Unprecedented: Can Civilization Survive the CO2 Crisis?

516 Pages·2015·3.735 MB·English

by  David Ray Griffin

“Unprecedented is a tour de force of enormous importance for our planetary
future. In his superb analysis of climate change through the lens of science,
politics, economics, energy, morality, and religion, Griffin has provided a
wealth of insight for how to move forward. This will be an indispensable
book for raising awareness that civilization itself is at stake.”
—MARY EVELYN TUCKER
Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University
“Theologian David Ray Griffin brings to bear his considerable skills of
synthesis to lay out, from the best current sources including Lester Brown
and Bill McKibben, a comprehensive snapshot of the climate crisis, its dark
threat of planetary desertification, and the urgent need for us all to act
swiftly to close the era of fossil fuels and switch to clean energy. This would
require as much moral will as it does political skill: Griffin makes a strong case
that humanity’s differing faiths, world views and ethical creeds, including
the secular, have enough in common to allow us to act now on behalf of the
next generations if we can only begin to act from our full humanity and face
the climate challenge squarely.”
—VINCENT STANLEY
co-author, The Responsible Company:
What We’ve Learned From Patagonia’s First 40 Years
“Myths and Big Lies proliferate about global warming. Griffin’s new book
is must reading. It explains what everyone needs to know. It does so
responsibly. In lucid detail like everything he writes. Global warming is one
of the most important issues of our times. Survival may depend on resolving
it responsibly.”
—STEPHEN LENDMAN
author of Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity
In 1995, Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sherwood Rowland asked,
“What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to
make predictions if, in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand
around and wait for them to come true?”
UNPRECEDENTED
can civilization survive
the co crisis?
2
David Ray Griffin
Clarity Press
© 2015 David Ray Griffin
ISBN: 978-0-9860769-0-9
EBOOK ISBN: 978-9-9860769-1-6
In-house editor: Diana G. Collier
Cover: R. Jordan P. Santos
Cartoon: Steve Sach, Courtesy Cagle Cartoons
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: Except for purposes of review, this book may not
be copied, or stored in any information retrieval system, in whole or in
part, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clarity Press, Inc.
Ste. 469, 3277 Roswell Rd. NE
Atlanta, GA. 30305 , USA
http://www.claritypress.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
8
PART I: UNPRECEDENTED THREATS
Introduction
11
1 Extreme Weather
24
2 Heat Waves
33
3 Droughts and Wildfires
40
4 Storms
54
5 Sea-Level Rise
68
6 Fresh Water Shortage
80
7 Food Shortage
94
8 Climate Refugees
106
9 Climate Wars
118
10 Ecosystem Collapse and Extinction
134
PART II: UNPRECEDENTED CHALLENGES AND FAILURES
11 Climate Change Denial
153
12 Media Failure
181
13 Political Failure
200
14 Moral Challenge
227
15 Religious Challenge
244
16 Economic Challenge
264
PART III: WHAT IS TO BE DONE
17 The Transition to Clean Energy
303
18 The Abolition of Dirty Energy
362
19 Mobilization
391
Conclusion
421
Endnotes
425
Acknowledgments
503
Index
504
To Ann and our six grandsons
Michael, Matthew, Nicolas, Van, Dakota, and Dylan

This book is also published in memory of Tod Fletcher.
PREFACE
What to do about global warming and climate change has become the most
contentious issue on our planet.
This is strange, given the fact that virtually all climate scientists – between
97 and 99.8 percent of them, depending on which criteria are used – agree
that the climate is changing, that this is because of global warming (the plan-
et’s average temperature is rising), and that global warming has been caused
almost entirely by greenhouse gases, primarily CO2 (carbon dioxide), which
are emitted by fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas.
In spite of this scientific consensus, the issue has become contentious, be-
cause the fossil-fuel industries, wanting to prevent government regulations
that might decrease their profits, have used their enormous wealth to create
a false debate. Even as some of the effects of climate change have become
too obvious to deny – such as unprecedented extreme weather, wildfires,
and melting glaciers – the fossil-fuel corporations have considered their prof-
its more important than the planet’s welfare. Even after multiple warnings by
scientists that climate change now threatens the very survival of civilization,
the coal, oil, and natural gas industries show no willingness to accept a re-
duction of profits simply to save a climate that can support the continuation
of human existence.
This book tells the story about what has been going on and what needs
to be done if we are to save humanity (along with millions of other species).
Physicist Joe Romm has said: “One of the greatest failings of the climate sci-
ence community (and the media) is not spelling out as clearly as possible the
risks we face on our current emissions path, as well as the plausible worst-
case scenario, which includes massive ecosystem collapse.”
After the Introduction, which discusses the relation between global warm-
ing and climate change and the threat to civilization, Part I deals with various
dimensions of climate change, focusing on what they will mean for those of
us alive today, our children and grandchildren, and all future generations.
Part II explains ways in which the fossil-fuel industries have created the
false debate, and ways in which their greed has been supported by politi-
cians, the media, bad morality, bad religion, and bad economics.
Part III, while showing why the fossil-fuel industries should be put out
of business, shows that doing so is possible, because solar, wind, and other
types of clean energy are now capable of replacing fossil-fuel energy. The
book concludes with a discussion of the full-out mobilization needed to save
civilization.
PART I
UNPRECEDENTED
THREATS