Climate Change is a Public Health Emergency
Climate change and environmental degradation are going to be costly in both economic and human terms, an inevitability whether or not we decide to try and prevent them.
On May 17, Byline Times exclusively reported that powerful financial institutions are planning for imminent widespread unrest in the West due to rising costs of living driven by climate change and government irresponsiveness:
Global banks and investment firms are bracing themselves for an “unprecedented” upsurge in civil unrest in the US, UK and Europe as energy and food price spikes are set to drive costs of living to astronomical levels, Byline Times can exclusively reveal.
The information comes from the head of a ‘financial institutions group’ – which provides expertise and advisory services to other banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions – at one of the largest investment firms in the US.
The senior investment executive, who spoke to Byline Times on condition of anonymity because the information he revealed is considered highly sensitive, said that contingency planners at top financial institutions believe “dangerous levels” of social breakdown in the West are now all but inevitable, and imminent. An outbreak of civil unrest is expected to occur anytime this year, but most likely in the coming months as the impact of the cost of living crisis begins to saturate the lives of “everyone”.
The executive works at a leading Wall Street firm which is considered a systemically important financial institution by the US Financial Stability Board. These are institutions whose functioning is considered critical to the US economy, and whose failure could trigger a financial crisis. …
While increased civil unrest in developing countries has been openly discussed by major institutions such as the UN, World Bank, IMF and other institutions, this is the first time in recent years that expectations of a coming epidemic of social breakdown in Western societies has been attributed to top banking and investment firms. …
“There isn’t anything left in the toolbox of the existing financial system. We’ve run out of options. I can only see the situation worsening.”
Banks, investment firms, and insurance companies are a good canary in the coalmine for looming disasters, and by this measure, the canary may as well be dead and buried. The article also notes what will be a recurring theme in climate discussions: for years, the apocalypse was considered a far-off possibility, but it is already both imminent and ongoing, a protracted sputtering death rattle rather than a sudden quick painless end capping off an enjoyably carefree final few years:
A major outbreak of civil unrest this year would be consistent with a rising trend in political violence over the last decade since the 2008 financial crash, as documented by the Institute for Economics and Peace’s Global Peace Index. Between 2011 and 2019, demonstrations, strikes and riots around the world increased by 244% and continued to increase in 2020 during the pandemic.
The Global Peace Index’s latest figures show that global peace has deteriorated for the ninth time in a row by 0.07%, and has overall worsened over the last 15 years. Violent demonstrations and riots have now occurred in 158 countries, over 80% of the world. This escalating trend in civil unrest fits into a pattern of ‘systemic’ social unrest, with multiple countries simultaneously expressing dissatisfaction, anger, and demanding change.
The rising trend did not begin 15 years ago. It, too, is part of a much longer rising trend in political violence which began to especially accelerate since the 1970s, which is when the global economy first entered a stage of ecological ‘overshoot’.
What economists, think tank researchers, and rightwing politicians often fail to consider is that starving, impoverished, housing insecure people do not tend to sit idly and wait for death to come. It is easy enough to dehumanize and marginalize the vulnerable and allow oneself to acquiesce to their imminent destruction, but this too carries with it a cost that even self-interested, amoral fascists ought to consider: sufficient levels of unrest would require them to hire private security thugs to keep themselves and their families safe, often in the form of veterans and other ex-military who are used to stifling dissent and abusing civilians. These private security firms already exist and are widely used alongside police to secure the property of the wealthy and quash protests, and the rich may feel optimistic about their future even in a heavily unstable world due to their effectively unlimited funding to procure safety, but how would these compound-dwelling elites ensure the loyalty of their guards in a lawless world where there might be a higher bidder or some other motivation to harm their masters? Loyalty is only so salable, and in a world sufficiently degraded they would be unlikely to do much else to earn the fealty of their protectors than pay them well and perhaps threaten or otherwise abuse them into servitude. But this too comes with a cost: the uncomfortable (likely paranoia-inducing) possibility that one day a bodyguard gets fed up and decides to turn their weapon on their employer. It only takes one.
The super-rich are already considering ways to prevent that danger (from The Guardian, tech author and speaker Douglas Rushkoff’s recollection of a private consultation he gave to several of the richest men in the world in 2017):
Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked: “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the Event?”
The Event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr Robot hack that takes everything down.
This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers – if that technology could be developed in time.
