Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of

governance S 21
excessive heat and higher humidity levels will be vulnerable to
entirely new diseases as well. Rapid climate change poses even
more severe problems. “The multiple factors that are now destabilizing
the global climate system,” in Paul Epstein’s words, “could
cause it to jump abruptly out of its current state. At any time, the
world could suddenly become much hotter or even colder. Such
a sudden catastrophic change is the ultimate health risk.” 10
Entire ecosystems will be degraded, reducing the services once
provided by the particular ensemble of plants and animals adapted
to specifi c places and temperatures. The ecological effects, as complex
as they will be, however, are better understood than those
that will be imposed on the human psyche. As the once familiar
trees, birds, and animals of a region die out, the sense of loss will
be impossible to calculate. People, attached to the sights, sounds,
and smells of familiar landscapes and regions will go through a
process of grieving similar to that of refugees forced to fl ee their
homes and cherished places. The degradation of the forests of
Appalachia and the Southeast to scrub and grassland, for example,
will incur crushing psychological costs for which we have no
adequate words.
The future now on the horizon will be characterized as well by
larger and more frequent storms. In coastal areas hurricanes will be
more intense, with much larger storm surges spreading devastation
farther inland. Rain events will be larger, and the frequency of tornadoes
and severe storms will increase. But nature in every part of
the Earth will become more capricious and strange. At some point
we will indeed have made Earth into a “different planet.”
Some may quibble about the timing, but it is clear that we are
headed toward a global disaster that has the potential to destroy
civilization. But the conversation about changes in governance,
economics, social norms, and daily life that must be made to avoid
the worst of what lies ahead is only beginning. In short, the level
of public awareness and policy discussion does not yet match the
gravity of the situation. The prevailing assumption is that we can