The consensus of scientists is that limiting the global temperature rise of 1.5°C is no longer reachable, but limiting it to below 2.0°C is possible, according to an analysis of global information undertaken by the Inevitable Policy Response study from Britain (Jacob Thomae, New Scientist, 2 December 2023, “Keeping our Cool”). We were once on a path to 3.5°C, which has been reduced to 2.4°C by 2100. But the IPR study thinks that we have a 90% chance of holding the temperature increase to between 1.7 and 1.8°C, primarily because of the progress that has been made on green energy since the Paris Agreement in 2015. This is the good news.

But, according to the study, “We don’t say all will be smooth or simple. And a ‘well-below-2°C’ world won’t be pretty, as social tipping points… strain global cohesion and economic and political stability.” These strains include the “mass movement of people and conflict for resources as vast areas around the equator become effectively uninhabitable.” This doesn’t sound like civilizational collapse, but it promises to be messy.

In another study, this one by Peter Turchin (New Scientist, 9 December 2023, “Heading for a Fall”), a survey of nearly 200 civilizational crises over nearly 5,000 years concludes that, in general terms, they have been getting less severe. They seem to follow cycles, with small upheavals occurring approximately every 50 years, and larger ones every two or three centuries. The variables soon become evident.

“One surprise is how few variables are needed to determine whether a society is sliding into crisis. Public debt, loss of state legitimacy and geopolitical and geo-economic pressures from abroad all play a role. But the two main indicators of impending crisis are ‘popular immiseration’—meaning stagnating or even declining well-being of the majority of the population”. The other is “elite overproduction”, which essentially means too many people of influence seeking power and disrupting the social order. Each of these discontents feeds the other, and the result is social upheaval.

The Turchin study found no “typical collapse”, that “utter collapse” is rare, and that complexity does not seem to be a factor. Indeed, complexity seems to integrate civilizations rather than making them more vulnerable. The interdependence seems to bind people together into stronger social structures. The size of empires used to be a destabilizing factor, but in our modern world, communication has largely overcome this factor.

Over the last 10,000 years, societies have gradually evolved to become more organized and successful, and better institutions increased their resilience, otherwise we would still be living in small and scattered neolithic settlements with none of the amenities of our modern civilization. This evolution, however, does not eliminate the threats of impending crises, and the study makes five suggestions based on the two main indicators, “popular immiseration” and “elite overproduction” noted earlier.

1. Progressive taxation, which would reduce the creation of a wealthy class and the impoverishment of everyone else.
2. A universal right to vote, a process which empowers the collective and prevents the rise to power of autocrats whose precipitous behaviour can easily precipitate chaos—note Stalin, Hitler and, currently, Putin.
3. Labour protecting institutions such as unions that provide liveable wages to prevent the formation of a large segment of society which is reduced to poverty and desperation. This mechanism for a more just distribution of wealth was the primary cause of the major social upheavals that occurred in newly industrialized countries during the mid-19th century.
4. A welfare state that equitably ensures the caring treatment of its citizens. This lowers the levels of dissatisfaction and unrest while enhancing loyalty to the existing social and economic structure.
5. International cooperation through such organizations as the United Nations. This process applies the healthy operating principles in individual societies to the world structure at large.

These five factors read like socialism, but they are not intended to be political; they are just an empirical measure of the fairness that makes societies solid and stable. Competition is obviously a part of social dynamics, but we tend to forget that civilizations are really built fundamentally on cooperation—nothing would work without the cooperation and support that we give each other. In times of stress, trust underpins the strength that gives societies survivability.

The so-called “polycrisis” that we are now confronting is a serious threat to the structure of our civilization, but it need not be fatal if we take the preventative measures listed above. An integrated and supportive society may be more durable than the hardships it confronts.

Ray Grigg for Sierra Quadra

Top image credit: The polar icebergs are melting – Photo by Rita Willaert via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED)