Qualitative thinking and quantitative thinking are essentially different mental strategies. There is no point, when faced with a painting, measuring the canvas or inventorying the number of people and objects represented. The quantitative approach remains external to the work and its interpretation is not and is not intended to be scientific. It is validated, to use the term consecrated by Berenson, by the interpreter's “sense of quality”, which arises from a sensitivity that is historically informed and, above all, educated by long experience. comparative with many artistic objects [I]. When stating that the work of art is always a “deliciously relative” phenomenon, that is, that it is affirmed in the relationship, first of all, with another work of art, Roberto Longhi said something similar [II].
The intention of the preceding paragraph is not to recall the transcendental tripartition between the beautiful, the fair and the true, but to highlight, as opposed to aesthetic judgment, the specificity of scientific knowledge about nature. Since Pythagoras and Plato, Greek, and later Western, thought traced the destiny of our epistemological relationship with nature by opting for the transfiguration of quality into quantity, whether through a metaphysics of number and geometric forms, or, in modern times, through measurement of parameters that indicate the behavior of phenomena. This mathematization of the world was, as is known, formulated at the dawn of modern science by the The Assayer (1623) by Galileo: “philosophy is written in that great book, continually open to our eyes (I mean, the universe), but one cannot understand it if one does not first learn to understand the language and to know the characters in which is written. It is written in mathematical language, and the characters are triangles, circles and other geometric figures. Without such means, it is humanly impossible to understand anything.” [III].
Contrary, therefore, to the “sense of quality”, capable of generating a rhetorically persuasive judgment, but which, as Berenson also warns, “does not belong to the category of demonstrable things”, the characteristic of science and its ambition is the demonstration of a set of quantitative propositions that only admit of challenge by another set of quantitative propositions.
The trajectory of socio-environmental collapse
This is certainly true of the most unavoidable and distinctive of the scientific propositions of our time: the increasing scale and speed of the harmful pressures exerted by the expansive logic of global capitalism on the Earth system places human societies and biodiversity on a path of imminent collapse. . Let us define each term of this proposition.
(1) Capitalism is a socioeconomic system resulting from the historical association between: (a) a legal system based on the private ownership of capital and (b) the rationality of the economic action of capital holders, defined by the search for maximum return on investment. The relationship of these owners with nature is determined by this intentional awareness of the world and is the driving force that drives the system towards its continuous expansion. In global capitalism, capital ownership is concentrated in the hands of an economic “super entity”, composed of a densely interconnected core of financial controllers from the network of multinational corporations. In an article entitled “The Network of Global Corporate Control”, Stefania Vitali, James Glattfelder and Stefano Battiston, from ETH Zurich, quantified this control of the global economy: “737 owners (top holders) accumulate 80% of control over the value of all multinational corporations” [IV].
(2) The Earth system is defined, not as a still controversial “Gaia hypothesis”, but as the set of measurable interactions between the atmosphere, the biosphere, the geosphere, the pedosphere, the hydrosphere and the cryosphere, interactions decisively affected in the last decades of human interference[v].
(3) By socio-environmental collapse, we must understand an abrupt transition to another state of equilibrium of the Earth system, a state whose degree of alterity in relation to Holocene parameters is still uncertain, but which must in all probability imply water scarcity, destabilization climate change and an average global warming of no less than 3º C. This level of average global warming will plunge human societies into abysses of hunger, insalubrity, violence, precariousness and mortality, at the same time condemning an immense number of other species in all regions to extinction. ecosystems on the planet.
(4) By imminent, finally, we must understand a time horizon no later than the second half of the century, without excluding decisive changes in the next two decades.
The proposition that we are on a trajectory of imminent socio-environmental collapse is based on cumulative knowledge. Data, monitoring conducted over decades, statistical models and projections confirmed by observation converge to give this proposition an increasingly less uncertainty and constitute today, certainly, one of the most consolidated scientific consensuses in the history of knowledge about nature and our destructive and self-destructive interaction with her.
