Amoc

First of all, I am not a climate scientist. That being said, there are tipping points in the climate system.

Next, definitely not to pick favorites as a non climate-scientist. But one of these major tipping points is the potential of something occuring with the AMOC.

The AMOC stands for Atlantic meridional overturning circulation

Here, I have had a chance to watch a couple of videos by Professor. Rahmstorf (no affiliation) via the Postdam Institute’s channel on Youtube (Same as before. No affiliation with the institute either)

Here are some of the awards and honors that Prof. Rahmstorf has received, according to Wikipedia. Source

More recently, I have come across the following article. Which I have yet to review myself. Link via Fast Company

This is something that I have sensed intuitively.

Again, I am not a climate scientist. But I sense that the slowing down or collapse of one of the major climate tipping points could (I am not sure how to attach probabilities here). But it could have a cascading effect on other major climate tipping poitns. Here is the link via the wikipedia source shared above, again. link

If these risks materialize, then we could be looking at the collapse of the human civilization and all the other beings that rely on humans. Some regions may indeed be more resilient. But what is unknown is how the cascading risks will materialize. Thus, the prospect of a civilization spiralling out of control because of the potential of cascading risks is something that may become unavoidable.

Link to Wikipedia page for Societal Collapse

For some reason, and I am going with little to no information. But I am thinking of Tony Seba’s technology disruption framework

Specific to the AMOC and other areas, I have been writing about these issues to the governments and militaries since at-least the year 2019 (if not earlier). I am not sure if because of covid and then the Ukraine war, that the issues are not surfacing.

I have also sought to share these issues via Linkedin. The only social media where I occasionally share some comments. Otherwise, I’ve kind of been a secular version of a hermit. Not necessarily by choice.

Based on the availability of time, or some other phenomenon, research via Geoffrey West and Safa Mote - Mohtehsharrei could be modelled.

Earlier today, I stumbled across an email from the year 2022. The email was sent to me by someone I have exchange a limited number of thoughts with over the years.

I have yet to circle back with the team at All Fed. But if it’s the same update as it was from a couple of years ago, then there is no single strategy for feeding the world and getting rid of malnutrition right now or during a time of a major event. This is not a harsh criticism of the All Fed team, whom I greatly respect. And they have been gracious with their time.

I am also sensing and going with a very limited amount of information. That Lord Martin Reese may be a good person to consult about such issues. As well, key personnel at the Union of Concerned Scientists

If we take a critical look, then the warnings have been there all this time: - US DOD, starting at least since the year 2004. Link and one of the report that comes up via this search string. Link - Isaac Asimov’s warning from 1989. Link - Dr. Carl Sagan’s testimony at the U.S Congress from 1985. Link

When I speak with folks from different parts of the world, my uneducated sense is that climate change has already started. So what is acceptable and why.

Going back to the post and again this is coming from a non-scientific background. But my sense is that as humanity’s capacity to tackle challenges and enable new vistas/avenues is growing exponentially. Could it be that the kind of risks that have been highlighted are also growing exponentially. There are other risks, which I am not going to document here. As the blogpost, will then be all over the place.

If we do nothing, then society may have to make incredibly painful choices. It is also possible that there are cascading effects. Including, but not limited to nuclear war, significant political upheaval e.t.c These cascading risks could turn civilization towards a more primitive and retrograde state. And critical functions such as making computers, making microchips, ability to do mathematics in certain branches could then be lost. Perhaps lost forever, if you lose the backup knowledge. If we consider that Democracy began in ancient Greece. Then it took a while for it to re-emerge in the colonies in North America. link

Coming back to the climate tipping point. My sense is that the deeper and underlying reasons why risks of this nature have metastasized could include and are not limited to. Lack of education and prevailing ignorance, a short-term mentality and not thinking long-term (50, 100, 1000, 10000 years or more), not realizing that the world is on a path towards super-abudance and so actions and also policies are being architected using a lens of scarcity, zero sum games as a consequence vs the enablement of a lot of positive-sum games. Gender-based violence and a general disregard towards the rights of others is also exacerbating this reality. This is not an comprehensive list. But because of these factors and more, there is now this reality whereby collusion is the default means and larger groups and monopolies may choose to employ this tactic in order to extend their monopolistic hegemony. Whereby in these set of scenarios, the monopolistic hegemonies may not be to be advantage of the common person.

Now, I am not disgruntled. I am not even sure if what I am writing today is grounded in some kind of an objective reality. But we are seeing symptoms and the underlying causes are causing these symptoms.

“If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions”. - The late Albert Einstein.

What is clear, something is bound to happen. What is interesting is that there is also a fair bit of activity towards developing A.I (Artificial Intelligence). So this technology could help us in a lot of different ways. But it could also get consolidated and then cause tyranny. At a time when people could be losing the ability to make meaningful sense.

What are your thoughts on the AMOC and other climate tipping points. What basis do you leverage in order to get the kind of conclusions that you get to. What kind of a world do you wish to leave behind for future generations?