A ex-climate sceptic and the next 100,000 years of life on earth
A self-described “converted climate sceptic” has been speaking out about the long-term effects of greenhouse gases on Earth’s climate.
Dr Curt Stager, a palaeoclimatologist and author, who describes himself as a “climate historian”, has written a new book entitled ” Deep future: the next 100,000 years of life on earth.”
He discusses the book in a fascinating interview with the American political commentator Thom Hartmann (posted at Crock of the Week).
A few extracts:
Stager admits in the interview that as someone who is “used to thinking of natural climate changes and huge natural global warmings and coolings in the past” he was initially unconvinced that the warming we are currently experiencing is a result of man’s activities, but that
“â?¦the science is in now, and we do know that it’s because of usâ?¦ For one thing we can look at what those natural processes are and the natural cycles, and what we find is that they’re really not doing all that much in recent decades while the temperature’s still going up. The only other thing that’s really going upâ?¦with it is the greenhouse gases and that’s mostly us, so as far as the scientific community’s concerned the case is pretty much closed.”
Stager’s angle is to look at the impacts of our release of C02 over far longer time-scales than just the next few decades. He points out that whilst both scientists and media have mostly focused on the impacts of climate change up until 2100, our fossil fuel emissions are likely to interfere with Earth’s climate for tens of thousands of years, and perhaps even longer. He says that
“â?¦One of the many shocking things is that the choice of having these changes last as much as a hundred thousand years, [or] having them last many hundreds of thousands of years and being far more extreme, is going to be decided during this century and the next few decadesâ?¦ it really means that we, who are alive in the world today are incredibly important in the long term future, or what will become the story of humankind.”
Stager discusses the long-term future of mankind – examining such concepts as whether we are moving into a new geological epoch, and whether we may, at some point in the future, want to burn the remaining fossil fuels in the earth to prevent another ice age.
Our actions have already perturbed ecosystems and environments to a huge degree, and this will be reflected in any rocks that are being formed today. Geologists have split the whole of geological time into blocks based on such environmental changes, mass extinctions and other key features within the rock record. The current epoch – the Holocene – has lasted for roughly 11,700 years. However, scientists have suggested that we have now entered a new epoch in geological time – the ‘Anthropocene‘ or age of humans.
These are pretty mind-boggling concepts. But Stager has a firm belief in the resilience and adaptability of the human race. He concludes by saying:
“If we’re just talking about the human race as an entire species, and of course acknowledging that a lot of suffering and loss can be coming at us, I’m confident that humankind will adapt and find ways to deal with whatever environmental challenges are facedâ?¦I do think it means that there will be humans experiencing all of these changes that we set in motion for the next thousands of years, and that’s all the more reason to do what we can to make those changes as small as possible.”