Regarding this very serious proposition, the scientific community has launched recurring “red alerts”, the language of which cannot be accused of euphemism. Let us remember the most recent ones in chronological order. In 1992, on the occasion of ECO-92 in Rio de Janeiro, 1.700 scientists published the “Warning of World Scientists to Humanity”, in which they clearly reaffirmed the imminence of this collapse:
“No more than a decade or a few remain before the chance to avoid current threats is lost, immeasurably diminishing humanity’s prospects.”
In 2007, this imminence was reiterated by the fourth report by the IPCC, the most important collective of climate change researchers [YOU]:
“Any goal of stabilizing CO concentrations2 above 450 ppm [parts per million] has a significant probability of triggering a large-scale weather event.”
Note that in 2013 we exceeded 400 ppm and in April 2017 [VII] the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii recorded atmospheric concentrations of 410 ppm of CO for the first time2, as shown in Figure 1
In the period shown by this graph (1700 – 2017), there was an increase of almost 50% in these concentrations, with an unequivocal acceleration of this process in the 2st century, as shown in detail in Figure XNUMX.
Between 1960 and 1997, there were only four annual increases greater than 2 ppm and none greater than 2,5 ppm. But between 1998 and 2016, eleven annual increases greater than 2 ppm and six annual increases greater than 2,5 ppm were recorded, with three records broken since 1998: 2,93 ppm (1998); 3,03 ppm (2015) and 2,77 ppm (2016). And since 2010, in short, there has only been an annual increase of less than 2 ppm. If a future average increase of 2,5 ppm/year is maintained, we will reach the feared 450 ppm in 2033, after which, as the IPCC states, the chances of “triggering a large-scale climate event” increase.
In 2013, another alert, entitled “Scientific Consensus on the Maintenance of Humanity's Life Support Systems in the XNUMXst Century”, signed by more than three thousand scientists, warned once again of the imminence of a socio-environmental collapse [VIII]:
“The Earth is rapidly approaching a tipping point. Human impacts are causing alarming levels of damage to our planet. As scientists who study the interaction of humans with the rest of the biosphere, using a wide range of approaches, we agree that the evidence that humans are degrading life-sustaining systems is overwhelming. (...) By the time today's children reach middle age it is extremely likely that life-sustaining systems will have been irreparably damaged by the magnitude, global extent and combination of these human-caused stressors [climate imbalances, extinctions, widespread loss of diverse ecosystems, pollution, population growth and consumption patterns], unless we take immediate action to ensure a high-quality, sustainable future. As members of the scientific community actively involved in assessing the biological and social impacts of global change, we are sounding this alarm.”
Two months ago, finally, eight scientists reevaluated the 1992 appeal and launched the “Warning of the World's Scientists to Humanity – Second Warning” [IX]:
Since 1992, with the exception of stabilizing the stratospheric ozone layer, humanity has failed to make sufficient progress in generally resolving these heralded environmental challenges, most of which are worsening at an alarming rate. Especially disturbing is the current trajectory of potentially catastrophic climate change, due to the increase in greenhouse gases emitted by the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and agricultural production – particularly from ruminant cattle for meat consumption. Furthermore, we have triggered a mass extinction event, the sixth in approximately 540 million years, in which many current forms of life could be annihilated or, at least, condemned to extinction by the end of this century..
The scientific community's response to this “Second Warning” was extraordinarily vigorous. Today it has more than 15 thousand signatures from researchers and scientists from 180 countries, including those from James Hansen, former director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (NASA – GISS, Columbia University); by Matthew Hansen, from MODIS Land Science Team (NASA); in Will Steffen and Thomas Hahn (IPBES), both from the Stockholm Resilience Centre; by Stefan Rahmstorf, director of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; by Daniel Pauly, director of The Sea Around Us (British Columbia University); by Jan Zalasiewicz, from the Anthropocene Working Group (Subcommittee on Quaternary Stratigraphy); it's from Paul Ehrlich and Edward O. Wilson, from seven Nobel Prize laureates and researchers from all areas at the main Brazilian universities and around the world.
