Point of no return
Year 2020, tying in with 2016, has been the hottest year on record with the Earth’s average temperature increase being 1.02 degrees Celsius above the baseline pre-industrial temperatures — a number that is currently accelerating by 0.2 degrees every decade. But what environmentalists are most fearful of is that despite the slowdown in economic activity owing to the Covid-19 pandemic and despite witnessing one of the strongest La Nina — a cool phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation climate pattern — event, the global temperature spike is consistent with an upward trend. This means that we are rapidly heading towards the point of no return.
The ultimate ‘tipping point’, as scientists call it, is an average global increase of 3-4 degrees Celsius from the average pre-industrial temperatures; once that line is crossed, mankind will witness extreme changes and conditions, the likes of which we have only seen in apocalyptic movies, without a possibility of turning back. However, before that occurs, research has indicated that as climate change worsens, there will be major “a cascading of key tipping points” — continuous irreversible shifts that will lead to a hotter world. Unfortunately, with the rise in sea-level temperature that has threatened the ocean circulation system and the consequent melting of the glaciers, the first domino has already fallen, and perhaps the second and the third. The question here is if mankind will continue to watch on as the domino keep falling one by one, or will we act, collectively, in order to prevent our own extinction event from unfolding.
There needs to be a shift in the way we analyse global warming and think about climate change. From a scientific perspective, apart from monitoring the various changes in temperature, countries should also focus on tipping points. From a theoretical angle, it is important to delve into the different philosophies that have emerged such as Timothy Morton’s Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO), Donna Haraway’s harrowing idea of the Chthulucene, and Stephen Pyne’s riveting concept of the Pyrocene.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 19th, 2021.
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