Climate apocalypse
In 2019, reporting on the psychohistorical[1] dimensions of climate apocalypse, the New Yorker observed that:
Other kinds of apocalypse, whether religious or thermonuclear or asteroidal, at least have the binary neatness of dying: one moment the world is there, the next moment it’s gone forever. Climate apocalypse, by contrast, is messy. It will take the form of increasingly severe crises compounding chaotically until civilization begins to fray. Things will get very bad, but maybe not too soon... Maybe not for me...[2]
Climate scientists... do indeed allow that catastrophe is theoretically avertable. But not everyone seems to be listening carefully. The stress falls on the word theoretically. Our atmosphere and oceans can absorb only so much heat before climate change, intensified by various feedback loops, spins completely out of control. Some scientists and policymakers fear that we’re in danger of passing this point of no return if the global mean temperature rises by more than two degrees Celsius... (or) maybe less.
See also: climate feedback loops
Sources
- ↑ Consider how Franzen's description of his praxis mirrors psychohistory: "As a non-scientist, I do my own kind of modelling. I run various future scenarios through my brain, apply the constraints of human psychology and political reality, take note of the relentless rise in global energy consumption (thus far, the carbon savings provided by renewable energy have been more than offset by consumer demand), and count the scenarios in which collective action averts catastrophe. The scenarios, which I draw from the prescriptions of policymakers and activists, share certain necessary conditions."
- ↑ https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-if-we-stopped-pretending