“To get there before it gets us”

Becoming a Type 1 civilisation will eradicate global warming, but how likely are we to get there before it gets us?

First let's look at what a Type 1 civilisation is:

A type 1 civilisation is a type of civilisation on the Kardashev scale- also known as a planetary civilisation. It is defined as a civilisation capable of harnessing all the energy that reaches their home planet (e.g. solar from the sun) and from their home planet (e.g. geothermal, wind etc). Physicists state that a type 1 civilization can control earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis and many more natural disasters. People would even be able to terraform our planet. Terraforming means to transform a territory to resemble the Earth, especially so that it can support human life. Beyond type 1 civilisations are types 2 and type 3, which can harness greater levels of energy.

How would this stop global warming?

Becoming a type 1 civilisation would mean that we’d have complete control over all of Earth’s energy. We could harvest this energy (e.g. from wind, solar, tidal, etc.) and use it in lieu of burning fossil fuels. Burning fossil fuels is detrimental to the environment because it emits harmful gases like carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas that exacerbates global warming). The sulfur dioxide from impurities in the fuel also leads to acid rain. Harvesting energy instead will make energy so accessible that we may not even need to pay for our power bill. 

We would be able to harvest energy from natural disasters like tsunamis and tornados, completely eliminating our need for fossil fuels. We would also be able to harness energy from earthquakes and manipulate the energy to terraform parts of the world so there would be more habitable areas for humans, maximising land use.

Weather control would become a thing of reality as we would be able to disperse rain clouds in areas of drought or drain flooded areas. By using this technology, we could reverse the irregular weather patterns caused by climate change. Being a type 1 civilisation would also mean that we could bring the atmosphere back to carbon neutrality and therefore control the temperature as we would have other ways of obtaining energy. As you can see, becoming a type 1 civilisation would solve most, if not all of our environmental problems.

But how likely are we going to get there before climate change causes humanity’s extinction?

Scientists predict that it will take us 100-200 years to advance towards a type 1 civilisation. 

Let's take a look at what global warming would do to our planet in that time: 

Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist who is the director of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, predicts that we won’t be able to keep Earth’s average temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees celsius—1.7 would be a much more accurate number. However, just looking at the average temperature of Earth isn’t  enough; we will have to look at anomalies or surges in temperature in specific regions. For example, temperatures above freezing are abnormally high for the Arctic, and it is predicted that these anomalies will only continue to grow. Low sea-ice extents will be normal and Greenland will become ice free during the summers by 2050.

More and more unexpected ice shelf collapses will occur, which could potentially result in sudden sea level rise. Even in the best case scenario, oceans will rise 2-3 feet by 2100, rendering 4 million people homeless. Oceans will absorb more carbon dioxide due to heightened concentrations in the atmosphere, which will result in ocean acidification and warming. This means nearly all the coral in the tropics will be bleached and ultimately killed.

Deadly heat waves will become the norm and the number of extreme heat days in the tropics will increase by 50%. These heat waves will put a strain on our water supplies and may cause intense droughts. Storm surges, wildfires, and heat waves are all going to be regular occurrences from 2070 and onwards.

100 years from now, global warming will have caused the death of millions of people and our home– the earth.

But is there still hope?

During these next one hundred years, we could develop carbon capture technology that could potentially allow negative emissions. And during this time, we could also be working towards a Type 1 civilisation. However unlikely these events are, there is hope, no matter how slim, that we could innovate new technology and reverse the damage done to our environment. Having said that, we should still focus on the present in order to save the future, by preventing any more (ir)reversible changes to our planet.