Rivers running to the sea

Two we cannot stop and one we can

Last Friday, November 17, was the first day that the average global temperature was more than 2º C above pre-industrial (1850-1890) levels, says the World Meteorological Association.

 That doesn't mean that the globe has blown past Paris Agreement levels, because those pledges refer to averages over twenty or more years—not individual days, months, or years. (World leaders promised to hold global warming to “well below” 2º C, and hoped to keep it closer to 1.5º C.) Individual measurements are always subject to uncertainty. Still, humans notice changes in patterns, and for that reason Friday's signal may be noticed. 

It would take a lot—a miracle—to avoid the 1.5º threshold.

The concentration of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere is going to increase and remain high for hundreds of years to come, even if we stop increasing emissions. Even if we somehow manage to stabilize that concentration, by dramatically reducing emissions, we'll still see rising temperatures and rising waters, for centuries. 

No wonder metaverses of various flavors are so popular these days. It's good to "get away," I guess.

I'm not succumbing to despair, and neither should you. Here's an image to cheer you up—a river winding eventually to the sea.

The first river: Humans can't stop their own lives from winding to a close. That's going to happen, no matter how many supplements you take or walks you go on. It's a one-way stream, we're in it for a moment, and then it loses its form. So we might as well make the best of it for our limited time. 

The second river: Right now, we can't stop the warming and rising that's already baked into our future from happening. We can make sure it's not even more catastrophic by sharply limiting emissions as soon as possible, and that work is essential. The changes to human lives that are already being felt will go on accelerating and multiplying, though. It's a river we can't stop, a one-way, non-linear stream of stunning and continual change.

Here's a river we could re-direct: A new book by Quinn Slobodian tells the history of thousands of free enterprise zones around the world that have been established to attract capital. In the modern era, Hong Kong is the model, because it "held out the prospect of an escape from the dilemmas and pressures of mid-[20th] century democracy."

But the multiplication of these zones isn't the river I'm focused on. For me, the sweeping power of Slobodian's story is in its history of a central idea about government that Milton Friedman and the Mont Pelerin Society guys passionately embraced and Silicon Valley guys often espouse. It's the concept that the state's role needs to be limited to maintaining security, protecting private property, and enforcing contracts. Nothing more. "Secessionism, not globalism," says Slobodian, is the dreamed-of utopia for this element of society, who are looking for "an agile, restlessly mobile fortress for capital, protected from the grasping hands of the populace seeking a more equitable present and future." Capitalism without democracy, "incentivized urbanism" in place of community development, territories run by "a tight club of business elites," and complete economic freedom—that's the "one-way conveyor belt" driven by this idea. 

For decades, all levels of US government have experimented with various versions of this big idea. We've given tax breaks and incentives to developers in risky areas because we've wanted to attract growth, and we've backed off from limits on that growth—much less retrenchment—while at the same time we've failed adequately to encourage fairer, denser, better-served by transit, and less speculative forms of housing. Now the idea of risky growth is coming into sharp conflict with increasing flooding and wildfire risks for residents and businesses. 

There is still time to change direction. This river-of-an-idea, unlike the river of mortality or the rush of accelerating climate effects, is not inevitable. We can still change priorities to direct a focus on how Americans are doing rather than how the economy is doing. How's our well-being doing in the face of rapidly accelerating climate change? 

There's a recent report from the American Academy of Arts and Scientists and its Commission on Reimagining Our Economy that may provide the intellectual scaffolding for a response to the "capitalism without democracy" notion documented by Quinn Slobodian.* Its central idea is that economic markets "exist to serve people, not the other way around." It takes as measures of "well-being" a broad range of things, including the ability to "withstand economic instability and to meet one's needs sustainably and with dignity." It's a blue-ribbon report that makes a bunch of suggestions, ranging from improved civic engagement to better internet access (good call!) and basic financial sufficiency. It's well-meaning and deserves your time; it calls our attention to what's important, not just the urgent news of the day.

Although the 2º+C news last Friday was, come to think of it, both important and urgent.

*H/T Breaking the News