On August 9th, 2021 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the first
part of their sixth assessment of the climate crisis.
Years in the making, the report once again warned the world of our dire circumstances.
Within the nearly 4000 page breakdown of the physical science driving climate chaos lies
a particularly disturbing section.
One that illuminates just what’s at stake if we continue on the path of unhindered extraction
and emissions.
This is the story of tipping points: what they are, when they will happen, and what
actions we can take now to stop drastic domino effects in the future.
This video is sponsored by CuriosityStream, which now comes with Nebula for free when
you sign up using the link in the description.
What Are Tipping Points?
Imagine you’re playing Jenga.
You and your friends are slowly taking apart the tower brick by brick until, suddenly,
one of you pulls out a wooden block and the whole tower collapses.
This is a tipping point in a nutshell.
As our global capitalist system pulls more and more wooden blocks, which on the global
scale represent carbon emissions or deforestation, the physical states of ocean currents, glaciers
and whole forests become unstable.
So with one small push, or the removal of one more block, whole glacial or rainforest
systems can cascade into a different state, often with no ability to return back to normal.
The climate crisis is now driving us headlong past these precipices.
Carbon Brief, the award winning science explainer website, identified nine of the biggest possible
tipping points around the world, that if triggered, could create “abrupt and irreversible change.”
These tipping points look like everything from irreversible coral reef die offs, to
catastrophic shifts in West African and Indian monsoons, or even the collapse of the Atlantic
Meridional Overturning Circulation which includes the Gulf Stream, and we all know what happens
when the Gulf Stream collapses…
In short, once these systems have barrelled past their tipping points, there’s very
little chance of reverting back to the environments humanity has grown accustomed to.
With this in mind let's take a look at two of the most consequential tipping points we
face in the coming decades of the climate crisis.
The Amazon Rainforest Dieback The Amazon rainforest, with its abundance
of flora and fauna was once the lungs of the world.
Sucking in deep breaths of carbon dioxide and sequestering it into its wide trunks,
the Amazon absorbed 5-10% of human caused CO2 emissions.
But in 2021, that’s no longer the case for the southeastern section of the rainforest.
According to a recent study, some areas of the massive rainforest located in Brazil have
now become a net source of carbon dioxide emissions, emitting as much as a billion metric
tons of carbon a year.
This is just a taste of what a wholesale dieback of the Amazon could mean.
And if left unchecked, the capitalist exploitation that got us into this mess will only accelerate
the destabilization of the Amazon.
The forces that could push us into a large-scale forest die-off are complex, but ultimately
boil down to increased drought and fires driven by climate change and deforestation.
Together these two would fragment and degrade the Amazon to such a state that it would no
longer support itself and thus transition into an ecosystem much more like a savannah
than a rainforest.
And, according to recent study, this process of savannah-fication could happen in just
a 50 year timeframe.
The current research, however, reveals that there is some time before we reach this dieback
tipping point.
If deforestation weren’t an issue, 3° celsius of warming could be enough to tip towards
an Amazonian dieback, with 4° celsius being much more realistic.
The problem is that extensive deforestation driven by soybean farming for livestock, and
slash and burn clearing for cattle pasture is further destabilizing the Amazon.
Continued deforestation means an accelerated pace towards irreversible large-scale Amazoninan
transformation.
And the Amazon’s rapid transition from rainforest to savannah not only spells disaster for the
rich biodiversity of the ecosystem, but it also means a lot of the carbon that the Amazon
has captured over the years will release into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, potentially
pushing us deeper into climate chaos.
But there is still hope.
As Professor Richard Betts puts it: “if deforestation is more of a direct human action,
we have a more immediate chance of stopping it by holding back on deforestation.”
So, while deforestation is speeding us along to a tipping point, it also represents a very
tangible intervention point that if halted could give us ample time to prevent catastrophic
dieback.
But even if we act quickly to prevent the dying of the Amazon, there’s another ominous
tipping point on the horizon that could lock in a hotter world for centuries to come.
