Issues - Towards real democracy and better global governance

The menu topics below provide supporting information relating to linked sections of [The Case]

In A Guide to The End of the World (McGuire, 2002) Bill McGuire describes natural geophysical hazards which would have a high impact on humans (and other living beings) if they occurred. Although, fortunately, such occurrences are infrequent, it is usually very difficult to predict their timing. Since there is little or nothing people can do about such risks at the present time, we must accept them as part of the human condition.

But we can - and urgently need - to do something about other major problems which also threaten to destroy the habitability of the planet for life, but for which humans are responsible.

A classic account of the origin and evolution of Earth to the present day, and consideration of the requirements for ongoing habitability is given in How to Build a Habitable Planet (Langmuir, 2012).

In order to meet our perceived basic needs, our everyday activities of living, working, and wanting on a finite planet use natural and human resources, and create waste.

To the extent that we live as if we are part of an Earth System, planet earth provides a comfortable and habitable home. But we are not living in this way.

Earth System Science is a relatively new discipline. It addresses the complexity of interactions and feedbacks within an Ecosphere, which comprises the atmosphere, hydrosphere (oceans), cryosphere (glaciers, ice), lithosphere (earth's crust), and the biosphere. Since its origin the earth has evolved by means of all these processes to its present day form (MacKenzie, 1998), (Kump, 2000).

In just a few hundred years, a mere blip in planet earth's 4.5 billion year history, humans have squandered natural capital that took hundreds of millions of years to generate. These losses are not renewable on human timescales. A degraded planet is likely to be less robust at maintaining habitability through naturally occurring geophysical cycles. Urgent action is now necessary to halt a progressive decline in the habitability of the planet, before it becomes irreversible.

As an example, and put very simplistically, climate change risk exists because the rate of combustion of fossil fuels exceeds the rate at which the natural system can absorb the combustion products. So an accumulation of greenhouse gases occurs while natural processes assimilate them, which takes a long time in relation to human needs. Meanwhile the greenhouse effect occurs, creating global warming. Even if, or when, this greenhouse gas accumulation is finally stopped, it would still take a very long time for the absorbed atmospheric greenhouse gases and the acidification of the oceans to return to pre-industrial levels.

The term Anthropocene denotes the present period of Earth history during which Anthropogenic impacts have become so large and unsustainable that they are terraforming the planet (Ahmed, 2014a).

Notes: The terms Anthropocene and Anthropogenic.

On this website such Anthropogenic impacts are referred to as major human-caused problems (MHCPs).

List of major human-caused problems (MHCPs)

This is to mark a distinction from the term 'Anthropogenic risk', which has mainly become associated with risks which are perceived by the status quo to adversely affect economic growth.

Notes: The acronym MHCP

Despite such extreme exploitation of all these natural resources, global financial debt is massive and increasing. The international financial system has become so unstable that (Rickards, 2016, p.295) believes that a major systemic collapse is not only possible, but inevitable, and not that far off. That MHCPs are avoidable is an indictment of the prevailing governance system.

The global implications of major human-caused problems may be regarded as features of globalisation. The widely acclaimed book Global Transformations concludes that "..to explain contemporary globalization as simply a product of the expansionary logic of capitalism, or of the global diffusion of popular culture, or of military expansion, is necessarily one-sided and reductionist" (Held, 1999, page 437). At first sight Held's view appears to cut across the core thesis of this website, about the role of 'dark governance' and 'business as usual'.

This apparent difference of view is thought to be largely a matter of definition as to what constitutes capitalism. On this website a broad systems view of global 'capitalism' is taken. This embraces the physical/ mechanistic and socological aspects of major global human-caused problems. In order to understand the underlying driving mechanisms, it is necessary to consider psychological and philosophical perspectives. This approach may be "one-sided", but is certainly not reductionist.

In the context of the ongoing quest which gave rise to this website, the primary concern has been to identify the mechanisms by which humans cause environmental unsustainability. The common sense view is that economic growth is the key driver of overconsumption, planned obsolescence, natural resource depletion, waste, pollution, and either directly or indirectly many sociological problems. This view is further substantiated in the webpage [Power structure].

But while understanding the physical science of the key driver mechanism is certainly necessary, it is not sufficient.

Understanding how to tame aggressive capitalism requires analysis of the psychology of the protagonists, and of those of us who are overconsumers.

These aspects are addressed in the webpage [Life choices].

For humans to live as if part of an Earth System, human activities need to be sustainable. But current human activities overall are incompatible with the notion of living sustainably within an Ecosphere. They are no longer focused on meeting essential human needs. Instead human activities have become increasingly dominated by a dark form of business as usual (BAU), which drives economic growth at all costs. The economic growth paradigm is underpinned by the debt-based money system; corporate law; and the way cost-externalisation practices operate.

