BECAUSE of 

CLIMATE CHANGE

NOW ON EARTH

EXTINCTION LEVEL EVENT

By

Søren Nielsen

2018

"The value of infoemation does not survive the moment in which it was new. It lives only at that moment; It has no surrender to it completely and explain itself to it whitout losing any time."

"A story is different. It does not expend itself.

It preserves and concentrates its strength and is capable of releasing it even after a long time."

- Walter Benjamin.

The Golbal Economy

The slow down in economic activity has increased dissatisfaction toward government institutions while germinating extreme political movements around the world.

To make matters worse, scientists are predicting that global warming will produce a mass extinction of life on Earth.

The global economy is in crisis. Economists warn that we face another 20 years declining productivity , slow growth, steep unemployment and increasing inequality.

"And let me do the math for you":

At the end of two industrial revolutions in the 19th and 20th centruy, here`s the equation:

We have to admit that half the human raceis far better off today, than our ancestors were before we began this industrial experiment.

We also need to acknowledge that 40 % of the human race are making 2 dollars a day or less. And arguable they are wores off than they ancestors were before the industrial experiment.

"And the final equation":

The industrial era, while it`s benefited half the human race, in detriment to the other half of the human race, the well off, the very wealthy have done quite well.

Today the 62 wealthiest human beings in the world, their combined wealth equals the accumulated wealth of the one half the human population living on Earth. 3.5 Billion People.

This highlights the dysfunctional way in which human beings have organized their economic relationships on this Earth.

The economic downturn is fueling growing discontent toward governing institutions and spawning extreme political movements around the world.

And now, after 200 years of industrial activity, scientists report that climate change is ravaging the planet, taking us into the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth.

"Where do we go from here?" 

GDP is slowing all over the world, everywhere. And the reason for this is that productivity is slowing down too. As a result unemployment levels have reached an all time high, particularly among the millennial generation that is just entering the workforce. Economists have predicted that this slow rate will last for the next 20 years.

Although half of the human race has benefited from the industrial era by becoming better off financially than their forefathers, there’s still the other half that is actually doing much worse than previous generations did.

But, now this industrial air has given rise to a much more profound crisis , an environmental crisis. We have spewed massive amounts of CO2 and methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere of this planet to create this industrial way of life.

And now we have so much CO2 and methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere that is blocking the sun heat from getting of the Earth.

We are in real time climate change. This is no longer a theory. This is no longer looming on the horizon. This is no longer imminent.

Climate change is now at the house, in the door. What`s terrifying about climate change - and unfortunately it`s never explained, because if it were explained, our human family would be justifiably terrified and motivated and driven to begin to transform this planet.

This economic crisis has given rise to an environmental crisis because the creation of this  way of life produced massive contamination of natural resources.

Climate change actually changes the Earth’s water cycles. That`s what this all about. It`s never explained. 

We`re the watery planet. Our satellite probes go to other planets and what is the first thing they look for?. Water.

No water? Not interested!

Recently they discovered what they think is dirty water on Mars and everybody is thrilled.

Our ecosystem on Earth have developed over millions of years, based on the water cycles, the cloud cycles that traveres them across the Earth.

For every 1º that the planet’s temperature goes up, the atmosphere is sucks up 7% more precipitation from the ground.

The heat is forcing the precipitation into the clouds, so we`re getting more concentrated precipitation, more violent water events that are outrageously violent like floods, hurricanes and snowstorms but which occur with less frequency.  This decrease in frequency also means more droughts. In other words, climate change is dramatically altering the water cycles, making terrifying weather the new norm.

More blockbuster winter snows. Eight feet in Boston at last season? More dramatic spring floods -That flood in the Carolinas? They said this flood only will occur once thousand years. It`s the new normal.

More prolonged summer droughts. Wildfire from British Columbia to California. Summer drought and wildfire.

We have category 3, 4 and 5 hurrianes now, so dramaticthat they`re destroying infrastructure and killing people all over the world.

That hurriane that hit the Philippines, I was there when it hit

This was the most powerful hurriane ever recorded. This is the new normal.

What I`m saying here is that Climate change is dramatically changing the water cycles. They`re out an exponential curve.

This is absoluely frightening. It`s terrifying. And if you are a young millennial about to start a family. If you`re a parent here or a grandparent, I what you to liten to me.

Our scientists tell us that we are in the sixth extinction event of life on Earth. It doesn`t even make the headlines.

This is the most dramatic story a human family has ever faced.

There have been five mass extinction events on Earth in 450 millions years. And each time the chemistry of the planet shifts very quickly there`s what we call a turning point and massive die out.

And after the massive die out of life, it takes upwards of 10 million years to get new life back to Earth.

Our scientists tell us that we are in the sixth extinction event of life on Earth. This is not a model. We`re chronicling it in real time.

What this means is that over the next seven decades and many of you will be around for a lot of that and you children will, in the next seven decades, we could lose over half the species that now live on Earth. 

The enormity of this tragedy is beyond our understanding. We might acknowledge climate change, but we`re going on as business as usual, with a little green washing.

99.5 % of all the species that ever been on this planet, have come and gone. Those are not good odds.

And what`s interesting is, human beings - We`re the actual youngest species, we`re the babies.

Anatomically modern humans have only been here about 200.000 years. There`s no guarantee we`re gonna make this.

And the new studies that have just come out, they`re even more terrifying because they`re seeing the freswater melts in the Arctic, now in Greenland and now in Antarctica, much quicker than we expected changing the ocean currents.

And they`re talking about storms that are beyond anything we can imagine, that we`re seen in human history by the end of this century.

Talking about the major coastal cities, where much of our urban population is, underwater. This is not a century from now.

This is in the lifetime of many young people, who are 4 or 5 now and will be my age when we`re in full steam into this new era, this abyss.

"So what do we do?"

We need a new economic vision for the world. It has to be compelling. We need a game plan to deploythat vision and it need to quick. It need to move as quickly in the developing countries as in the industrialized nations.

If we have any chance of arresting the worst of this climate change, we`re gonna have to be off carbon in four decades everywhere.

This is beyond anything we`re talking about at global conferences. How do we begin to tackle something of this magnitude?

We need to step back and reflect on how the great economic paradigm shifts in history occur. If we know how they occur, we`re gonna get road map and around the world and we`re gonna get a compass that allow us to navigate a new journey to completely transform the way we handle life on Earth.

CHAPTER ONE

The Great Economic Revolutions in History.

 There have been at least seven major economic paradigm shifts in history and they`re very interesting anthropogically, because they share a common denominator. That is at a certain moment of time, three technologies emerge and converge to create what we call in engineering a genereal purpose technology platform. That`s a fancy way of saying

"A new infrastructure". It fundamentally chances the way we manage power and movee conomic life.

"What are those three technologies?"

First, new communication technologies, to allow us to more efficiently manage our economic activity.

Second, new sources of energy, to allow us to more efficiently power our economic activity.

And third, new modes og mobility, to allow us to more efficiently move our economic activity.

So when communication revolutions join with new energy regimes and new modes of transportation, it does chance the way we manage power and move economic life.

It changes temporal spatial orientation. It changes our habitats. It allows us to integrate in larger units. It actually changes consciousness and governance.

"Let me give you two examples":

First Industrial Revolution, 19th century.

Second Industrial Revolution, 20th century.  

The Brits took us into the first Industrial Revolution. And first there was a communication revolution. They invented steam-powered printing. No more manual print presses. Steam-powered printing was a big leap forward, because it allowed us to mass produce very cheap print quickly.

Then, in the second half of the 19th century, the Brits lay out a telegraph system across the British Isles.

Steam-power printing and the telegraph, those 
communication technologies then converged with a completely new source of energy in Britain, called coal.

But how are they gonna take that coal and harvest it?

They invented the steam engine. 

Then this is ingenious:

They figured out that they should put the steam engine on rails, for locomotives, national transport and logistics.

Urban life, The Industrial Revolution, Steam-power.

Second Industrial Revolution: The United States.

Centralized electricity and specially the telephone. I know that we think, that the internet`s a big deal, but a telephone was a reallybig deal. All of sudden, people could 
communicate at vast distances at the speed of light.

Later, radio and television. These communication technologies converged in the United States with a completly new energy source.

Cheap Texas Oli.

Then, Henry Ford put everybody on the road with cars, buses and trucks.

Second Industrial Revolution changed the way we manage power and move economic life.

That Second Industrial Revolution took us through the 20th century. It took the whole world through the 20th century and it peaked in July 2008.

OLI OLI OLI OLI OLI 147 dollars 

"Remember that month?"

In that month, Brent crude Oli had a record price of 147 Dollars on the world markets, and when it hit that record price, the whole global economic shut down. Silence. 

Silence. Completly gone.

That was the economic earthquake. 

The collapse of the financial markets 60 dayes later, was the aftershock.

Our policy leaders are still dealing with the aftershock, not the earthquake.

"Why was it the Earthquake?"

Because the entire Industrial Revolution that we`re gone through it all dependent on the carbon deposits of a previous period in histroy.

You know, if we look back let`s say that we make it through this next period of histroy.