It is clear that there are still many uncertainties about the evolution of the Earth system, but these uncertainties are decreasing and are, above all, second order. The proposition central of the science that the increase in anthropogenic interference in the Earth system is leading us to an imminent socio-environmental collapse constitutes the common content of all alerts issued by the collectives of scientists mentioned above. Unless this consensus is flatly denied or quantitatively relevant opposing elements are advanced, this proposition appears to be indisputable and current attempts to contest it do not belong to the scope of science.
Psychological block and epistemological block
That said, scientific facts and warnings clash against the barrier of denialism fostered by corporations or are metabolized and neutralized by a blockade that is both psychological and epistemological on the part of most people, including the most educated. Psychological blockage offers the last refuge for optimism not substantiated by relevant data. It is very understandable, given the content of the message. The epistemological block is rooted in the need to support the hypothesis that global capitalism can advance, even quickly, in the two basic directions required by science:
(1) reduce carbon emissions to zero in the next two decades through market-specific inducing mechanisms (end of fossil fuel subsidies, carbon tax, etc.);
(2) honor the commitments made in diplomatic agreements, such as the Kyoto Protocol, the 20 Development Goals Aichi (Aichi Biodiversity Targets) [X], the Paris Agreement etc.
The evidence against this hypothesis of a “sustainable” capitalism is overwhelming. Atmospheric carbon emissions and concentrations are not stabilizing and are not expected to stop increasing in the next two decades. The Kyoto Protocol and the Aichi Targets for 2020 have failed and the prognoses for the Paris Agreement are the worst possible, as demonstrated by an article published in Nature last August, and already commented in this column [XIV].
GHG emissions continue to increase
A mainstay of this epistemological blockage is the assertion that global GHG emissions are stabilizing. There is indeed a tendency for emissions to stabilize relating to energy production, mainly due to the greater availability and competitiveness of natural gas, which generated a 2016% decrease in global coal consumption in 1,7 (-53 mtoe) compared to the previous year, and this for the second consecutive year [XII]. Here is the latest fossil fuel consumption data in millions of tons of oil equivalent energy (mtoe):
But the latest data from the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) shows that GHG emissions as a whole continue to rise, reaching 53,4 GtCO2-eq in 2016, as shown in Figure 3
It is significant that an eminent representative of this epistemological blockade, Lord Nicholas Stern, President of the British Academy, saw reason to celebrate in the figure above: “These results are a welcome indication that we are approaching the peak of annual greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse effect" [XIII]. This comment by Stern recalls the pre-Copernican adventures of Ptolemaic geocentrism. There it was a question of “saving” the geocentric hypothesis. Here, to “save” the hypothesis that capitalism can ultimately divert us from socio-environmental collapse. Because this graph simply does not show stabilization. He says loud and clear that in 2010 the world emitted 50 GtCO2-eq and that in 2016 there was an increase in these emissions of around 7%. There is definitely no reason to consider such an increase welcome. He also says, to conclude, three extremely important things:
(1) Given Trump's efforts to rehabilitate coal, it is still premature to say that the trend towards stabilization of CO emissions2 related to energy production announce a successive decrease. There is reason for some hope here, but the biggest problem is that these emissions linked to energy production correspond to only 60% of GHG (~32 GtCO2-eq).
(2) 19% of GHG emissions in 2016 came from methane, with a large contribution from enteric activity and residues from ruminants, whose herd increased by 20,5% between 1992 and 2016, now reaching almost four billion heads [XIV].
(3) The factor that most pushed the emissions curve upwards (gray spot at the top of the graph) was the release of GHGs from agriculture, deforestation and fires in forests and peatlands (Land Use, Land Use change and Forestry, LULUCF).
Points 2 and 3 show, once again, that the twin brother of Big Oil is Big food (including to feed the animals we eat) and that we will not deviate from the path of environmental collapse without a profound review of our food system, transformed into commodities, based on global trade and animal proteins.
[I] See Bernard Berenson, The sense of quality. Study and Criticism of Italian Art (1901), New York, 1962.
