Our need to adapt to climate change is more pressing than most appreciate

Fred Guterl.

The need to adapt to climate change is more pressing than most in our community appear to appreciate.

The complications and implications of our changing climate will not, if not addressed in quick and decided fashion will bring upon humanity changes it is ill-equipped to address.

“Extinction” is a word that springs to mind and it is one that Fed Guterl has explored, but for different reasons, in his new book.

Guterl’s writing gives us reason to pause and consider.

Guterl, a senior editor at Newsweek International who directs the magazine’s coverage of science, technology, health, medicine and the environment,

“The Fate of the Species: Why the Human Race May Cause Its Own Extinction and How We Can Stop It” written by Guterl and published in May this year is both a thoughtful book and thought provoking.

Guterl considers extinctions and why they happened and early in the book says:

“Sometimes, though, change happens all at once, too quickly for species to adapt. Many biologists believe that is happening now. They believe that humans are changing the planet at a rate too quick for many of the planets’ species to keep up. Eventually, they fear, species will die off suddenly en-masse, triggering a cascade of extinctions, which could have a devastating effect on the planet’s intricate web of life. It’s the Large Blue phenomenon multiplied throughout all the ecosystems on the planet. It’s nature’s way of wiping the slate clean to begin again. It’s happened at least five times since life began on the planet about four billion years ago.

Man's inventions might be
 his eventual undoing.

“Is it happening now? The question is important because if the answer is yes, the likelihood that humans will survive is slim.”

One Amazon.com reviewer said: “There are many books out there discussing this topic, most of them in a very sensationalist and wildly exaggerating style. Luckily for me, this isn't the case here as the author sets a matter of fact tone which I was immediately taken with. Written in a conversational style and painting both vivid and plausible scenarios of what could happen, he takes the reader from super viruses past climate change straight to what he obviously sees as the most likely culprit of all - scientific and technological progress. Our own inventions as source and cause of our possible extinction might not sound quite as exciting as a meteor striking, but according to this survey it's scarily likely.

“Regrettably, it's the minutely detailed examples, highlighting present day research, which create an imbalance, sometimes long-winded enough to break up a chapter, and often reducing the fascinating question of what might happen to a mere afterthought. Another thing I found slightly unfortunate were the thoughts on solutions being pooled into the last chapter instead of complementing the individual chapters. A general conclusion would have been more fitting in my opinion”.

The reviewer concluded in saying: “In short: Technology as our downfall - an interesting excursion into what may cause the next mass extinction event on our planet!”

The implications of what Guterl discusses pretty much exceed the understanding and imagination of most, just as do the changes we must address if we are to adapt to climate change and one of the first steps in that adaptation program would be to introduce a Four-Hour Work Day.

Trying to understand equity in income

Equity in income has troubled the world for centuries.

A shift to a Four-Hour Work Day will not in itself change that, but it will be an important ingredient in the recipe of events that will eventually bring about altered behaviour.

We have tried this,but now we
 need something differrent.

The inequity of incomes is embedded in what exists and a switch to Four-Hour Work Day, without overtime or double shifts, will not engender the necessary change.

This time, however, things will be different.

The mix of corporatism, labour and consumption that has sustained capitalism for centuries, particularly those of late, now has something else to consider; something that has always been an ingredient, but until now mostly ignored and been treated as a free asset - that is nature.

Services provided by nature have always been costed in at nil value, that however, is changing (albeit reluctantly in the minds of many) and as nature cannot be told what to do, it is emerging as the most significant cost facing businesses.

Businesses have ignored nature, profited handsomely from its largesse, but now it has to pay, as do all of us and that is not just directly in cash as the costs are coming in the form of disruptive changes to our climate manifested in unpredictable storms, floods and cyclones that are wreaking havoc around the globe.

The shift to a Four-hour Work Day will need to be a legislative change, meaning that businesses can only operate four-hours a day – an idea that collides head-on with the present agenda calling for changes to work arrangements allowing businesses to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Ever since the Industrial Revolution a couple of centuries ago, the ideology of profit and growth has been indelible etched onto our lives that we now grow believing consumption equates with happiness – it doesn’t and a Four-Hour Work Day will make all of us make all of us, from the orchestrators of our money-based society down to the oppressed soul, financially poorer and yet hugely time rich.