Late summer at my cottage

It is now over a year since I left Stockholm for the countryside and finally I found myself a  nice little cottage that I can improve with solar cells and a proper garden. I have a well nearby but no electricity and only a composting toilet. At the moment I will mainly use it as a summer home since the Swedish winter will make the road mostly inaccessible and the cottage doesn't have any proper isolation. Propane stove and fireplace as well as free fire wood is a big plus =) But it has been empty for 2 years so there's plenty to fix. 

"Is this how you feel" at weebly is an interesting, heartwarming and sad read all at the same time. It's a site dedicated to climate change scientists who are willing to write down their feelings (fears, hopes, visions etc) about climate change. The letter that resonated most with me was the one from professor Stefan Rahmstorf, Head of Earth System Analysis at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. I will post the photo of his handwritten letter below, for a typed version see the website.

A new study from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research shows that about 25% of conflicts in ethnically divided countries coincide with natural disasters, not counting climate change impacts. The study focuses on the economic damage from natural disasters to link climatic factors to social impacts. 

About 9% of all (21) global armed-conflict outbreaks significantly coincide with a climatological disaster, drought or heat wave, in the same country. Looking at the period 1980-2010 researchers were surprised to find that ethnical division were a better predictor for armed conflict after natural disasters than other factors such as history, poverty or inequality. "Ethnic divides may serve as a predetermined conflict line when additional stressors like natural disasters kick in" says co-author Jonathan Donges.

A relatively stable climate in the Holocene could thus have promoted more peaceful times. Intuitively this makes sense, since a stable climate allows for surpluses to be gathered/harvested. When resources are scarce people are more likely to turn back to tribal behavior of in-and-out groupings. And ethnic division is one way of grouping. 

We know from studies of warfare in chimpanzees that lethal aggression can be evolutionarily beneficial, rewarding winners with food, mates and opportunity to pass along their genes. And among chimps, just like humans, males are responsible for a overwhelming majority of attacks.

Several of the world's most conflict-prone regions such as North and Central Africa and Central Asia are both vulnerable to climate change enhanced natural disasters and have strong ethnic divisions. The instability we have caused in Earth's climate system could thus lead to an increase in armed conflict in these regions. But no region will go unharmed, some are just more prone to armed conflict when natural disasters strike than others.

While climate change is a major threat to all species on Earth a new report published in Nature shows that overexploitation and agriculture are the two biggest culprits of biodiversity loss.

75% of all the plant, amphibian, reptile, bird and mammal species that have gone extinct since 1500s were caused by humans. A growing global population will only put other species under more pressure, and eventually impact human mortality too.

Biodiversity underpins all ecosystem services (e.g. climate regulation, flood protection, pollination, nutrient cycling, water purification etc) that we currently consume "for free" but will have to replace with costly infrastructure or restoration project once they are gone.

Now that we are reaching limits to what these ecosystems are able to withstand without collapsing or drastically altering states we will see a steep increase in costs for the most basic of resources. Those costs are often dumped on the public by the private sector and may not turn up in prices of goods but instead in  form of increasing taxes, poorer health, growing debts etc.

It is truly a sad fact that most people are so disconnected from the land and oceans that they are blind to the fact that Earth's resources are finite. Once a fish stock has collapsed it may never recover, on a timescale relevant to us.

There is no "replay" button that we can magically push and turn back to some previous healthy state. All we can do now is to minimize the damage. And the best way to do that is by not having more kids than we can feed and not consuming more than we actually need for basic needs.

A growing population and dwindling natural resources, with rapidly rising extraction costs, implies increasing poverty. And this is also what we are noticing among the general populace, a shrinking economic pie has meant smaller pieces for everyone but the super rich who can bet on government stimulated markets. According to McKinsey (2016), real incomes of some 65-70% of households in 25 advanced economies have been flat or falling between 2005-2014. Crushing the long held belief that "the next generation will be better off than their parents".

As people have started to realise that they are having a tougher time to get by economically, or simply less able to buy lots of stuff, trust in governments and social cohesion has fallen. And that is also why we see the phenomena of populist, extremist, politicians gaining more traction as ordinary people become increasingly dissatisfied with status quo.

The divide between the younger and older generation is also growing as younger people are experiencing a harder time finding good paying jobs, saddled with student debt, while expected to provide for a growing share of pensioners. This at the same time as savers, e.g. pensioners, are suffering from negative interest rates and rising living costs.

Earth Overshoot Day is tomorrow, marking the fact that humanity has used up a year's worth of natural resources in only seven months. This have been made possible only by our discovering of stored fossil hydrocarbons which have provided us with cheap and abundant energy. Up until now. As we have plundered the planet for its resources we have hit limits to what Earth's ecosystems can provide without degrading or collapsing. Transgressing those limits means that we now have less resources available every year. 

It's time to wake up to the fact that the world is changing and old beliefs have to be revised. Having children while wasting the Earth's resources is hypocritical if we now claim to be a species with some skill at foresight.