That’s when it hit me: at least as far as these gentlemen were concerned, this was a talk about the future of technology. Taking their cue from Elon Musk colonizing Mars, Peter Thiel reversing the ageing process, or Sam Altman and Ray Kurzweil uploading their minds into supercomputers, they were preparing for a digital future that had a whole lot less to do with making the world a better place than it did with transcending the human condition altogether and insulating themselves from a very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic, and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is really about just one thing: escape.
Rather than fix the systemic issues which create the problem, the hyper-rich are resorting to fantasies about slave collars and robotic servants.
Like the addict who rationalizes their continued unhealthy behavior with thoughts such as “I don’t want to live forever anyway” and “Might as well enjoy myself while I have the chance, before things get bad,” our collective memory misses the sobering fact that ill health isn’t just a looming capstone to decades of freewheeling libertine partying but a very gradual, surprisingly self-reinforcing downward spiral whose early onset greatly diminishes our ability to enjoy the frivolity, much like the wanton abuse of our environment will only allow the fossil fuel-derived comforts to pacify us for a few more years before the fun (such as it is) is over. For many, that fun never existed—they were born into the slavery of the international capitalist system and could never escape it. For others, they were born into privilege and might stay insulated from the outcomes of their actions for most of the lives, but as the banking system’s worries above confirm, the number of individuals and institutions who can hope to keep operating unscathed is only going to drop as the coming difficulties endanger all but the most well-protected plutocrats. Even the super rich will not escape, at least not without paying dearly for the privilege.
A major source of climate-related strain, in addition to the rising cost of living and attendant financial instability, is a more direct consequence of greenhouse gas: heat. Two articles from The Guardian detail the coming record-breaking temperatures (records are already broken on a yearly basis and heat waves and fires have claimed many thousands of lives):
The early arrival of sweltering weather, before what’s expected to be another hot, dry summer, is forecast to break or tie roughly 130 heat records for this time of year, with temperatures between 20F and 30F above average in the mid-Atlantic and north-east.
Europe is also poised to suffer high heat records:
Parts of Spain are experiencing their hottest May since records began, as a mass of hot, dry air blows in from Africa, bringing with it dusty skies and temperatures of more than 40C (104F).
Spain’s state meteorological agency, Aemet, has warned of a weekend heatwave of an “extraordinary intensity”, with temperatures between 10C and 15C above the seasonal average and more akin to high summer than mid-May.
and drought:
“This is because the vacuum left by the lack of river water is being filled by seawater,” he says, which can be seen flowing back upstream in some areas. For farmers in the area, it means saltwater seeping into the earth and poisoning crops, which are blackened and wilting.
“It is a serious problem for the biodiversity here, drying out the ditches and waterways,” Mantovani says.
These record-low water levels, which the AIPO would normally only measure in August, are partly a result of the lack of rainfall that northern Italy has been suffering.
“Normally it should rain once every one or two weeks,” says Mantovani, “but now it hasn’t rained for three months.”
The problems start, however, in the mountains, where snowfall has been at its lowest for 20 years measuring 50 per cent less than the seasonal average. The glaciers of the Alps, which act as reservoirs to feed the river, are also shrinking each year. On Monte Viso, a mountain close to the French border where the Po River originates, the permafrost is melting and causing chunks of rock to crumble away.
The situation has set alarm bells ringing about the effects climate change could have on an area so heavily dependent upon the river’s waters.
This season has already been a stark warning that the warming planet may turn Italy's fertile farmlands and nutrient-rich Delta into a salty wasteland, while putting hundreds of thousands of livelihoods at risk. “It is a 360-degree disaster,” says Mantovani.
Finally, in Bangladesh and India, flooding has stranded millions of people and killed 57 so far. Climate change increases the likelihood of disasters like this—it is much more dangerous than just increasing heat, but even that would be sufficient to declare an emergency. Higher heat leads to increased stress, which exacerbates every other potential problem, health or otherwise:
“While many people are still coping with mental health challenges from the pandemic, exposure to extreme, even unprecedented, heat, can worsen psychiatric symptoms,” said APA President Vivian Pender, M.D. “APA believes the impacts of climate change, such as these extreme heat waves, pose a threat to public health, including mental health.”
Several factors contribute to people with mental illness being especially vulnerable. People with schizophrenia can experience difficulties with body temperature regulation and changes in temperature can change symptoms of mood disorders. Some psychiatric medications, including some antidepressants and antipsychotics, can affect the way the body regulates temperature.