The Melting of the Permafrost The Arctic is warming rapidly.
Temperatures there have been increasing almost twice as fast as the global average, and just
this summer a Siberian town within the Arctic circle experienced a sweltering 118° fahrenheit
or 47.8° celsius on the ground.
The Arctic is quite literally on fire.
For a region that’s usually supposed to be cold most of the year, this spells disaster.
Especially for the layers of permafrost that coat the arctic.
Permafrost is any ground that stays frozen for more than two years straight.
In most cases, especially as you dig down deeper under the topsoil that melts and refreezes
every year, you’ll find permafrost that has been in a frozen state for thousands of
years.
It’s essentially the deep freezer of the world, and covers almost a quarter of the
land area of the Northern Hemisphere.
It holds organic remains of plants, animals, and microbes in a state of frozen stasis.
Unable to properly decompose, this organic matter has built up over hundreds of thousands
of years.
Some scientists have estimated that as much as 1.6 trillion metric tons of carbon or the
equivalent of double the amount of carbon dioxide now in our atmosphere is currently
trapped in permafrost.
This means that if a substantial amount of permafrost begins to thaw, and the organic
matter within it decomposes, global emissions could quickly accelerate.
A 2019 report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the U.S. states
that this thawing “could be releasing an estimated 300-600m tonnes of net carbon per
year to the atmosphere.”
But what makes the melting of the permafrost so daunting, is that once it thaws and microbes
start breaking down the organic matter and releasing methane and carbon dioxide into
the atmosphere, there’s no going back.
You can’t just refreeze thawed organic matter, in much the same way you wouldn’t put partially
decomposed raw chicken back into the freezer to make it more edible.
Unlike other tipping points, however, researchers are observing that permafrost thaw doesn’t
drive itself or cascade quickly on a large scale.
Most likely it will thaw at a steady pace with occasional regional collapses and quick
declines.
This means that if we are able to slow and mitigate climate change, we could potentially
slow down or stop large-scale permafrost melt.
Ultimately keeping billions, if not trillions of carbon in the ground.
But to do that, we need a complete political, economic, and cultural transformation on an
unprecedented scale.
Stopping Tipping Points We are barrelling towards the edge of countless
tipping points from the rapid melt of the Greenland ice sheet to the disintegration
of the West Antarctic ice sheet.
If we tip over the edge there’s very little possibility of returning to our current state,
which means that prevention is essential.
We need to slam on the brakes now.
We need to treat the climate crisis like it really is, a crisis.
Tipping points show us that there are very real consequences if we continue on our current
course, but they also show us that taking transformational action right now is not a
radical act, it’s a necessary one.
Milquetoast emissions cuts and lukewarm net-zero goals from multinationals will not stop us
from tipping over the edge.
These schemes are akin to trying to stop a truck with a pebble.
So, we need to address the root cause of the climate crisis in order to avoid these potential
cascading catastrophes.
Global capitalism must end.
I’ve made a whole video on why capitalism is not only not the answer to the climate
crisis but also the main driver of it.
For the last 50 years we’ve known of the spectre of climate change, and global capitalism
has failed to achieve any large-scale emissions reductions needed to stop a warming world.
New paradigms, then, are essential.
Ideas and movements like ecosocialism, solarpunk, indigenous sovereignty, a red new deal, all
have the potential to not only stop climate change but to build a flourishing world.
A world wherein tipping points are taken seriously and the vast resources and knowledge of our
communities are mobilized to prevent them.
The dieback of the Amazon and permafrost melt are not the only tipping points we’re at
risk of triggering, Unfortunately I wasn’t able to cover more in this video.
I actually did write a little section all about the melting of the Greenland ice sheet,
but it got cut for time and to appease the Youtube algorithm.
So, I’ve uploaded that section as an extended edition of this video on the streaming platform
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towards tipping points like the melting of the permafrost.
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