Most people, aside from scientists, are fully aware of what global heating could mean for human civilization. People tend to underestimate the serious risks involved in failing to act and are also unconcerned with impacts that will occur after their lifetime. What is becoming abundantly clear, however, is that without taking decisive and radical steps toward ensuring a sustainable future we threaten the ability of humanity to survive.
With a radically changed climate, our infrastructure will be rendered useless. Consider bridges and buildings. Concrete requires a certain water content in the air below which it becomes brittle and begins to deteriorate. The same is true of metal structures. If the rain forest in the Amazon continues to be depleted by climate-related fires and uncontrolled clearing it could cause the Gulf Stream patterns to change resulting in a radically colder climate in Europe and the Middle East. If this occurs in the Arabian Peninsula it would mean that a majority of steel structures no longer comply with safety standards and would need to be refurbished or reinforced. This would result in a cost of billions, perhaps even trillions, of dollars simply to maintain the existing infrastructure. This means that without new infrastructure, the global economic system would likely collapse as a result of the radically changed climate.
Another example of the risks we face is in the agricultural sector. Changing water and crop conditions caused by a hotter climate will lead to the displacement of hundreds of millions of people across the globe. The resulting political pressure and potential military conflicts would have a serious impact on global security. For a large portion of people on earth, life would no longer revolve around having a good lifestyle and amassing wealth, but simply pure, brute survival underwritten by desperation born of hunger. No one wants this future to come to pass but we seem to be heedlessly heading in that direction.
Scientists are not sure how long it will take until the climate reaches certain tipping points, whether it will take 20 years or 50, but there is surely a tipping point we face in terms of the emissions that are being released into the Earth’s atmosphere. At that point, the entire climate system will change into a radically new equilibrium that would be disastrous for life as we know it now. The delicate dynamics of the climate system hang in a fine balance. The whole world needs to make changes to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change in order to buy the time necessary to create a sustainable future (perhaps through technology), to creating sustainable economies, and construct a fair and equitable society that is not based on endless consumption and limitless growth.
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