Mergers and acquisitions legislation ensures that there are only a few big players in any business sector, thereby maintaining effective power and control over each sector.

In the accountancy sector, for example, it is difficult to see how a truly independent audit can be obtained (Korten, 1999, p.43).

Collusion and opportunities for 'élite transfer' arise from a revolving door between government and think-tanks (Beder, 1997, pp.83-85), and between public relations and lobbying firms and government (Beder, 1997, pp118-119, p.201).

Economic growth has undoubtedly delivered for a small percentage of the global population, who have a shameful excess, and also apparently tolerably for many others. But it has not delivered for a large number of people who are too poor to be game-players. From a human perspective it is profoundly unjust that a small number of obscenely wealthy individuals, a tiny percentage of the world's population, effectively hold the rest of the world to ransom; by exploiting the world's resources primarily for their benefit and not for the common good. Fundamentally, the system does not care about inequality; it is built into the way cost externalisation works. Profit is intentionally maximised by ignoring unwanted, deferred, or 'unforeseen' costs. Such ignored/ externalised costs eventually have to be borne by society at large, and usually more so by the poor.

Notes: Population and wealth inequality

Each year many people are displaced from their homeland for various reasons. Whether due to war, environmental degradation, or a search for gainful employment for example, the reasons are invariably linked either directly, or indirectly, with BAU. No doubt much of the current business interest in AI and robotics is linked to an expectation of ever greater profits through employee reductions. Given that this would result in ever fewer people having employment, or disposable income therefore, it is clear which sector of the global population is likely to be the primary beneficiary of such economic growth. This is discussed later. Benefits for the few come at a high price in terms of increased global insecurities and the growth of

listed above.

When investigating potential solutions to MHCPs, the technique of scenario analysis can be very useful for highlighting functional differences between possible courses of action. This helps to get an idea of some of the likely features of a workable compromise solution. In principle, scenario analysis using validated computer models which incorporate scientific knowledge can be used to inform complex political decisions. In general, particular scenarios can be constructed within a narrative framework for speculating on possible outcomes of political and/or economic policies.

One notable example was created by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). They "published a report, Exploring Sustainable Development, prepared under the direction of Ged Davis of Shell International" at COP-4 in Kyoto in 1997. The idea was to tell "..'stories of the future' in scenarios designed to help readers understand some of the challenges humanity can expect to meet in the years ahead and organise themselves to meet them" (Meyer, 2000, page 76). Possible responses to the challenge of sustainable development can be deduced from the way world history has evolved, in the form of patterns of habitual human behaviour. The WBCSD report identifies these patterns as 'myths'.

Notes: The myth concept

The dominant current such pattern is refered to in the report as The Economic Myth. In order to promote debate about future options, three scenarios were constructed, covering the time period 2000-2050: FROG, Geo-Polity, and Jazz.

FROG stands for 'first raise our growth'; Geo-Polity stands for Global Environmental Organisation Polity, which is favoured by those who believe that global citizens should act collectively to ensure all their futures; Jazz favours flexibility, de-regulation, and tradable quotas (Ibid., pp.76-78).

The concluding chapter of Global Transformations includes "Table C.1 Civilising and democratizing contemporary globalisation: a summary of three political projects" (Held, 1999, page 448), adapted from (McGrew, 1997, p.254). The three projects are described as (1) Liberal-internationalism (2) Radical republicanism and (3) Cosmospolitan democracy. Extending the narrative framework idea, these could form the basis of new scenarios. It would be interesting to consider the extent to which (1) and (3) might be regarded as variations of Geo-Polity, and (2) a hybrid of FROG and Jazz. Also to take stock periodically of how reality has evolved in relation to scenarios such as: FROG, Geo-Polity, and Jazz; and Contraction and Convergence.

Scenarios are so useful in addressing complex situations that they have proliferated, to the extent that it has become necessary to find a way of broadly categorising them and identifying the most important ones; for example (Hunt, 2012). (Anon., 2014a) depicts a 6 scenario stream, and outlines how each of these scenarios might develop in future (Website. Raskin. "The Tellus Institute").

An extremely sobering scenario is that of a hothouse earth, which is discussed at the end of this page.

Computer modelling of human impacts on the planet is an essential analysis tool, requiring quality data from scientific research. Computer modelling is now an integral part of political processes; such as those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Modelling, data acquisition, and model-validation techniques continue to develop. Some of the challenges of climate model validation are discussed in Laboratory Earth (Schneider, 1996, pp.84-100).

The physical and environmental consequences of economic growth, for good and for bad, can be investigated using good science and computer modelling. Adverse socio-cultural consequences in general are more difficult to quantify, given the current level of scientific understanding of the human mind.

