Living with a Changing Climate
8 Minute Read | How will climate change affect your life in the years to come? What can you do about it, today?
This is very much a “I don’t mean to worry you, but…” sort of post - but in the spirit of “knowledge is power”, I’m here to get smarter and be more prepared with you, together. So try and resist the urge to mute the discomfort, for it is only by preparing for the future that we become more resilient (and hence, better able to find contentment).
It is, as with all future events, impossible to say just how soon, how severe, how permanent, and how life-changing climate change will be over the next decades. We can barely accurately forecast the weather 10 days into the future, let alone 10 years.
However, it is the inherent uncertainty behind climate change, and the gross detachment between individual action and global consequence, that make it much too easy for us as individuals to see no need to makes changes in the present.
If you care about anything, from the value of property, to the beauty of nature’s diversity, to breathing clean air, even just feeling safe in your everyday life— then I ask you to spare no more than a couple of minutes to consider these questions with me:
What do we know (beyond reasonable doubt) about the future of climate change?
What is less concerning than the media et al. may present?
How is climate change likely to affect my life in coming years?
What can I actually, realistically do with this knowledge?
(As ever, this will be a whistle-stop tour, where I focus on the takeaways and do my best to leave breadcrumbs for you should you wish to explore further.)
What do we know?
Despite the media’s attempt (or rather its need, for views and hence profit) to present a balanced perspective - something that is in some ways destructive, when it comes to scientifically-grounded issues like climate change - there are in fact a number of “beyond doubt” facts regarding global warming:
“there is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate. Human activity is the principal cause.” - NASA
Our climate is changing more rapidly than any other time in history, and this is not a part of a natural cycle but rather entirely due to human pollution and consumption. The sheer quantity of data across the thousands of studies done since climate science evolved in the 1970s has meant that our key role in global warming “has evolved from theory to established fact”.1
What is the evidence? Some specific, verifiable indicators include rising global temperatures, the warming ocean, shrinking ice sheets, glaciers, and snow cover, rising sea levels, declining Arctic sea ice, more frequent extreme weather events, and ocean acidification.
But what about the future?
This means we know for certain that we will experience:
Increasingly dangerous weather (e.g., storms, tsunamis, hurricanes), and importantly in places and at severities they never normally occur,
Annual droughts and heatwaves,
Water shortages (water is now being traded as a commodity for the first time),
Food shortages (“Climate change could seriously affect the global production of maize and wheat as early as 2030, with maize crop yields estimated to decline by 24%”2),
Extreme precipitation and flooding,
Decreasingly hospitable local climates (currently “cozy” regions may become arid in only a few decades3),
Concurrently, increasing health risks in urban areas (i.e., cities; and not just from heat but also pollution and knock-on consequences for mental/physical health),
Rapidly declining biodiversity,
and more.
In other words, the collective consequence of our actions as individuals - every aspect of how we choose to go about our daily lives - is the deterioration of our living environment.
What should we be less worried about?
“… environmentalists are so good at emphasizing worst-case scenarios that when we look to the future, apocalypse often feels inevitable. After all, aren’t we in the “sixth mass extinction”? Haven’t populations of wild animals already crashed by 60 percent? Don’t we have just “10 years left” to avert climate meltdown? Do we really dare to hope?
“Yes, we do dare to hope. Looking at these problems from a distance, they seem like impenetrable, mountainous barriers to a good future, but in every case, there is a path through.”4
In short, the end of the world isn’t coming. There’s plenty out there debunking any talk of a “sixth extinction event”, and it’s pretty clear that humankind is resilient and intelligent enough to find some way to survive (even if at a reduced quality of life).
While we may face major occasions of global political destabilisation, ongoing conflicts, even wildly unlikely yet possible things like China going AWOL and making power-plays for territories or even instigating WW3, there’s simply too many of us and our knowledge and technology are too advanced for the world to “fall apart” permanently.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way— and there’s certainly a will to survive, and to survive well. Overall, there is no real evidence to suggest we should be panicking about the future of our species as a whole, nor that we should expect immense, post-apocolyptic style suffering to be inveitable in the coming decades.
So, what should we be worried about? How is climate change likely to affect my life in coming years?
Asides from the fact that, obviously, worrying is not productive, there remain a number of things we ought to be deeply concerned about, that justify immediate individual action and preparation, be it through little measures or significant ones.
