Can Humans Survive the 21st Century?
Let’s try to imagine what extreme climate change may actually be like
By MARTIN REZNY
I’m not going to pretend that I’m some kind of expert with all of the answers, and I’m not going to argue that something in particular will definitely happen. All I have are questions, possibilities. My perspective is that of a science fiction writer, trying to point to things that are real, even if they haven’t happened yet, but more importantly, trying to navigate that future toward a happy non-end, and communicate what I discover.
First, let’s set up the atmosphere. This track by Stellardrone should do.
So the planet is warming up. But what does that mean for you? How does one measure the impact of it on human life, your life? Degrees of temperature averaged out globally are far too abstract a thing to contemplate for most people. What matters is what it does to weather, the land, the ocean. Why?
Where do you think your food and water come from?
Suppose the current projections are more accurate than not. In which case, imagine storms getting more intense and frequent each year, just like droughts and wildfires. But don’t get fooled by the phrase “global warming”, hotter planet would most likely be more prone even to cold extremes, depending on where you live. “Extreme” really is the operative word here, and to make matters worse, the extremes should come together with irregularity.
Do you know what especially doesn’t like irregular, extreme weather? Crops. Not to mention that droughts would mean too little water in some parts of the world that already don’t have much of it, meaning even less crops there, while there would be too much water falling on other places. Floods can not only destroy stuff, they can flush away nutrient rich top layer of the soil and destroy the crops, too.
Speaking of floods, you may be familiar with one particular story that may apply here, probably the oldest one in the book, quite literally. In that story, the waters of the Earth covered all of the land, specifically in order to wipe out humanity for its sins. Turns out, sometimes the science fiction does come true. The upside is that, in reality, “only” about half of the human population will likely be either killed or driven away by the rising sea level by the end of the century, assumed we only keep making it worse.
But the sea water has also properties other than temperature, which are just as important in terms of food for you. With the additional CO2 being absorbed by the ocean, its acidity rises, disrupting oceanic food chains. The warmer waters can also disrupt currents, causing widespread anoxia (oxygen lacking dead zones in the oceans), which could really wreak havoc. But even without that, the seas are being overexploited and overpolluted by us already — what happens when there simply aren’t enough living things in the oceans for us to feed off of, especially when the crops start failing more often? What will you do, then?
If history is any indication, you might be one of the people either forced to migrate and possibly raid people who still can produce food just fine (meaning they do have enough fresh water and land), or you could be one of the “lucky” half of human population getting attacked by desperate migrating masses. Throw a pandemic or a preemptive nuclear strike or two into that mix, and who knows, we may even kill ourselves before the nature truly gets the chance.
But as I said before, I don’t really know what will happen, all I can say is that scientists seem to think all of the above is likely. Maybe not all of this will happen, maybe it won’t go to the most severe extreme, maybe it will be gradual enough, maybe we will get lucky more often than not, all of which would really give as a chance and time to adapt. Even a total collapse of modern civilization would be a solution, in a way — emissions of CO2 and overharvesting would stop, and eventually, the climate would bounce back.
The way I see it, it’s more a question of how much will we have to lose as a species in the process, since Earth will not exactly become an entirely unlivable Mars or Venus. Not to get religious on you, but the word penance really comes to mind right now. But also ingenuity, or vision. Since we can make people survive in space, where there’s nothing already supporting life whatsoever, the worst case scenario (apart from a self-inflicted doom) would probably be moving underground, back into the cave, so to speak.
Nuclear-powered self-sufficient underground complexes would certainly do the trick, shielded from radiation and toxins, housing artificial hydroponic biospheres and enclosed fully recycling systems. It wouldn’t be a very fun way to live, but that’s all pretty much current technology. We could do this, right now, or soon. We just don’t need or want to, of course. At least not yet. But there’s much more that I imagine we could try.
A different kind of track may be more suitable for this subject.
First of all, the renewable energies are of course a no-brainer. In an ironic twist, hothouse Earth with higher temperatures and fierce storms should even boost their potential. Most people never think about buildings this way (meaning at all), but our grasp of architecture is sufficient to make them virtually impervious to fires, storms, or earthquakes. Build them like that (including transformer-like, AI controlled adaptive capabilities), cover them in solar panels, and you can live essentially in a landed spaceship.
Shielding, hydroponics, and recycling make complete sense for such a city as well, in order to be sustainable even amid all kinds of hazards. As long as we’ve got electricity, air and water can also be filtered and temperature in living areas or protective suits managed. Filtering air is of course what ultimately needs to be done to reverse the CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Have you ever seen terraforming towers in a sci-fi? Yep, we can build those on Earth, too. And plant trees. Loads of them.
You may think all that would be too expensive, in which case, think again (meaning think). Climate change does not impact inorganic materials or our technological know-how, meaning there will be enough resources to accomplish all of this. But you’re not thinking of resources and know how, are you, you’re thinking of money, or political will. Guess what, both is driven purely by popular demand. If enough people start demanding a particular thing, that’s what both the money and the political will are going to center around.
Once people at large figure out that they want not to die horribly due to climate change, they will invest all they have into technologies and jobs that will aim to accomplish that goal. They will also start electing people willing to address the problems at hand. It has happened before, and we have broken through several impossible barriers already — even before modern science, we have lived through an ice age. By all means, we should be able to weather a hothouse as well. The race against time is more likely about how many people we will be able to save.
The countdown has already started. What are you going to do about it, now?
Because now is when the future begins.
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