The link below provides evidence that those with vested interests (TwVI) in the fossil fuel industry have deliberately manipulated and controlled information in order to maximise economic growth.

Examples of BAU response to increased regulation

Corporations will tend to identify potentially profitable features of their products, for subsequent marketing, but keep quiet about potential adverse side-effects, for example: smoking tobacco and cancer risk; and the combustion of fossil fuels and climate change risk. The secrecy situation has got worse as research funding is increasingly controlled by corporations, with scientific research protected by commercial confidentiality and Non Disclosure Agreements.

While adverse-side effects from, say a new drug, would be regarded by citizens as a potential health risk, to corporations they would be regarded as a potential risk to profits; see for example (Kim, 2018). Adverse side-effects are therefore ignored, and treated as externalities. To side step any awkward questions, and maintain the everyday normal façade of business as usual, corporations are prepared to engage in deliberate and pro-active dissemination of public misinformation (Anon., 2020i). This type of strategy has been deployed by the fossil fuel industry for decades; see in particular The Climate Deception Dossiers which is discussed in the section "Vested interests and climate-denial politics" below.

The subject is discussed further in Information and implementation control strategy [Power structure].

The following material about the Limits to Growth model, and its updates, are quite detailed; initially because the prototype Limits to Growth computer model was used to create the Anthem for Sustainability, and subsequently because of its particular significance for the core thesis of this website.

Over a period of fifteen years, starting in 1957, Professor Jay W.Forrester of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) had developed the use of industrial dynamics modelling techniques "as a way to understand and to design corporate policy". In June 1970 a private group, known as the Club of Rome^cor, held a meeting in Bern, Switzerland in order discuss whether the MIT systems dynamics modelling methodology might be suitable for the next stage of a project they had planned; about "The Predicament of Mankind" (Forrester, 1973, pp.ix-x).

^cor 'An informal international group of distinguished businessmen, statesmen, and scientists' (Meadows, 2005, p.ix).

Forrester attended the Bern meeting, at which it was decided that the MIT methodology was, indeed, suitable. Forrester agreed to develop a preliminary computer model World2^w2 as the basis for a subsequent conference in July 1970. Following the July meeting the Club of Rome commissioned the MIT team to develop a more complex model World3^dtd, using the World2 methodology. World3 was used as the basis for the work described in the now famous book The Limits to Growth (Meadows et al, 1972).

^w2 World2 is described in World Dynamics , which was first published in 1971.

^dtd The modelling assumptions in World3 are described in more detail in (Meadows, 1974).

In response to the international interest and controversy^ltgc generated by World Dynamics and the successor book The Limits to Growth , Forrester published a second edition of World Dynamics in 1973. He included an additional chapter which discussed the importance of social limits to growth in relation to the physical stresses while society comes to terms with living on a finite planet (Forrester, 1973, pp.129-132). Of the three broad options he discussed, humans have largely opted for the use of technology to push back limits to allow more growth.

Social and environmental stress, "self-restraint", and the control of growth

About this route Forrester said "the consequence is not a higher quality of life but instead is higher social stress", and "If we use physical and social stress as the incentive to develop the forces of self-restraint, then growth can be controlled without direct imposition of excessive stresses" (Ibid., p.132). Also that "Self-restraint originates in the legal, ethical, and value structures of society".

A paper was produced by MIT Limits to Growth team authors Jørgen Randers and Donella H. Meadows, entitled The Carrying Capacity of the Global Environment (Meadows, 1973, p.333). In the context of facing the inevitable collision between rising population/ material growth and the physical limits of a finite planet, the authors stated that "It is overall growth that must finally stop, but that does not preclude redistribution of the world's existing material wealth".

They then suggested the possibility of a contraction and convergence type of mechanism, and perhaps even helping the nonindustrialised world to develop economically to "an acceptable level". The authors reasoned that the developed world would have to take the lead in the path towards global equilibrium, and that "the developing world would have serious responsibilities in attempting to stop its rapidly growing populations".

Several aspects of the above statements appear troubling. For example, the fact that the absolute contribution of poorer countries to natural resource depletion and environmental degradation, despite their population growth, had been very low compared to that of the rich countries was not mentioned. The authors of the paper also stated that "stopping the population explosion is becoming increasingly more accepted as an important task to be accomplished as fast as possible".

They expressed concern that if capital growth was stopped, then the poor would remain poor; hence the logic of their redistribution argument.