From the information we’ve discussed so far (and not including other future-altering factors to be discussed in coming posts, such as AGI, major technological advances like fusion energy, biotechnology, super viruses, and so on), we can start to build a list of things to take seriously:
Noticeable reduction in quality of life; we are already all experiencing the economic strain induced by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, along with the 2+ year pandemic, but with inflation rapidly rising in the background (potentially double the figures given by the UK government5), and the consequences of climate change discussed above (e.g., food and water shortages, extreme weather events, changing local climates), we can definitely expect periods of increased strain to occur globally - be it “simply” another pandemic, or more realistically economic recessions and food/water crises. And this is an understatement, assuming you’re fortunate enough to avoid being in the middle of the storm, conflict, outbreak…
Genuine and increasing health risks; not just from those wrought by extreme weather events causing flooding, storm damage, droughts, etc., but moreover the more generalised harm to physical and mental health caused by pollution (microplastics were recently found in breast milk for the first time; exposure to air pollution confirmed to cause structural changes in the brain), decreasing nutrition and physiological benefits from diminishing biodiversity and green spaces, extreme temperatures causing heatwaves and generally impacting the habitability of regions, and more.
Loss of wild spaces, and wildlife and habitats; we cannot simply “remake” the biodiversity created by millions of years of evolution using science - both climate change and ongoing environmental destruction by humans is permanently undoing the complexity of the natural world, on land and at sea.
These things are coming. And, importantly, thanks to climate change and the unceasing demands of “fossil capital”, they are coming far sooner and more frequently than ever before, or than we would ever expect.
Which leaves only one key question—
What can I actually, realistically do with this knowledge?
At the most basic level, all this information invites a response to a very simple question:
Do I continue as I am, until I’m forced to change my behaviour— or do I choose to in some way prepare, and even to contribute my share in altering our future?
There are two very important elements to this whole equation:
How this knowledge effects your pursuit of happiness as an individual, and
What changes to your life are worthwhile, and can actually make an impact.
An effective response to the situation must take into account both of these things. Expecting people to abandon all their worldly possessions and become forest druids is not realistic.
However, whether you recognise it or not, we all have an impact upon the world around us. Not just our immediate surrounds, but the world as a whole.
Every few cents’ profit a company takes from their product, combines to make figures large enough for them to justify pillaging the world around them, despite knowing the consequences; everytime someone asks why you’re not eating meat (even if it’s just once a week!), or enacting any other goes-against-the-grain yet eco-friendly choice, is a chance for others to realise a more rewarding and sustainable way of life; each second you add on to your daily commute because you opted for public transport or car sharing instead of driving yourself, equates to delaying climate change a few more minutes—granting us precious extra time to slow it further…
Change is inconvenient, but it often grants us invaluable new perspectives on life. So to make it easy, here’s my list of realistic, actionable changes anyone can make to stop their planet from setting on fire.
Apocolypse To-Do List:
First and foremost, before all else: Don’t be a sucker. Learning to think for yourself and make informed decisions in your life, makes it more difficult for you to be led astray by companies and media that are only pretending to be “green” for the sake of more money, and hence gives your decisions greater impact. A nice example of this, is the discussion taking place around the long-term reality of electric vehicles…
Prepare; being optimistic-but-realistic about your future means you are prepared to take immediate measures. This can be simply being more grateful for the luxuries in your everyday life, such as produce that will increasingly struggle under severe climate change, like almonds, wine, even wheat and coffee, but equally just appreciating your daily routine and loved ones, which the pandemic kindly demonstrated how quickly can be taken away.
Self-Educate; a mix of the previous two points, staying informed is essential to ensuring you’re not exploited, are able to prepare yourself, and learn how to most effectively make a difference (if you’ve read this far, you’re likely already doing a great job of this!). Don’t underestimate the power of knowledge— change is the consequence of new ideas.
Do the best you can; as the saying goes, “the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”—even the smallest change is worth the effort. You’re not a superhero, none of us are, we’re all just doing the best we can; besides, modern life is way too confusing to justify guilt-tripping yourself over a misinformed decision.
With these in mind, here are some super easy, practical ways to start saving the world:
That’s enough pep-talk for one e-mail. I hope you all have a good week; next time I’ll be back to discussing another core aspect of Cultivation: “Prajna”.
In the meantime, here’s a picture of a quokka to keep you motivated and give you the warm fuzzies.
Kingston x
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_TS.pdf
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/28/climate-crisis-food-shortages
https://www.zmescience.com/science/climate-shift-cities-2080-2625352/
Really great article tackling the fearmongering around climate change - https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/02/other-side-catastrophe/617865/
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts