Emergency? What Emergency?

It is clear our civilisation is screwed.

By 'our civilisation', I mean the global socio-economic empire that has developed over the past 70 years, and on which the vast majority of the world's processes turn. It is unsustainable. It cannot, and will not, last against the heating up and transformation of the world into a different sort of place, at a rate that nature simply cannot keep up with. It has already started - and I cannot see how it will be stopped given current politics.

Predicting the future is always difficult, and I'm just a guy with a keyboard, but you can get a shape of what is to come by extrapolating from what is happening already. At least, what will happen in the UK. If you think I'm wrong, please, please, tell me where my error is.

Firstly, it is clear that we will not limit warming to 2°C. The problem is too big, the political will is not there, and it requires sacrifices that democratically elected politicians cannot stomach and autocrats can too easily ignore. Changes that should have been happening two years ago have not started, and there is no movement to fix the problem, regardless of how many governments and councils declare a 'Climate Emergency' (and then approve the expansion of their local airport).

This means that we're heading for at least 4°C of warming, or even more if methane in the permafrost is released. So what could happen?

The new normal

Firstly, life will continue on pretty much as it is, for maybe 10 years or so. You can see it already - ice is melting, heatwaves are getting worse, storms are getting bigger, but people are largely just carrying on. The system is pretty resiliant, and people will wish for things to carry on as they are - so, to a point, they will. The prices of some things will go up, maybe double in price, maybe bananas and coffee will disappear, but alternatives will be found, because people will be willing to pay for it. In the EU and UK people will adapt to the increasing heatwaves, and carry on with their lives as best they can. The increasing deathrate will be dealt with just like the annual toll from car crashes - ignored, if possible. The poor will suffer, and the well off will cope by throwing money at the problem.

As time wears on, a few areas may become abandoned - it's simply not worth rebuilding an area before the next disaster hits, so people will move elsewhere, leaving areas to be taken over by wildlife. Areas of the equator will simply become too hot to live in. This will be noted, along with the stream of species extinctions and increasing size of refugee camps, but will quickly become normal. Maybe in the UK people will start to grow their own crops, as supplies of some things slowly dry up. Again, the new normal.

The system breaks

But then A Thing will happen, or several Things in close succession. It's very hard to see what the  Things will be, but some possibilities are:

• Mass migration causes countries to block their borders to everyone, but there will be too many people to stop
• Antibiotic-resistant disease outbreak that the WHO don't have the resources to control
• Bangladesh is flooded, leading to millions of deaths and a mass exodus that progresses outwards as people try and find somewhere to live
• A confrontation between countries in the Middle East, or in Asia, that quickly escalates to nuclear bombs

The death toll will be in the millions, and it's effects will be immediate. It may not be directly climate related; maybe the increased stresses on people and countries trying to stay alive will reach a limit, and violence will erupt. It's very hard to predict what will happen then, but it will be incredibly disruptive to the global supply network. Already strained political and economic structures will simply collapse. Over the course of weeks, or maybe a few months, countries will start to collapse into civil disorder, due to lack of supplies of food and drinkable water. Many more people will die. Millions, maybe billions, as chaos and violence spreads.

After the end

But what happens then? People will still be alive, life of some sort will continue (life has survived 5 extinction-level events so far, it will survive a 6th in some form). After the riots, life will continue for some, and some will find a way to survive. My vague guess is that, as global systems break down, people will start to reorganise themselves more locally again - back to a much more localised way of life, living in the ruins of the old world, and staying away from areas too contaminated or too choked with rubbish to sustain life. Some of the existing political or economic structures may continue - but they simply won't have the power to do anything. They just...won't matter any more.

However, one thing I can't predict is what effect technology will have - the increased use of surveillance systems, and the increased control a tiny minority will have on the majority. Combined with the rising authoritarianism over the past few years, and we may be in a very bad place indeed. Will we be left with a dystopia - a mix of V for Vendetta, 1984, Elysium, bits of Black Mirror, or the Hunger Games? Or maybe we will be able to fix things; after all, technological progress makes huge advances in a crisis. Your guess is as good as mine.

Either way, it won't be the same civilisation anymore. Either it will turn into something else, or be replaced entirely - as some people will survive, and they will find some way to organise themselves, or be organised.

Really?

I know as much about what's going to happen as you do. But I think this is the shape of things to come. However, what is clear is that if we want to avert catastrophe, we are not doing enough. How do I know that? Because my life has not been disrupted yet.

I know we have disaster coming, but I still drive my petrol-powered car to the shops, to buy food transported here on bunker fuel-powered container ships, wrapped in plastic that is ending up in landfill, cooked on a gas-fuelled hob, in my gas-fuelled central heated house. Sure, I'm not taking flights this year (apart from a grudging 2 flights to visit family), I cycle to work, and I'm trying to cut down the meat I eat, but that's not nearly enough. Like anyone else, I'm too used to what I do. It's just too easy to ignore. I, and everyone else, need to be forced to make drastic changes to my life to have even a slim hope of stopping this. This can only be done at a national and international level.

Off the top of my head, some things which would help:

• Immediately limiting flights per year per person, resulting in an immediate halving of flights, and reducing down to zero over the next 5 years. Yes, airports will close. Businesses will be disrupted. So?
• Limiting the distance container ships can travel to 1000 miles
• Requiring licenses for shops and restaurants to sell non-vegetarian food, with limited licenses, just like alcohol licenses. In restaurants, the vegetarian menu is the default, you have to ask for the meat menu, and pay a high supplement.
• Banning all diesel-powered cars from the road now and banning sales of non-electric cars. What, you mean there isn't the capacity to build enough replacement electric cars, not enough charging points, and not enough cobalt being mined for the batteries? Your point is?

These things are incredibly disruptive. Thousands will lose their jobs. But climate change will be worse.

However, these things will not happen. For one thing, they require international effort - what's the point of limiting flights in the UK when people can just get a train over to Paris and fly from there? And the political will is simply not there - as we saw from the fuel riots in France, even the smallest change causes outrage. These changes will cause your business to go bust? If we don't do this, and more, then your livelihood will cease to exist and your town will disappear under the waves. China and the USA won't make changes until it's far too late, and the EU takes several years for legislation to go through. We don't have that long.

We are not going to limit temperature rises to 2°C. We are going to hit 4°C at least. Our civilisation is screwed.