Randers and Meadows concluded that to continue maximising material growth is futile, it will inevitably result in no acceptable future for any country or people. The goal should be to attain a state of sustainable global equilibrium. They refer to some of the challenges presented by this state, in particular citing (Daly, 1971) "...The stationary state would make fewer demands on our environmental resources, but much greater demands on our moral resources". They go on to suggest that the presence of global equilibrium could permit the development of a golden age for humanity, noting that the desirability of the steady state has long been recognised (Mill, 1857). More human energy could become available for developing human culture, and for improving the quality of life far beyond mere subsistence (Meadows, 1973, p.335). If only...

The paper concludes: "The changes needed during the transition from growth to global equilibrium are tremendous, and the time is very short. The first step must be to increase the time horizon of individual people and of social institutions. Strong leadership from those institutions already dedicated to ethical and moral concerns - the churches - may be the most effective way to initiate the first and most important step towards a sustainable equilibrium society".

These days people are familiar with the use of scenarios in computer modelling studies. Unfortunately when the Limits to Growth book was published back in 1972, many people assumed that the 'standard run' of the World3 computer model was predicting the most probable future. Development work on the Limits to Growth computer model has continued and project updates have been published periodically (Wikipedia: Limits to Growth). The authors set the record straight in Limits to Growth: The 30-year Update (Meadows, 2005, p.168).

The main author of this update was Donella Meadows (known as Dana), who sadly died in early 2001, before the book was published (Ibid., dedication page). The book was completed by the co-authors; including her husband Dennis Meadows (Ibid., p.xvi). They said of her: "[She] was the unceasing optimist. She was a caring, compassionate believer in humanity." She believed that if "enough of the right information"... "was put in people's hands, they would ultimately go for the wise, the far-sighted, the humane solution-in this case, adopting the policies that would avert overshoot (or, failing that, would ease the world back from the brink)" (Ibid., p.xvi). [Bold emphasis mine].

Donella Meadows pointed out that the longer proper action for global sustainability is delayed, the more we run out of options (Ibid., pp.248-250).

Still tracking the Limits to Growth 'business as usual' scenario - 40 years on

Author Nafeez Ahmed wrote a two part article in the Guardian (Ahmed, 2014a & b). In part 2 he referred to a 2009 American Scientist article (Hall, 2009) about a scientific review of the Limits to Growth model 'predictions', which was carried out in 2008. Nafeez reports that leading ecologists Prof Charles Hall of State University of New York and Prof John W Day of Louisiana State University, who carried out the 35-year review, commented "...We are not aware of any model made by economists that is as accurate over such a long time span" (Ahmed, 2014b).

A 40-year scientific review of the Limits to Growth model scenarios, using authoritative international statistics, carried out by the University of Melbourne showed "that the world is tracking pretty closely to the Limits to Growth 'business as usual' scenario. The data doesn't match up with other scenarios." (Turner, 2014).

The serious consequences of following business as usual growth are a major theme of this website. A plausible explanation for this 'long term model accuracy' is discussed in [Power structure].

Two decades before the Contraction and Convergence concept became widely known about in the context of UN negotiations on climate change, the same concept was outlined in the paper (Meadows, 1973, p.333), mentioned earlier.

Contraction and Convergence [Artworks]

The opening words of a book written only a few years earlier (Meadows, 1970) by Dennis Meadows were "For international stability, few objectives are more important than that of narrowing the gap in standard of living which exists between developed and underdeveloped countries". As presented, this seemed very reasonable.

In his thought-provoking book Planet Dialectics (Sachs, 1999) Wolfgang Sachs provides a very insightful exploration of how the concept of 'development' was presented, after WW2, at President Harry Truman's inauguration speech before Congress on 20 January 1949 (Truman, 1950). Sachs describes how in a new world view, "... people and whole societies could, or even should, be seen as objects of development". "The degree of civilisation in a country could be measured by the level of its production". The US could now proceed on a trajectory "of world-wide domination: an anti-colonial imperialism", using the conceptual vehicle of 'development'.

The world was seen as an economic arena (Sachs, 1999, pp.3-5).

"Development meant nothing less than projecting the American model of society onto the rest of the world" (Sachs, 1999, p.5)

A systematically applied development agenda has certainly had significant ramifications for the evolution of societies. When Mohandas Ghandi (Mahatma) fought for (passively!) and finally achieved the independence of India, he "wanted to drive the British out of the country in order to allow India to become more Indian". But his hopes were not realised because the new Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, although admiring Gandhi, disagreed with his vision and instead "saw independence as the opportunity to make India more Western" (Ibid., p.16).

Life could be thought of as a succession of fleeting moments, but we do not tend to think much about what led to any given moment, unless it happens to be 'life-changing'. It is important for pivotal moments to be recorded as historical events. This allows for subsequent reflection and analysis as to their possible significance according to particular world views.

The present moment and lifestyle choices [Life choices]

A year later, in 1948, Gandhi was assassinated.

Nehru bought into the mindset whereby "the economy overshadows every other reality; the laws of economy dominate society and not the rules of society the economy" (Ibid., p.17). As Sachs puts it, "whenever development strategists set their sights on a country, they see not a society that has an economy, but a society that is an economy".... . In effect economies were ranked by their GNP performance on a league table (Ibid., p.28), and universalism (space -centred view) eroded the diversity of place -centred experience, culture and language (Ibid., pp102-103).

Sachs explains how 'development' subsequently evolved, and how the mindset and terminology was gradually reframed over the years in order to cover up problems while masking the pro-growth agenda. He identifies many important factors in the evolving chasm between sustainability and economic globalisation (Ibid., p.155). The impasse is exacerbated by the responsibilities of nation-states, for example in respect of balancing the costs of honouring environmental agreements against national economic interests, meanwhile trans-national corporations can operate without territorial constraints or state responsibilities.

It is evident that the framing as developed or underdeveloped looks a lot more like continued maximisation of material growth for the rich (economic growth), than the goals and sentiments expressed by Randers and Meadows in their paper (Meadows, 1973).

The mission to improve environmental sustainability became sidelined, or was used as a bargaining chip at future UN Summits (Sachs, 1999, p.37).

The COP21 Paris Agreement (Anon., 2015b) was hailed in the media as a success as a framework for facing the global warming issue. But within less than a week of Paris the US had agreed to lift a 40-year ban on crude oil exports, and the UK had granted licences for onshore oil and gas exploration linked to fracking.

This is a more recent example of what the environmentalist Jonathon Porritt once said ^jps:

"When do you suppose that any world leader will ever summon up the courage to initiate a proper public debate about economic growth and the degree to which growth still does or doesn't do what it's supposed to do-namely, make us all happier? There are actually very few genuinely off-limits issues in politics, but this is the biggest of them all" .

^jps While chairman of the UK Commission for Sustainable Development, which was created by the Labour Government in 2002; its role strictly advisory (von Uexküll, 2005, paraphrased from p.61).

Originally a Twitter banner [Purposeful art], entitled Before the tipping point.

Those close to the technical aspects were concerned that the Paris Agreement did not go far enough.^kac However there was a strongly contrasting lack of such recognition by

at Davos^wef 2016. A relaxed official response, as (McKibben, 2015) put it. In other words, climate change was not then perceived as a threat to business growth (Levitt, 2016). Although unsurprising, given the importance attached to economic growth by delegates at the World Economic Forum, the issue of climate change was at least acknowledged at Davos, as was the ongoing nuclear weapons threat.

Attention to these issues was further registered by an appropriate adjustment of the Doomsday clock (Nuclear weapons threat [Issues:Notes] (Anon., 2023a) ).

^kac Within ten days of COP21, a compilation of assessments of what was, and what wasn't achieved by the Paris Agreement, and of what the next steps should be, had been produced by [Glen] Anderson (Anderson[G], 2015).

[Kevin] Anderson, one of the world's leading climate scientists, describes the reality of the task ahead in (Anderson[K], 2015) and (Anderson, 2016a-d). In (Anderson, 2016c) he talks about the Paris Agreement within the background of climate science and what is needed to stop global warming at 2°C or even 1.5°C - as part of the 'Delivering on 2 degrees' talks and debate evening organised by the Carbon Neutral University Network.

^wef Davos is a location in Switzerland where the superclass (Rothkopf, 2008) World Economic Forum delegates meet.

The link Control of information by corporations listed some examples of corporations highlighting marketable features of their products, while keeping quiet about their potential adverse side-effects. Some of the climate-denial politics tactics used by the fossil fuel industry provide a shocking illustration of just how far TwVI will go in the pursuit of profit.

The Climate Deception Dossiers (Anon., 2015e) provide proof that the fossil fuel companies have known since at least 1977 that fossil fuel combustion would cause climate change, and like the tobacco industry, have withheld their knowledge of the risks to life. They have actively seeded confusion about the problem through systematic and deliberate misinformation, and deliberately obstructed progress towards reducing the problem - in order to continue to make huge profits at the expense of all life on the planet.

See also (Kasper, 2015), (Johnson, 2015b), and (Anon. 2015d).

The television documentary Climategate: Science of a Scandal gives a very revealing account of how powerful climate-denial influencers deliberately set back progress on tackling climate change just when it was beginning to happen (Anon., 2019g). Undercover reporting has provided video evidence of some of the lobbying tactics used by the fossil fuel industry (Anon., 2021b).

In an obituary for Sir John Houghton^sjh Dr. Saskia Pagella recalled Sir John "recounting when he and his colleagues were briefing Margaret Thatcher's government about the risks of the rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, how readily Thatcher had understood the science. Being a chemistry graduate, she initially took it very seriously and her attention only turned when those with vested interests (TwVI) pulled her and her cabinet's focus back to the economy" (Pagella, 2020, p.10) [my text emphasis].

