Field Notes from a Catastrophe

Around 4,300 years ago, the Babylonian leader Sargon of Akkad founded the world’s first Empire, located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. His family ruled for three generations until, suddenly, Akkad collapsed. The “Curse of Akkad” was presumed fictional until Yale archaeologist Harvey Weiss discovered the ancient city of Tell Leilan in 1978. Weiss surmised that severe drought had caused the fall of the great city. Scientists in the 1980s and 1990s postulated shifting precipitation patterns as the cause of crop failure.

The Nobel Prize-winning Dutch chemist, Crutzen, coined the term “Anthropocene” to describe an age in which, for the first time in 10,000 years, mankind is the dominant influence on the world’s climate. As a result of Crutzen’s work, the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that were destroying the ozone layer in the 1980s were phased out. 

Hawkins runs the climate program of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), based in Manhattan. At the time of writing, Hawkins works primarily in the US and China, the largest industrialized nations, and advocates sustainable energy sources. China’s economic growth is expected to double over the next 15 years, largely fueled by coal, and the country plans to build 168 new coal plants by 2020. Hawkins claims that China is following the precedent set by America in the 1940s and 1950s and that addressing China’s coal-powered growth is essential.

A Princeton professor emeritus of engineering, Socolow is codirector of the BP and Ford-funded Carbon Mitigation Initiative. His influential 2004 paper devised 15 stabilization wedges to manage climate change. Wedges include emissions-reduction strategies like wind electricity, PV arrays, and capturing CO2 from power plants. Each stabilization wedge would prevent 1 billion metric tons of carbon emissions per year by 2054. At the time of writing, annual emissions are 7 million metric tons and expected to double in 50 years. 

Hoffert is a physics professor at New York University, dedicated to finding new, carbonless electricity sources. He claims that due to recarbonization, it will require even more stabilization wedges to curb climate change than Socolow has projected. Hoffert recommends a budget of between 10 and 20 billion dollars a year for research into new energy sources.  

Thomas is a biologist based at the University of York and an expert in butterflies and moths. He hypothesized “a quarter of all the terrestrial species might be at risk of extinction from climate change” (87). Thomas’ studies have traced the migration of biological species steadily northward, potentially disrupting the delicate balance of ecosystems. If this is so, human life will certainly be affected and threatened by increasing climate instability. Thomas theorizes that it may not be drought or flooding that impact us, but rather our ability to grow sufficient crops to feed our growing populations.