In late October 2013, research was published on the average summer
temperatures over time in the Canadian Arctic. The scientists found from
analyzing deep ice samples and moss only recently freed from the grip of ice
that the average temperatures in the twentieth century were the highest going
back at least 44,000 years to 120,000 years. The most significant warming did
not begin until the 1970s and is particularly striking in the 1992-2012 period.
The most significant implication of the study is that the argument that we are
merely seeing another natural cycle underway can finally be put on ice.
"The key
piece here is just how unprecedented the warming of Arctic Canada is,"
Gifford Miller, one of the study’s scientists, said. "This study really
says the warming we are seeing is outside any kind of known natural
variability, and it has to be due to increased greenhouse gases
in the atmosphere."[1]
Particularly striking is the phrase, “outside of any kind of known natural
variability.” We are in unchartered waters made possible only by melting
glaciers. In other words, we could really get blind-sided.
To get some
perspective on how long the moss had been encased in ice, our species reached Australia
approximately 45,000 years ago. Another 25,000 years earlier (50,000 years after 120,000 years ago!), homo sapiens underwent a cognitive
revolution, which resulted in the “fictive mind.” The sapiens brain had via development from natural selection become capable
of apriori imaginary realities or
ideas. Story-telling in the hunter-gatherer bands (i.e., small groups) no
longer be bound to observable (i.e., empirical) phenomenon. After the
agricultural revolution based on permanent settlements in place of the nomadic
life of the hunter-gatherer, the imaginary ideas of the fictive mind would
enable homo sapiens to get past the
lack of any “hard-wiring”(via thousands of years of natural selection) enabling
members of the species to live in close proximity with many strangers. Larger,
more complex social living groups (e.g., cities, kingdoms, and eventually even
empires) could be formed and maintained through inter-subjective imaginary
ideas.
Perhaps then the
question is whether the human fictive mind will be able to harness enough
coordinated effort and invention to compensate for the non-natural
roller-coaster ride in the twenty-first century.
[1]
Douglas Main, “Arctic
Temperatures Reach Highest Levels in 44,000 Years, Study Finds,” The
Huffington Post, October 24, 2013.