^sjh Sir John Houghton CBE FRS FLSW (1931-2020) "was a major driving force behind the formation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988, serving as chair and co-chair of the scientific assessment working group until 2002" (Ibid.).

Despite the urgent need for energy transition most of the fossil fuel industry still strongly incentivises staff to achieve production growth targets, despite climate pledges (Anon., 2022u).

The key corporate law underpinning economic growth is one of two 'tablets-of-stone' which are introduced in the [The Case: Power structure] webpage.

The January 2021 version of this website questioned whether the widely publicised target of net zero by 2050 was actually a clever piece of PR. My concern was that this target, in effect, gives business a green light to continue fossil fuel extraction/ combustion at the same rate as at present, such that by 2050 the most lucrative reserves of oil and gas will have been depleted, yielding the desired returns on their investments. Also by then business will have had time to transition to non-fossil fuel energy technology and/or carbon capture technology which would use more natural resources to yield profits for business.

What does 'net zero by 2050' really imply? ^[PS]

It was revealed during the run up to COP26 that China was not going to sign up to even this target; their commitment to net zero by 2060 was confirmed at the COP. It was revealed that Russia and India were also not able to commit to the 2050 target.

Once again the fossil fuel lobby was able to control the agenda, and to scupper the prospects for keeping 1.5 (°C) alive by giving priority to realising value from their investments, and benefiting their respective national economies.

(Anon., 2022w) and (Anon., 2022x) provide assessments of the overall outcome of COP27. The fossil fuel lobby were again present in even greater numbers than at COP26 (Anon., 2022y) and no progress was made in facing them down. The key outcomes from COP28 are discussed in a webinar in (Anon., 2023b).

Despite the fact that it is the continued combustion of fossil fuels which is the core driver of the climate change problem, COP28 was convened in a "petrostate", and four times the number of people connected to the coal, oil, and gas industries attended the event than at COP27.

The number of people who have have been killed, made homeless, or become refugees as a result of climate change-related events such as droughts, forest fires, floods, landslides, tornadoes.. is steadily increasing.

(Anon., 2021d) describes the scientific outcome of an IPBES-IPCC co-sponsored workshop, which examined how climate change and biodiversity decline affect human futures. Part two of the authoritative UN IPCC sixth assessment report (IPCC, 2022), which focuses on the natural and socio-economic impacts of climate change, states that as many as 45% of the global population are already highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The situation can only worsen if the average global temperature rises further.

It is profoundly unjust that most of these 3.5 billion people live in regions which have contributed very little to global warming, while their lands have been looted for wealth and natural resources (Willis, 2022).

A link to the third part of the IPCC report (WG3) is included in the article (Anon., 2022m), which invited some of the contributing authors to the report to say what they think are its most important insights. WG3 focuses on the urgent action needed to mitigate the impacts of the climate crisis. Without immediate and deep reductions in GHG emissions, limiting global warming to 1.5°C is beyond reach.

Each year brings more extreme weather events. 2025 began with a series of ferocious wildfires which erupted on 7 January in the Palisades and Eaton areas of Los Angeles. Fueled by powerful Santa Ana winds and dry conditions, the fires spread quickly across the Los Angeles area. The fires were eventually contained by the end of January, but at least 29 people were killed, including some who died trying to prevent the fires from engulfing their homes. Over 37,000 acres were burned and more than 16,000 structures destroyed. The impact of the destruction was felt far beyond the borders of these communities and the tens of billions in damage will take years to clean up.

In March 2025 South Korea experienced its worst wildfire outbreak since records began in 1987, involving more than 20 separate blazes occurring simultaneously across the country. At least 31 people were confirmed to have died in the wildfires, while 51 others were injured, nine of them seriously.

Recent developments in Earth System Science, in conjunction with stratigraphy, are being used to provide powerful insights into the nature and significance of human impacts on the planet. Recognising that the Earth System has already undergone a substantial transition away from the Holocene state, it has been proposed that a new epoch in Earth history - the Anthropocene - be defined (Steffen, 2016). The basis for defining the start time for the Anthropocene has been the subject of a specialist Anthropocene Working Group (AWG).

(Rockström, 2019a) outlines how fast global warming has been increasing and the effects on temperatures since the 1900s. He discusses the concern about reaching tipping point thresholds, with the possibility of a domino effect resulting in a trajectory of irreversible warming towards a hothouse earth. (Rockström, 2019b) uses the latest science to address the question as to whether we are at risk of destabilising the whole planet. (Steffen et al., 2018) explore the likelihood of moving into an inhospitable but stable hothouse earth state, which could remain for millennia.