[II] Roberto Longhi, “Proposte per una critique d'arte”. Comparison, 1, 1950: “L'opera d'arte, dal vaso dell'artigiano greco alla volta Sistina, è semper un capolavoro oddly relative. L'opera non sta mai da sole. It's always rapport. Per cominciare: almeno un rapporto con un'antra opera d'arte”. In 1923, in a short provocative text, Le Problem des Musées, Paul Valéry anticipated this Longhian paradox between the singularity of the term “masterpiece” and its relative character. For Valéry, the works of art displayed in the galleries of a museum: “the more beautiful, the more exceptional effects of human ambition, the more they must be distinct. They are rare objects and their authors would like them to be unique.”
[III] See Alexandre Koyré, “Galilée et Platon” (1943). Études d'histoire de la pensée scientifique, Paris, 1973, pp. 166-195.
[IV] Cf. S. Vitali, JB Glattfelder, S. Battiston, “The Network of Global Corporate Control” Pls One, 26/X/2011: “We find that only 737 top holders accumulate 80% of the control over the value of all TNCs (Transnational Corporations) (…). A large portion of control flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions. This core can be seen as an economic 'super-entity'”.
[IN] The science that studies the behavior of this extremely complex set of interactions, called Earth system science (Earth system science), is not conceived as one more discipline among others, but as a new relationship between human sciences and natural sciences, which is also essential in the new geological-cultural epoch called Anthropocene.
[YOU] IPCC AR4 (2007) Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability: “Any CO2 stabilization target above 450 ppm is associated with a significant probability of triggering a large-scale climatic event”.
[VII] See Brian Kahn, “We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2. Carbon dioxide has not reached this height in millions of years”. Scientific American magazine, 21/IV/2017.
[VIII] Scientific Consensus on Maintaining Humanity's Life Support Systems in the 21st Century: "Earth is rapidly approaching a tipping point. Human impacts are causing alarming levels of harm to our planet. As scientists who study the interaction of people with the rest of the biosphere using a wide range of approaches, we agree that the evidence that humans are damaging their ecological life-support systems is overwhelming. We further agree that, based on the best scientific information available, human quality of life will suffer substantial degradation by the year 2050 if we continue on our current path. By the time today's children reach middle age, it is extremely likely that Earth's life-support systems, critical for human prosperity and existence, will be irretrievably damaged by the magnitude, global extent, and combination of these human-caused environmental stressors [, unless we take concrete, immediate actions to ensure a sustainable, high-quality future. As members of the scientific community actively involved in assessing the biological and societal impacts of global change, we are sounding this alarm to the world”.
[IX] Cf. William J. Ripple, Christopher Wolf, Mauro Galetti, Thomas M Newsome, Mohammed Alamgir, Eileen Crist, Mahmoud I. Mahmoud, William F. Laurance, “World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice”. The manifesto will soon be published in the magazine Bioscience.
[X] These 20 goals are subdivided into 56 objectives and are grouped into 5 major strategies for biodiversity conservation between 2011 and 2020. See if http://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/.
[XIV] See David G. Victo, Keigo Akimoto, Yoichi Kaya, Mitsutsune Yamaguchi, Danny Cullenward & Cameron Hepburn, “Prove Paris was more than paper promises”, Nature, 548, 1/VIII/2017: “No major advanced industrialized country is on track to meet its pledges to control the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change. Wishful thoughts and bravado are eclipsing reality.” See if “Scientific hopes and basic political facts about the Paris Agreement.” Journal of Unicamp, 25/IX/2017
[XII] See BP Statistical Review of World Energy. June 2017 (online).
[XIII] Quoted by Damian Carrington, “Global carbon emissions stood still in 2016, offering climate hope”. The Guardian, 28/IX/2017: “These results are a welcome indication that we are nearing the peak in global annual emissions of greenhouse gases”.
[XIV] See this data in William J. Ripple, Christopher Wolf, Mauro Galetti, Thomas M Newsome, Mohammed Alamgir, Eileen Crist, Mahmoud I. Mahmoud, William F. Laurance, “World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice”.
