Tetsunori Koizumi, Director

“Climate change is widespread, rapid, and intensifying,” says the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released on August 9, 2021. Prepared by the IPCC Working Group I, Climate Change 2021: the Physical Science Basis is a sequel to a special report of the IPCC released back in 2018, Global Warming of 1.5°C. While the 2018 report had already warned us of the threat of global warming, the latest report contains a far more serious message for all of us, for every region of the world is being affected by “widespread, rapid, and intensifying” climate change.

As its subtitle, the Physical Science Basis, suggests, the latest IPCC report incorporates observations made by scientists about changes in the Earth’s climate in every region and the whole climate system. As for the phenomenon of global warming, the latest report says that emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are responsible for approximately 1.1°C of warming since 1850-1900. Based on improved observational datasets, the report finds that global temperature, averaged over the next 20 years, is expected to reach or exceed 1.5 °C of warming, which will bring about increased heat waves, longer warm seasons, and shorter cold seasons. The report contains a serious warning that human activities have the potential to determine the future course of climate, carbon dioxide (CO₂) being the main driver of climate change.

As a biological species, we humans live in the natural environment called the Earth, which is the space of our interaction with climate. Our existence as a species had long been under the influence of climate change until the Industrial Revolution. What is revolutionary about the Industrial Revolution is that it ushered in a new phase of human history in which we humans have acquired power to influence climate with the kind of activities that relies heavily on the use of energy and technology.

To the extent that human activities are behind climate change that is “widespread, rapid, and intensifying,” the climate crisis that the IPCC report points to is the crisis of civilization that guides our activities as citizens of the world. The crisis of civilization can escalate itself into its destruction and death, for, as Will Durant points out, “Civilization, like life, is a perpetual struggle with death.” (Our Oriental Heritage, Fine Communications, 1997, p.218) Destruction and death come to civilizations, Arnold Toynbee tells us, when they fail to meet changes confronting them: “Civilizations, I believe, come to birth and proceed to grow by successfully responding to successive challenges. They break down and go to pieces if and when a challenge confronts them which they fail to meet.” (Civilization on Trial, Oxford University Press, 1948, p. 56). In fact, it was Arnold Toynbee who predicted as early as 1948 that industrial civilization, or secular Western civilization, which has come to engulf the whole world since the Industrial Revolution, was headed for destruction.

What historians such as Will Durant and Arnold Toynbee are telling us is that civilizations come and go. In fact, the crisis of civilization we face today is far more serious than other crises we have seen in history in that the secular Western civilization Toynbee talks about is global civilization that engulfs every region of the world. The climate crisis in the world today is therefore a global crisis as it is a manifestation of the crisis of global civilization. This is the reason why we will have to address ourselves in earnest to the question of what measures need to be taken by individuals, social groups, nations, and international organizations if we are to avert the crisis of global civilization headed for destruction and death, and start building a new civilization that will maintain a sustainable relationship with the natural environment.

What is civilization in the first place? A simple yet suggestive definition given by Will Durant is: “Civilization is social order promoting cultural creation.” (Our Oriental Heritage, p.1) Durant’s definition suggests that civilization is a social system in which human activities of cultural creation are promoted through maintenance of social order. Note, however, that the pursuit of cultural creation is not possible without proper provision of the basic necessities of life, which comes from economic activities in the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Thus, civilization can best be considered as a social system defined in the space of interaction among the three subsystems of culture, economy, and polity, where culture may be defined as the set of all human activities related to the creation and dissemination of ideas and symbols, economy as the set of all human activities related to the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and service, and polity as the set of all human activities related to the creation and maintenance of laws and regulations for social order. Civilization is an open social system in that it exists in the space of interaction with other social systems and the natural environment.

As an open social system consisting of the three subsystems of culture, economy, and polity, the crisis of civilization comes about when the crisis developed in one subsystem is transmitted to other subsystems, which is bound to happen sooner or later. As for the crisis of global civilization that confronts us today, we can trace it back to the Industrial Revolution when human activities started to be guided by a worldview that treats nature as an instrument that could be exploited for the benefits of humans. That exploitative worldview was transmitted to economy where increasing the material standards of living has become almost the sole purpose of economic activities, and to polity as well where increasing the material standards of living, translated into GDP growth, has been adopted as the mail goal of political activities.

If the climate crisis is the crisis of civilization reflected on all three subsystems, what can we do if we are to avert the crisis from escalating itself into destruction and death of global civilization? It is comforting to see an increasing number of scientists and thinkers, business leaders and policymakers, and concerned citizens around the world who are waking up to, and making suggestions to avert, the climate crisis. Some suggestions are technical like the “carbon dioxide removal” by the IPCC, which removes CO₂ from the atmosphere and stores it in geological, terrestrial, or ocean reservoirs. Some business leaders and policymakers express their support for this IPCC suggestion, as it will expand economic activities—and profit opportunities—for those firms related to the carbon dioxide removal.

The IPCC suggestion actually embodies the engineer’s mentality that sees the possibility of a technical solution to every problem in the world around us. However, the climate crisis has already gone beyond any technical solution, and requires a fundamental change in the worldview that guides human activities in all subsystems of global civilization. It is clear that the worldview that has guided human activities in industrial societies for the last couple of centuries can no longer save global civilization. The kind of worldview we need now is one that will treat the natural environment not as an instrument to be exploited but as a space of constructive and cooperative interaction among all living and non-living systems, including humans. What is needed, in other words, is for all of us to wake up again to the oneness of all things in the universe.