(Anon., 2017b) reviews evidence from the fossil record for clues about what the conditions were like "the last time the globe warmed". This occured during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), at the very end of the Paleocene epoch 56 million years ago, after the extinction of the dinosaurs.

(Ward, 2013) reviews evidence from the fossil record at the time of mass extinction events. Apart from the extinction of the dinosaurs, which was caused by a huge asteroid, the general picture is that the mass extinctions are associated with rapid warming due to sudden increases in carbon dioxide and methane levels caused by massive volcanic eruptions, and basalt flooding. The fossil record reveals significant differences between the asteroid impact event, and the other mass extinctions. The latter events appear to take place over longer time periods, and the evidence suggests that the oceans become rather like stagnant ponds. Global warming occurs more at the poles than at the equator, which changes the mode of action of currents in the oceans, and in the atmosphere. Land-ice melt, particularly in Greenland and Antarctica, results in sea-level rise. Ward points out that, even with the present levels of carbon dioxide, thermal expansion alone will result in about three feet of sea level rise by the end of the century. This will have devastating implications for many food crops, which grow within about four feet of present sea level in big fertile river deltas like the Niger and the Ganges. Ward deplores the lack of public understanding of climate science, and remarks on the cultural difficulties associated with trying to change this situation in the US. One factor is the prominence of Christian fundamentalism in the US, which is briefly discussed in [Power structure: Notes].

Noting the correlation of non-impact mass extinction events with increased levels of carbon dioxide, and with 'Canfield oceans' in which deep ocean layers become anoxic, (Dyer, 2011, pp.256-260) discusses the mechanism by which these conditions produce hydrogen sulphide which kills marine life. When released to the atmosphere the hydrogen sulphide then kills land-based life - the 'greenhouse extinction' imagined in Under a green sky (Ward, 2007). As the oceans absorb more carbon dioxide, they become more acidic, and deep layers become more anoxic. As a deep layer expands and rises, the combination of more light and low oxygen causes bacteria to proliferate, generating vast quantities of toxic hydrogen sulphide which is released to the atmosphere.

Theoretical work representing these hostile conditions has been explored, for example (Kump, 2005) and (Hülse, 2021), but the extent to which hydrogen sulphide toxicity might render the planet uninhabitable is not known.

Previous non-impact mass extinctions typically appear to have been triggered by lower rates of global warming than humans are currently generating, but were sustained over long periods of time. (Dyer, 2011, p.263) writes that the last greenhouse extinction occurred when the atmospheric carbon dioxide level was around 800 parts per million. We are currently at about half of that level, but it is steadily increasing. No-one yet understands enough about the plethora of earth system tipping points (Pearce, 2022) to be able to reliably judge where the point of no return might be. (Steffen, 2021) describes earth system tipping points in more detail, and how these lead to a bifurcation where humanity either manages to come back from the brink, or continues towards a hothouse earth.

(AAAS, 2019) provides updated estimates of the earth's carbon content and about its natural rates of deep earth ingress and egress.

One ominous statistic from this reference:

"Humanity's annual carbon emissions through the burning of fossil fuels and forests etc. are 40 to 100 times greater than all volcanic emissions". [bold emphasis added here]

It is cautionary to note that collectively we are behaving like boiled frogs, and are already participating in a mass extinction event.

Notes

The term Anthropocene was suggested by Paul Crutzen to denote a new geological epoch, and that the Holocene epoch ended as human civilisation began. See How to Build a Habitable Planet (Langmuir, 2012).

The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) have been developing a suitable official boundary to mark the beginning of the Anthropocene, for example (Zalasiewics, 2015), (Steffen, 2015). Anthropogenic denotes 'human-caused'. When looking at geological timescales there is not much difference between the beginning of the industrial revolution, and the 1950s. The sharpest and most globally synchronous indicator of the 'Great Acceleration' (Steffen, 2015) of population growth, industrialisation and globalisation is made by the fallout from the testing of thermonuclear bombs from the early 1950s (Ibid.).

In 2019 a short list of possible candidates for a Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP), a 'golden spike', was drawn up (Anon., 2019k). In 2023 a formal proposal by the Anthropocene Working Group was submitted to the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (Website. Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy: Working Group on the ‘Anthropocene’). It proposed "that a Crawfordian Stage/Age and Anthropocene Series/Epoch should be part of the International Chronostratigraphic Chart (ICC), with its base at a level representing 1952 CE, marking a sharp upturn in plutonium levels as the primary marker and more generally aligned with the historical phase of the mid-twentieth century ‘Great Acceleration’ ".

However, the proposal for an Anthropocene Epoch as a formal unit of the Geologic Time Scale was rejected by the ICS Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS). The rejection vote was approved on March 26 2024.

