From Evolution to Extinction: A Primer on Global Warming

By André Clément

From Evolution to Extinction, A Primer on Global Warming delivers one message: global warming presents an imminent threat to the existence of almost all living things including the human species. Technological advances are compounding our efforts to deal with global warming as the tipping point draws inexorably
closer at an accelerating speed. Addressing the pending crisis requires the combined efforts of individuals and their social institutions, but these are not sufficiently evolved to meet the threat of extinction. By providing an overview of the scientific efforts to warn of the crisis and the progress of human evolution against the backdrop of human failings, unresolved global issues, and the unintended consequences of technology, the reader is left to realize that we are not ready or equipped todeal with global warming. The crisis is much closer than people wish to think and the human species is running out of time. Governments and corporations can
no longer play with the issue of global warming. The issue is now in the hands of the people to compel their governments to act as needed, but the critical question remains: are governments and the people capable of meeting the challenges?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: May 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9780228852773

André Clément

André inherited his father's appreciation andrespect for Northern Ontario's nature through the quiet hours of enjoyment around a campfire or walking the wilderness as it lived around him. He continued his wilderness travels after leaving home, and while kayaking the Great Lakes he experienced his first glimpses of changing weather patterns.After studies in political science, psychology,criminology, social work and management, André worked with government through various jobs that included working with indigenous communities, running wilderness programs for young offenders and travelling throughout most of Ontario. A subsequent career with his own consulting practice brought him to Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador and Mali. He gradually internalized the conviction that global warming was dramatically affecting our Earth.Semi-retirement allowed him to engage inclimate-change activism. After starting a Councilof Canadians chapter in Sudbury, Ontario, andafter organizing a variety of demonstrations, heleft the council and its activism after three years. Neither a scientist nor an academic, his studies on global warming continued.While he acknowledges the existence of works similar to this, he has yet to find works that describe the ugly realities of the global challenges facing our human species.

Book preview

From Evolution to Extinction

A Primer on Global Warming

André Clément

From Evolution to Extinction

Copyright © 2021 by André Clément

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-5276-6 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-5275-9 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-5277-3 (eBook)

This work is dedicated to the activists, scientists, climatologists and journalists who have been diligently working and many times, struggling, to be heard above the daily cacophony of noise that is frequently called news. Often working in isolation or while manipulating sophisticated equipment in perilous locations under extreme weather conditions, these heroes have and are doing so, unmotivated by fame or riches. Their work has required extreme precision to ensure they are accurately analysing the minute data that is gradually affecting such immense changes to our entire planet. It is a credit to their decades of tenacity that the pending crisis of Global Warming is finally being raised in the consciousness of the human species.

I am pleased to acknowledge the assistance from my once-lawyer and now friend, Richard Guy who helped me with a second view on the work that was unfolding. Editing a manuscript can be a tedious business and I am grateful for his tenacity and humour as he hoped I would perfect this book. The ideal of perfection was never reached despite our best efforts, but I think he would agree that, It’s pretty good - not bad. Having retained the last word on this text, I am also pleased to accept full responsibility for any imperfections remaining in the words to follow.

Table of Contents

TEMPERATURE RISING

THE TIPPING POINT

AFTER THE TIPPING POINT

DEALING WITH GREENHOUSE GASES

EVOLUTION to EXTINCTION

GLOBAL COLLABORATION

WAR

CORPORATIONS

ISSUES INTERNATIONAL AND DOMESTIC

ORGANISED CRIME

LEADERSHIP

ANARCHY OF INFORMATION

AGE OF COMMUNICATION

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

TRUST AND CONFIDENCE

SOCIAL MEDIA

EFFECTIVENESS OF GOVERNMENTS

DEMOCRACIES

QUALIFICATIONS

BUREAUCRACIES

CRISIS MANAGEMENT

THE HUMAN CONDITION

COHESIVE SPECIES

ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND

ACCEPTING A CLIMATE CHANGE CRISIS

CRISIS RESPONSE

ABILITY TO CHANGE

IN CLOSING

EFFORTS

RESISTANCE

ACTIVISM

AFTER THE TIPPING POINT

NOW WHAT

AFTERMATH

INTRODUCTION

Humans are not sufficiently evolved to deal with the Global Warming crisis in the time that is left. Because of that, the Human Species is facing extinction.

While we tend to focus on the things we like or believe, I am still interested in controversial topics and I am still open to contradictory points of view. Gradually, I have painfully connected the scattered information about this pending crisis. As a witness to the storms, fires, floods, social upheavals and conflicts, I am burdened with a sadness occasioned by the realization that this beautiful and special planet with its forests, animals, plants and millions of gifted individuals, will very likely become uninhabitable.

No obscure discoveries are being revealed here - in fact, quite the opposite. The following is a presentation of public information and findings that have been publicly revealed for decades. If they are interested in this book, scientists, existing in a world of thesis, antithesis and synthesis will look at what is being presented with an understandable cynicism and so they should. While the scientists and professionals have been making astounding discoveries and progress, their acquired knowledge and skills are not sufficiently advanced to deal with Global Warming. If there is any interest in this book, a barrage of contradictory arguments about the finer details is expected and welcomed. Much of these arguments will be spurred by the different agendas related to politics, egos and profits. And once again, our species may hesitate and drift away from aggressively acting on the Global Warming threat.

This work does not explore the depth of all the factors related to Global Warming. The factors are many, they are complicated and it would take volumes to explore them completely. Instead, this work provides an overview of these factors and connects the significant dots that explain why we have an extremely limited window to stop Global Warming. In essence the reader will be stepping back from the trees to see the forest. The average reader does not have the time or the inclination to work through the volumes of what is written and said about Global Warming and it is hoped that this work will drive one point home - that the human species is running out of critical time.

This work is an urgent call to arms against Global Warming. The urgency stems from the proposal that the human species has not effectively evolved and there is little reason to believe that this failure to evolve can be corrected in time. Over the last 90,000 years, our species has developed all of its technologies at an escalating rate of change without consideration for the spin-off effects of these technologies. For all the technologies that predicted progress and profit, too many have caused negative side-effects leading to disasters and tragedy or they just continue to spin out of control. Identity theft, data hacking, cyberwars and the Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashes are but a few examples of today’s results. And as the rate of technological invention speeds up, so do those unforeseen, disastrous and uncontrollable side effects. In the race between technological change and the science / art of living, technological change has always been in the lead and the gap between the two is widening.

There is a need for the collective intelligence of the species to solve the global problems and to deal with the physics of Global Warming, but it is doubtful that this collective intelligence exists. As the following pages will indicate, too many global problems are impacting the human species at the same time while it remains unable to cooperate in solving these problems and Global Warming simultaneously.

Reading about the problems facing the human species may require a sustained effort with the pages to follow. This message is for the reader who prefers good information over good news and for the reader who prefers to know what’s coming at her or him. The problems referenced here are almost self-evident and they defy resolution, basically stuff that cannot be fixed in time. In time that is, to beat the onset of the climate’s global Tipping Point, when, once passed, defies recovery.

Finally, before launching into the next pages, another point needs to be emphasised. The next pages are not intended to support the illusion of solution. Solutions are being espoused by many, by different means of communication in all parts of this planet called Earth. Those solutions will run their course, perhaps to an effective and successful end. Perhaps not. It all hinges on the time that is left for the human species to act. There may still be room for hope, but if solutions don’t stop Global Warming, there is such a thing as a good death – or a good extinction.

TEMPERATURE RISING

The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. It is a lucky planet located just the right distance from the sun to avoid perpetual burning or freezing. This goldilocks zone provided for the evolution of the Earth’s life forms in a closed eco-system with finite resources protected against the menaces of the sun and space by a very thin patina of a temperature-regulated atmosphere.

Global Warming, the rise in global average temperature near the Earth’s surface is causing significant changes in climate patterns that are measured over extended periods of time. These current effects are called Climate Change. Climate Change caused by Global Warming is complicated by economic, political, sociological, ethical, ecological and scientific issues. Climate Change indicates the earth is becoming warmer because of an overabundance of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, fluorinated gases and water vapour. These greenhouse gases, which trap and absorb heat in the atmosphere are mostly produced by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas that have been produced over hundreds of millions of years. Plants have produced and stored the gases during photosynthesis to then die, decompose and get buried by additional materials over time. Afterwards, the gases are released into the atmosphere as they are evaporated or burned. This process has been going on for millions of years and before the arrival of humans the storing and release of carbon was well balanced by mother nature. However, since the arrival of humans, different gases have been introduced to the cycle and the balance has been thrown off with greenhouse gases being produced more quickly than the Earth’s ability to recycle or store it.

While there is now more carbon in the atmosphere, the Suzuki Foundation reported after twenty-years of study that methane trapped 84 times as much heat as carbon and it is responsible for 25% of the observed changes in the earth’s climate. With carbon and methane, the warming temperature is and will create havoc in the Earth’s weather patterns that are continuously signaling the advent of more Global Warming. If the warming is not stopped, Global Warming will destroy life on Earth – first and foremost the human species.

The interest in Climate Change started in the mid 1900s with concerns about holes in the layer of ozone gases that have protected the earth from the solar rays that have simultaneously nourished and threatened life on planet Earth. In 1988, under the auspices of the United Nations and its World Health Organization, 195 countries signed on to support the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, also known as the IPCC. Since then, the IPCC Secretariat has worked with hundreds of contributors around the world who are constantly observing, monitoring and measuring the impact of the earth’s rising temperatures. It issues regular assessments on thousands of scientific,