Spirituality and Ecological Hope

by Richard B. Alley
Princeton University Press, 2000

One of the world’s leading climate scientists describes the science of reading weather changes over the earth’s geological history from ice cores and ocean sediments and what these can tell us about what to expect from climate change.  I confess that I did not read the entire book, gliding quickly over some of the technical descriptions, then headed straight for the last chapters to see what Alley had to say about our future.

While Alley says that the science is not yet advanced enough to make accurate predictions about how the earth’s climate reacts to certain changes — in the earth’s orbit, in ocean currents, in warming and cooling periods — and therefore exactly how bad things will get and when, one of the things they did learn is that sometimes climate change comes abruptly — not in millenia or centuries, but in just a few years.  One of the shifts that can make this happen is the shutting down of the North Atlantic ocean conveyor belt that has kept climate in Northern Europe temperate for a very long time, spreading moisture across the tropics and north.

One of the things that could cause a shutdown is human-caused elevated levels of greenhouse gases.

Alley says that any abrupt change will be very challenging for humanity, causing severe stresses.  He also notes, as we have insisted on this blog, that those who will handle the stresses best will be the affluent, while the majority of the world’s popluation, who are poor, face a pretty scary future (hence my basic question — what kind of people will we be in this rich country as the world goes through this crisis?).

He also points out that “the Earth is finite.�?  We are right now using up 50 percent of its product and that will only grow, if we go on as now, until the Earth has no more to provide for us.  Because climate change will take away more of this ‘product’ (through events such as drought, fires, flooding), it will accelerate the pace at which we reach these absolute limits.  Of course, if that begins to happen in the next 50 years, it will also occur as we reach maximum population, i.e., maximum demand for the earth’s product.

Reflecting on the impact of a slowing, or worse, a shutdown, of the conveyor belt, Alley writes that if a shutdown happens soon, “it could produce a large event…dropping northern temperatures and spreading droughts far larger than the changes that have affected humans through recorded history, and perhaps speeding warming farther south.  The end of humanity?  No.  An unconfortable time for humanity?  Very.�?

Are we ready? No.