People with mental illness are also more likely to live in poverty or to have co-occurring chronic illness or substance use disorders, which make it harder for them to cope or adapt to changes. Those who are also homeless have the added burden of seeking safe shelter. In addition, people with pre-existing psychiatric symptoms are at increased risk of emergency department visits for heat-related health issues and people with dementia are at increased risk for hospitalization and death during heat waves.
Anyone who has worked out door on a hot day will be familiar with its deleterious effects on the body. Heat stress and the prevalence of wet bulb temperatures will only get worse, and endless drought will wreak havoc on food production in areas whose stable climate is no more. From The Telegraph, the recent revelation that global food supplies are now more vulnerable to various kinds of disruptions than ever:
The world has just 10 weeks' worth of wheat stockpiled after Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine disrupted supplies from the "breadbasket of Europe".
The UN has been warned that global wheat inventories have fallen to their lowest level since 2008 as food supplies are rocked by a “one-in-a-generation occurrence”.
Official government estimates put world wheat inventories at 33pc of annual consumption, but stocks may have slumped to as low as 20pc, according to agricultural data firm Gro Intelligence. It estimates that there are only 10 weeks of global wheat supply left in stockpiles.
There will always be a war in the world, or a Covid pandemic (now Monkeypox?), or a looming election—some convenient, overriding reason to both minimize the impact of climate change and environmental destruction in explaining our current woes and to argue for the postponement of its amelioration, but climate change is already adding significant stress to our day to day lives, stress which will no doubt lead to significant economic costs as well as human ones. Rather than lift a finger to prevent the worst of these outcomes, our governments have committed to inaction at the behest of powerful monied interests, accomplishing nothing but delaying the costs of the environment’s degradation and foisting it onto those who make up the government: the people. Rather than preempt or minimize the destruction of our shared reality, we have chosen to let it run wild in a minimally regulated fashion, ensuring the worst of its outcomes will be only occasionally redressed by the government at a much steeper price tag than would have ever been associated with their prevention. This is no accident, as these costs will be paid to friends of the politicians and funneled to the police, whose role will be increasingly self-reinforcing as climate-related unrest leads to brutal crackdowns, which lead to more unrest and the need for more “law enforcement.” In every disaster, there is an opportunity for hucksters and kleptocrats to ply their trade and for the right cronies to be amply compensated (see for example the no-bid contracts and massive graft that defined the War on Terror); climate breakdown will be no different. (This is of course already happening.)
This kleptocracy is going to be emboldened by the breakdown of society as exploitation and self-interest becomes increasingly normalized and elites in government and business begin to justify their actions as necessary to protect themselves and their families in a more violent, lawless world. We chose wasteful, greedy, and shortsighted avarice rather than long term sustainability and the maximization of happiness for all. The waste and greed can be explained, but the shortsightedness now stands to shoot the purveyors of the free market in the foot, soon turning their joy in the exploitation of others into a comeuppance which will either be visited upon them with a viciousness commensurate with the severity of their crimes or avoided only by the costly, lonely, precarious existence of total isolation in a secure bunker, surrounded by mercenaries whose loyalty will be shaped by their environment (in other words, predicated on self-interest and survival alone). Either way, the salad days are over.
The century of disaster is and will be nothing short of a full blown public health emergency, which we ignore at our peril. Covid has already revealed the dangers of minimizing a pandemic, and the folly of applying individualistic reasoning to a collective problem. The US government will very shortly need to pursue one of two revolutionary programs to save itself and its preferred free market capitalist system: the first, a massive humanitarian relief effort designed to correct the mistakes it allowed to fester, which will include immediate and thorough decarbonization, rewilding, cleanup and preservation efforts, green technology, universal basic income, and the tax-based elimination of the upper class, all of which will be too little too late but not without benefits. The second is an intractable adherence to the policies that got us here and the dystopian fascist social control which will soon be necessary to maintain them. If history is a guide, they will choose the second option, because even obvious self-interest of the kind which argues for the first option will be insufficient to escape the powerful mandated ignorance of the last century of rightist politicization of every aspect of life, and socialism will continue to be treated as a dirty word even as it becomes undeniable that it was the only ideology which could have ever saved us.
The analogy of one’s personal health is instructive here as well: preventive maintenance, which is far better facilitated in a public universal healthcare system than a for-profit one, is much cheaper than letting a disease or disorder get to the point that hospitalization is required. We have allowed appendicitis to fester for far too long, and it is now excruciating. Will we allow it to burst and spread its poison?