Dwain Northey (Gen X)

It seems that the 21st century has become full of tipping points especially in the last few years, Political, Economic, Climate, you name it we appear to be on the preface to catastrophe on multiple fronts.

In the first half of the 20th century, the world reeled from one shock to another: World War I, the Spanish flu, communist revolutions, a Great Depression characterized by rival trade blocs, and a global geopolitical crisis generated by the Axis powers that resulted in World War II.

The question is do we set ourselves up for trauma and drama at the onset of a new century, is this a historic pattern? The early 19^th century had America as a fledgling nation coming out of a Revolutionary War and the Great Expansion, so maybe it isn’t coincidence that every 100 years or so we find ourselves in some predicament.

The tipping point that I am most concerned about now besides the rise of authoritarians is the climate. The falsity that permeates the discussion of ‘climate change’, ‘global warming’ or whatever you want to call it is that we are killing the planet. Earth is estimated to be 4.54 billion years old, plus or minus about 50 million years. This planet has survived through a multitude of ice ages and heat ups, asteroid collisions and it is still here. We on the other hand are a minor blip in the history of this third planet that circles the star closest to us, the spinning water filled planet will be here with or without the pesky species that currently thinks itself to be master of all they survey. We are not killing the planet we are shortening the period of time that this spinning cosmic rock provides an environment that our fragile life forms can survive on it. If we want to continue to have a home, we, collectively, need to solve the problem we created.

Tipping points are possible at today’s global warming of just over 1 °C (1.8 °F) above preindustrial times, and highly probable above 2 °C (3.6 °F) of global warming. The geological record shows many abrupt changes that suggest tipping points may have been crossed in ancient times. Artificial intelligence models provide new evidence our planet will cross the global warming threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius within 10 to 15 years. Even with low emissions, we could see 2 C of warming.

The potential future effects of global climate change include more frequent wildfires, longer periods of drought in some regions, and an increase in the wind intensity and rainfall from tropical cyclones. Future changes are expected to include a warmer atmosphere, a warmer and more acidic ocean, higher sea levels, and larger changes in precipitation patterns. Scientists predict that melting sea ice and glaciers, as well as the fact that warmer water expands in volume, could cause sea levels to rise as much as 3.61 feet by the end of the century, should we fail to curb emissions.

All this being said, the goal of creating renewable sources of energy is more urgent than ever. Mankind has proven itself to be resourceful, but in recent history has also proved itself to be lackadaisical because of our current level of comfort. When we had to fight to survive, we proved as a species to be industrious and inventive, the downside was that with every improvement we made it made us more comfortable and thus lazy because the struggle didn’t seem real. The struggle for our kids and grand kids is going to get real and really fast, we need to get out of our comfort zone and use the big brains that we brag about having and find a way to solve the problems that our parents and grandparents created unintentionally while they were trying to provide a better future for us.