To the extent that major human-caused predicaments/problems (MHCPs) are considered by the status quo, they tend to be framed as risks insofar that they are perceived to adversely affect economic growth. The term MHCP is used this website to mark a distinction from this economic growth biased reframing of Anthropogenic risk.

For example, extreme global wealth inequality would be unlikely to feature as a priority issue in the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual risk report, because it would not be seen as a threat to economic growth. On this website it would be regarded as an MHCP.

Paris Agreement - did it go far enough?

The total human impact on the ecosystem might be judged to be unsustainable, but whether or not the earth can be regarded as 'overpopulated' is masked by obscene global wealth inequalities (Anon., 2012a), (Anon., 2013b). The ecological impact, or 'footprint', of one rich person would have to be balanced against the footprints of a large number of poorer people.

In principle, inequality could be reduced by the implementation of a generalised contraction and convergence policy, but this has not yet happened.

Human population growth is a rights and responsibilities issue. The right to choose whether or not to bring a child into the world comes with a responsibility to each unborn child, in terms of what sort of life the prospective parent can provide. But if a prospective parent is denied the possibility of providing a good life for their child through injustices such as extreme wealth inequality and/or bad consequences of cost externalisations, which are outside their control, then the perpetrators of those injustices should be held accountable.

On the other hand, if a prospective parent is in a position to provide very well for a child, in the present context it can be argued that there is a responsibility to be aware of the potential impact of that new, possibly large, environmental footprint.

The term myth as used here is described in a World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) report titled Exploring Sustainable Development as: a habitual pattern of thinking which shapes who we are, whether or not we are consciously aware of such a pattern. More precisely: a belief or a subject of belief whose truth is accepted uncritically. Myths could alternatively be regarded as simplified world views.

Four myths are tabulated in the above report: Hero; Religious; Democratic/Scientific; and Economic. Each of these are represented by just three dimensions: Man, God, and Nature.

In the 'religious' myth God takes precedence, and God-Man is the most significant relationship. In the 'economic' myth, Man takes precedence, and Man-Nature is the most significant relationship, which is the inverse [Power structure] of what it should be.

Despite reservations about trying to financialise the unquantifiable (discussed in [Power structure]), and therefore the need to use appropriate indicators, new accounting ideas and tools such as the Triple-Bottom-Line seemed justified because they appeared to facilitate engagement with 'sustainability-aware' businesses. NGOs starting to talk in financialised terms, and about indicators, in the belief that it was a way to acknowledge/ recognise and quantify the sociological and environmental cost externalisations inherent in capitalism. Innovative concepts [Citizen action: Notes] like the Triple-Bottom-Line, natural and human capital, indicators, footprinting etc. were all part of the evolving language of sustainability accounting.

I depicted the Triple-Bottom-Line in a painting What have we done?, and represented the elegant concept Contraction and Convergence [Artworks] on a CD cover [Artworks]. At the time it seemed less overtly a tool for financialising the unquantifiable.

But after reading (Sachs, 1999) it became apparent that this elegant concept, mooted in (Meadows, 1973, p.333), directly embeds Truman's vision of the developed and the underdeveloped. Masking the pro-economic growth agenda under the guise of 'development' changed the rules of engagement. I began to notice examples of just how pervasive reframing can be, not then realising the sheer scale of pro-growth manipulation [Power structure].

Much important work has been done since the First World War on the concept/ project of general and complete disarmament, and the subsequent arms control process (Held, 1999, pp.132-133). But the issue is ongoing and the threat posed by WMD is ever-present; for example (Al-Rodhan, 2009), (Hagger, 2018b, pp.xx-xxi, p.353) citing (Hagger, 2018a), and (Wikipedia: Iran–Israel war).

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists hosted a live international news conference on January 26, 2016 to announce whether the minute hand of the historic "Doomsday Clock" would be adjusted. The decision was made by the Science and Security Board in conjunction with the Board of Sponsors, which includes 16 Nobel Laureates. At that time the clock setting remained at 3 minutes to midnight, to reflect the two most pressing existential threats; nuclear weapons and climate change.

On January 24, 2023 the setting was 90 seconds (Anon., 2023a).

On January 28, 2025 the setting was 89 seconds; the closest to midnight since the clock was started in 1947.

The Anthropocene Working Group had developed and proposed a suitable official boundary to mark the start of the Anthropocene. The sharpest and most globally synchronous indicator of the 'Great Acceleration' of population growth, industrialisation and globalisation is made by the fallout from the testing of thermonuclear bombs from the early 1950s.

It would be sadly ironic if the geological markers of human 'civilisation' both begin and end with fallout from nuclear weapons.