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"Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Will
COVID-19 Trigger Extinction of All Life on Earth?
Is he referring to himself here?
Pythagoras
was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and
Copernicus, and Galileo and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit
that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
~
Ralph Waldo Emerson
13 April, 2020
Small
lives matter. Indeed,
the “human body contains about 100 trillion cells, but only maybe
one in 10 of those cells is actually — human.” We
are comprised of bacteria and other tiny living organisms, as well as
non-living entities such as viruses. One such virus has captured the
attention of the world, and with good reason. The novel coronavirus
could trigger extinction of humans, and therefore the extinction of
all life on Earth.
I
frequently hear and read that COVID-19 is a nefarious attempt by the
so-called “elite” among us to depopulate the burgeoning human
population on Earth. Other conspiracy theories abound, including
COVID-19 as an attempt to further reduce human rights, promote
expensive medical therapies, and otherwise enrich the wealthy at the
expense of the bamboozled masses.
I
do not doubt the ability of the informed wealthy to fleece the
ignorant masses. Nor do I doubt the ability of the informed wealthy
to turn virtually any situation into an opportunity for monetary
gain. A quick glance at the past two centuries provides plenty of
examples. However, I doubt the monetarily wealthy among us are
interested in accelerating human extinction, even for financial gain.
As I explain below, the ongoing reduction in industrial activity as a
result of COVID-19 almost certainly leads to loss of habitat for
human animals, hence putting us on the fast track to human
extinction. I doubt the knowledgeable “elite” are interested in
altering the sweet deal they are experiencing with the current set of
living arrangements.
The
aerosol masking effect, or global dimming, has been described in the
peer-reviewed literature since at least 1929 (A.
Ångström, “On the Atmospheric Transmission of Sun Radiation and
on Dust in the Air,”Geografiska
Annaler,
volume 11, pages 156-166).
Coincident with industrial activity adding to greenhouse gases that
warm the planet, industrial activity simultaneously cools the
planet by adding aerosols to the atmosphere. These aerosols block
incoming sunlight, thereby keeping cool our pale blue dot.
Reducing
industrial activity by as little as 35 percent is expected to cause a
global-average temperature rise of 1
degree Celsius within a few weeks,
according to research on the aerosol masking effect. Such research
was deemed collectively too conservative by a paper in the 17 January
2019 issue of Science,
which is among the most highly respected of peer-reviewed
journals.
As pointed out by the lead author of the paper in Science on
22 January 2019: “Global
efforts to improve air quality by developing cleaner fuels and
burning less coal could end up harming our planet by reducing the
number of aerosols in the atmosphere, and by doing so, diminishing
aerosols’ cooling ability to offset global warming.”
The “cooling
effect is “nearly twice what scientists previously thought,”
and this 2019 paper cites the conclusion by Levy
et al. (2013) indicating as little as 35% reduction in industrial
activity drives a 1 C global-average rise in temperature,
thereby suggesting that as little as a 20% reduction in industrial
activity will drive a 1 C spike in temperature within days or weeks.
Additional support for the importance of the aerosol masking effect
comes in
the 18 July 2019 issue of Geophysical
Research Letters and
also from the 27
November 2019 issue of Nature
Communications.
Additional research indicates loss
of aerosols exacerbates heat waves.
So, too, does
the ongoing, abrupt loss of Arctic ice.
As
I have explained previously for Weekly
Hubris, civilization
is a heat engine. However, slowing or stopping industrial
civilization heats the planet faster than maintaining the ongoing,
omnicidal approach.
Of course, the situation is worse than that. Human extinction might
have been triggered several years ago when the global-average
temperature of Earth exceeded 1.5 C above the 1750
baseline. According
to a comprehensive overview published by European
Strategy and Policy Analysis System in
April 2019, an “increase of 1.5 degrees is the maximum the planet
can tolerate; … at worst, [such a rise in temperature above the
1750 baseline will cause] the extinction of humankind altogether.”
Earth’s global-average
temperature hit 1.73 C above the 1750 baseline by April, 2018,
the highest global-average temperature experienced by our species on
Earth, according
to a 2017 paper in Earth
System Dynamics by
James Hansen and colleagues.
The much-dreaded 2
C above the 1750 baseline was crossed by 13 March 2020.
In other words, human extinction via the death-by-a-thousand-cuts
route might be locked in with no further heating of Earth.]
In
light of the ongoing pandemic, the ongoing Mass Extinction Event, and
abrupt, irreversible climate change, I am pleasantly surprised humans
still occupy Earth. I strongly suspect the ongoing reduction in
industrial activity will reduce the aerosol masking effect
sufficiently to trigger a 1 C temperature spike, as
described in the peer-reviewed literature.
In fact, I suspect it already has. The outcome is not yet obvious
because the timing of the outbreak of the novel coronavirus was
favorable for human habitat. Trees produced leaves in the Northern
Hemisphere spring of 2020 as a result of carbohydrates stored the
previous year. Grain crops were harvested before the novel
coronavirus emerged. I suspect the results of the recent and ongoing
rise in temperature, which has already been reported in China and
India, will become obvious to most humans when many more trees die.
Large-scale die-off of trees likely will approximately correspond
with catastrophic crop failure. This might occur by the end of this
year, although I would rather it not.
Every
civilization requires bread and circuses. There is little doubt the
circuses attendant to industrial civilization will continue until the
end of the planetary show for Homo
sapiens.
Bread, however, requires wheat. Wheat
production requires a delicate balance of growing conditions that,
like habitat for humans, teeters on the brink.
The path to near-term human extinction thus runs from a tiny virus
underlying a pandemic through a reduction of industrial activity that
overheats a planet already running a fever.
Deadly
diseases and their potential impacts have been described for decades.
As a minor example, I
delivered the commencement address to the graduating class in the
Master of Public Health Program at the University of Arizona on 17
August 2007.
As part of my address, I pointed out that we will “see pestilence —
what we call disease, when it happens one person at a time — making
a big comeback.” Unfortunately, we are evidently headed for our
cosmic exit far earlier than I was willing to admit in 2007.
COVID-19
could very well be the event that accelerates human extinction via
reduction of industrial activity. If so, the resultant
catastrophic meltdown of the world’s nuclear facilities bodes
poorly for all life on Earth.
As Albert Einstein indicated when he realized his research on
particle physics led to the development of nuclear power: “If I had
known they were going to do this, I would have become a shoemaker.”
Nuclear
catastrophe is only one of the means by which humans are capable of
causing extinction of all life on Earth. Anthropogenically
driven abrupt, irreversible climate change could produce the same
tragic result.
History
is replete with examples of human hubris. We thought we were mighty,
and we thought we were human, whatever that means. Collectively, we
certainly have left our mark on Earth. How embarrassing for the
big-brained human species that a microscopic virus could pull the
trigger on our extinction. How wonderful for thoughtful individuals
that we get to ponder our deaths, and therefore our lives. We get to
contemplate not only our lives, but also how we live.
