The Glacial Wave

Last weekend, I took a hike with my family. We explored a beautiful spot across the Connecticut River from our home in Middletown. The trail we took, after many ups and downs (mostly downs on the way), eventually brought us to the bank of the river. It was calming to look out over the large placid river, particularly as there were no other hikers, boaters, or anyone but us around. The spot we sat wasn’t pretty or comfortable—just a tiny grey rocky spot a foot above the water level—no bench, not even a flat stone to sit on, but, with the view, that discomfort didn’t matter.

But after 15 minutes of sitting or so, a large motor boat cruised by—one of those that makes American feel like they own the world, even if it costs them thousands of dollars a year to maintain and they probably only use it a handful of times. It was far from us, maybe three pool lengths, in the center of the river and it was going fast—not roaring fast but moving quickly. Part of my brain knew that its wake would disrupt our calm spot but it took far longer than I expected—long enough that I started to let down my guard and doubt my initial concern.

But when the wave finally arrived, it really arrived. A few ripples at first, and then suddenly waves washing over, and eventually inundating, the rocks we were sitting on.

Luckily we had gotten up or our feet would’ve been soaked. After that, our serene moment was over, and off we went, climbing the trail back up to the trailhead.

The memory of that experience came back to me this week as I read a new study in Nature: Communications Earth & Environment. The study finds that if we want to keep the polar ice sheets stable, the world will have to keep temperature rises to 1°C or less. 1.5°C and even 1.2°C is too much, and if sustained, “is likely to generate several metres of sea-level rise over the coming centuries.” This, as the authors note, would cause “extensive loss and damage to coastal populations,” and “catastrophic inland migration.”¹

Over centuries.² That’s a long time. Long enough that we can ignore this warning and go about our business (like we do, warning after warning). Worse, as we may have societal breakdown before then—a disruption where the institutional knowledge that the wave is coming is lost, or where we can no longer afford to pay attention to slow-moving climatic changes because we’re dealing with storm, after fire, after drought, after political and economic crisis—so that when the ripples finally do hit the shore, the peoples affected may be completely unprepared.

And unlike my little family of three, where we could stand up and quickly relocate when our little wave came, coastal residents in the cities they occupy will not be so nimble or easily moved.

What’s my point, other connecting a personal anecdote and a scary study for folksy effect? We inhabit a weird moment in time,³ when we should be doing our damnedest to keep temperatures below 1°C, making radical economic, cultural, political, and demographic changes collectively to save our one and only home. But we’re not. And there’s a high probability that we won’t.⁴ So we must also start cultivating ways to keep this knowledge alive throughout the disruption ahead. How can we pass on the wisdom that building on the coast is not safe? Particularly when that might be the easiest place to rebuild?

People have experimented with different ways in the past. For example, in Japan there are large “tsunami stones” that warn people to not build below a certain level and to seek higher ground after earthquakes to avoid potential tsunamis. There are “hunger stones” too, that warn residents that if the water shrinks to this level there will be famine. During the extreme drought that affected Central Europe in 2018, one was revealed in the Elbe River warning residents, “If you see me, you will weep.”

These may be useful, but as important (if not more) will be an oral tradition—passing this information on person to person, like Joana Macy suggests with nuclear guardians. Perhaps they’re one in the same: Sustainability Sages (or perhaps more simply, “Gaian Monks”) who can pass on all types of key sustainability wisdom over and over, town after town, generation after generation, so our same civilization-ending mistakes aren’t made again and again and again. But unlike famine and tsunamis, the meters-high wave from the ice sheets’ disappearing has yet to happen, has not happened in thousands of years of civilizational memory and is being intentionally ignored so that our collective picnic isn’t spoiled. How do we warn people of future threats that are generations away?

Endnotes

1) Truthfully, this is not new information. Experts have been warning that the ice sheets are untenable, but what is new is the downwardly-revised temperature level, and the openly urgent tone of the article. The lead author even said this to CNN: “Limiting warming to 1.5 will be a major achievement. It should absolutely be our target, but in no sense will it slow or stop sea level rise and melting ice sheets.”

2) Though with our current climate trajectory of 2.5-2.9°C, a fewer number of centuries, or perhaps less than one.

3) Perhaps in that moment where the waves are far off, or perhaps in the moment of the first ripple, where it still doesn’t seem like such a big deal (just four inches over three decades) and isn’t anything to get flustered about.

4) As Tom Prugh explores next week!