowing into the atmosphere just three hundred years 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:10.920 ago in the seventeen hundreds, when England started burning coal 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:15.159 and kicked off a global drive to industrialization. The vast 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:17.880 majority of the carbon in our atmosphere was pumped out 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:21.240 even more recently than that, as David Wallace Wells writes 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:25.280 in his book The Uninhabitable Earth quote, the majority of 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:28.200 the burning has come since the premiere of Seinfeld. Since 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:30.240 the end of World War Two, the figure is above 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:33.760 eighty five percent. The story of the industrial world's Kama 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:36.720 Kaze mission is the story of a single lifetime the 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:39.960 planet brought from seeming stability to the brink of catastrophe 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:42.720 in the years between a baptism or bar mitzvah and 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:46.439 a funeral. That fact has a tendency to inspire false 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:49.159 hope and some if the real problem only started a 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:52.200 lifetime ago, perhaps we can solve it in the space 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:55.520 of a lifetime. But reality does not work that way, 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.520 my friends. Once the carbon is out there, released from 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:01.320 trees burning in millions of acres of wildfires, from the 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:03.600 exhaust pipes of hundreds of millions of cars, or from 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:07.080 the smoke stacks of factories, it is there to stay. 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:11.119 If we transitioned entirely to nuclear power tomorrow, that carbon 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.760 would still be warming us for decades. And as the 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:17.560 globe warms up, it dries out the soil, which in 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:20.520 turn heats the world further, which pushes more people to 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:23.760 install a c which increases emissions, which dries out the soil, 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:26.680 which leads to wildfires, which releases more carbon, and on 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:29.320 and on and on and on it goes. And this 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:34.040 brings me to pressing problem number two, the authoritarian renaissance. 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:38.320 In two thousand eleven, the Syrian Civil War started, sending 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.920 millions of Syrian refugees fleeing into Europe. In two thousand 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:44.800 and fourteen and fifteen, nearly two million people filed for 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:48.720 asylum in the EU. Contrary to popular opinion, experts are 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:51.280 heavily divided on whether or not climate change played a 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:54.800 major role in sparking the conflict, but the refugee crisis 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:57.720 did play a major role in sparking something else, the 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:01.399 rise of Europe's authoritarian right wing. I'm going to quote 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:04.719 now from a Leibnitz Institute for Economic Research report by 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:09.080 Andreas Steinmeyer. Quote. In the Upper Austrian state elections in 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:11.920 two thousand fifteen, the far right Freedom Party of Austria 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:14.480 doubled its vote share from two thousand nine and obtained 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:16.840 over thirty percent of the vote with a fierce anti 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:20.280 asylum campaign. Polls indicate that support for the Freedom Party 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:22.480 remained roughly at the level of two thousand nine state 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:26.480 elections until late two thousand fourteen, but subsequently increased drastically. 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:29.440 In two thousand fifteen, When refugee numbers started to grow, 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:32.320 the salience of the issue in the media, measured as 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:36.119 the number of newspaper articles covering the refugee situation, increased 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:39.639 almost in proportion to the number of asylum applications. Upper 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:43.320 Austria was no exception in Europe. The Sweden Democrats, for instance, 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:45.600 obtained five point seven percent of votes in the two 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:49.840 thousand ten parliamentary elections in Sweden. After that, support increased 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:53.080 parallel to the rising number of refugees, which increased earlier 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:56.560 in Sweden than in other European countries. In parliamentary elections 0:20:56.560 --> 0:20:59.720 in two thousand fourteen, the Sweden Democrats obtained twelve point 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:02.320 nine percent of the vault and pulled around twenty percent 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:04.439 in late two thousand fifteen at the peak of the 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:08.280 refugee inflow into Sweden. The alternative for Germany a f D, 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:11.680 was not founded until two thousand thirteen. Poles show was 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:14.720 sharp increase in support of up to fifteen percent along 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:18.639 with growing refugee numbers. Now During the two thousand and 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:22.520 sixteen election Canada, Donald Trump in the United States constantly 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:25.600 harped on the danger of refugees from Syria, but also 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:29.320 from places in Latin America like Guatemala, whose economies had 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:33.320 been devastated by climate change. These climate refugees and the 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:36.040 false perception that they were causing crime and of violence, 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:39.359 fed into a rising American fascist movement that is still 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:43.440 with us today. Authoritarians have always used fear of the other, 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:47.320 and specifically fear of foreign asylum seekers, to stoke division. 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:50.440 That part of their job is only going to get easier. 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:54.000 The UN projects that by twenty fifty an additional two 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:57.479 hundred million people will be climate refugees. This was the 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:00.280 entire population of planet Earth during the high of the 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:03.880 Roman Empire, clawing desperately at the iron gates of any 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:07.680 country better off than where they've left. Climate change doesn't 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:11.680 just provide opportunities for authoritarian politicians. It tends to make 0:22:11.720 --> 0:22:16.840 society itself more authoritarian by increasing military conflicts and domestic crime. 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:19.439 In two thousand and fourteen, the U. S Department of 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:23.320 Defense authored an annual Defense Review that noted, quote the 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:26.320 nature in pace have observed climate changes and an emerging 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:30.359 scientific consensus on their projected consequences pose severe risks for 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:34.080 our national security. The report goes on to warn about 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:37.960 conflicts over resources, particularly water in places like Lake Mead, 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:41.760