International Journal of Environmental Monitoring and Analysis 2021; 9(4): 104-108 http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/ijema doi: 10.11648/j.ijema.20210904.12 ISSN: 2328-7659 (Print); ISSN: 2328-7667 (Online)

The Unpredictable Critical Threshold in COVID-19 Pandemic and Climate Change

Petre Roman

Department of Hydraulics, Hydraulic Machinery and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Energy Engineering, Politehnica University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania Email address:

To cite this article: Petre Roman. The Unpredictable Critical Threshold in COVID-19 Pandemic and Climate Change. International Journal of Environmental Monitoring and Analysis . Vol. 9, No. 4, 2021, pp. 104-108. doi: 10.11648/j.ijema.20210904.12

Received : June 7, 2021; Accepted : July 19, 2021; Published : July 29, 2021

Abstract: In the real world we are confronted with situations where tiny variations in initial conditions can have major influence on unfolding events within the natural systems. We call it “sensitive dependence on initial conditions”. When predictions are virtually impossible, we have to be capable of detecting in advance the patterns and qualitative features of the natural systems behaviour. But, the moment of truth, unpredictable, can appear in the form of a drastic change, when a critical threshold (tipping point) is reached. It is by no means clear that the dioxide gas accumulation and the greenhouse effect will follow, as of now, a gradually increasing path. More probable we will face, at some not distant point in the near future, a moment when a critical threshold is reached and then, a dramatic and more dangerous change happens. Another example clearly indicates the same tipping unpredictability: a major Antarctic glacier is at risk of disintegrating irreversibly if it passes a key tipping point. The COVID-19 pandemic is the most recent case in point. Within this framework of ideas and concepts a different kind of question is needed: Does humanity have property rights and in the meantime the subject of the present day is global coordination and even more: cultural evolution. Worried about the effects of climate change, we need to remember that every single action within a global system depends for its success on cooperative behaviour. Keywords: Unpredictability, Critical Threshold, Climate Change, COVID-19

fully eliminating uncertainty. Briefly, science appears as the 1. Introduction final sum of a large number, of a multitude of concepts and The present paper is focused on the unpredictability of fundamental laws compatible with unpredictability. natural phenomena and the occurrence of critical thresholds Once confronted with uncertainty, thinking does not fly (tipping points) in the dynamics of natural systems, i.e. freely anymore, but it makes efforts to escape “astonishment” dynamic (nonlinear) systems which are sensitive to the and to develop a strategy. This is the expression of lucidity change of initial conditions. As a result of such sensitivity and of the need of certainty. they develop chaotic behaviour. More specifically, the accidental side of things appears to Unpredictability, namely the lack of absolutely complete be unpredictability itself. Further on, uncertainty appears information, present in the very essence of nature, assumes from unpredictability, once the latter occurs in the heart of limitations, as well, manifested in humans’ projects and nature, while uncertainty exists through the feeling of people, actions, but not in their thinking. Limits induce uncertainty. also perceived at society or community level. Solving uncertainty, a mandatory step in decision-making, Our destiny is manifesting in the struggle with hostile needs a vast and complex image of thinking. uncertainty, a struggle in which the solution does exist; However, science is not about certainty. All we have are however, this lies by no means in ignorance. “I will not only provisional pieces of truth. Consequently, one should permit hazard to judge me ”, stated Seneca; “luck involves no get accustomed to uncertainty and unpredictability. moral judgement ”. The master of the unknown is the poet of As a matter of fact, science advances, always under uncertainty. uncertainty, towards more profound knowledge, yet without Sensitive dependence on initial conditions serves not to 105 Petre Roman: The Unpredictable Critical Threshold in COVID-19 Pandemic and Climate Change

destroy but to create. Chaos, for instance, doesn’t respond to unpredictability. The weather is a case in point. a particular line of a scientific discipline; chaos seems to be The well-known cases are those of disruptive phenomena everywhere. like storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunami, heat waves, Deterministic systems could generate . There torrential rains and even the outbreak of virus epidemics like is a limit on how much initial information can be gathered. the Covid-19 these days. Intriguingly, the chaotic behaviour of simple dynamic “ requires perfect knowledge of the Universe systems act as a creative process. and exact laws of nature” says James Gleick [3]. The causes A natural system displays an average behaviour for a long of random events are physically determined but so numerous period of time and then, for no apparent reason it shifts into a and complex that they (the events) are unpredictable. very different behaviour. It is a new average but it could be “Instead of predictability, there is chaos” . It doesn’t mean chaotic. that there is no order whatsoever in the natural system; there A well-defined scientific discipline aims to the resolution is interaction between order and randomness [see 4 & 5], not of well-defined problems. The nonlinear nature of natural a straightforward one though. We should add what Kurt systems (or economic, biological, chemical or even social) Gödel proved in 1931, that there must be truths, that is, makes the task of coping with unpredictable events much statements that can never be proved. [6] more complex. Assembling a lot of information is the Science is not about certainty. Human knowledge itself is response to the sensitivity to initial conditions and it has to be not certain. We can have only provisional truths. Therefore, an interdisciplinary effort. we need to reach an accommodation with uncertainty and The purpose of my work in the last two years (I wrote a unpredictability. The words of Bertrand Russell need to be book “Unpredictability&Decision” , published this year, remembered: “ Uncertainty in the presence of vivid hopes is 2021, in Romanian) is to show that the impact of painful, but must be endured...to teach how to live without unpredictability on decisional thinking could be, or even certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation, is should be, analyzed from a variety of scientific perspectives: perhaps the chief thing” [7]. physics of the natural environment, logic of mathematics, It means that uncertainty and unpredictability should not logic of truth, quantum mechanics, economics, neurosciences, be defined in terms of the lack of something positive or better. psychology and philosophy. Although such a diverse Thinking does shine when it works in the area that “ lies interdisciplinarity is difficult to grasp, not to mention the between too much certainty and too much doubt ”. [8] intent to wield several courses of scientific thinking into the The came some years ago to rescue our process of economic decision-making, it is necessary to natural propensity to predict behaviour of the natural systems. remember that under conditions of uncertainty and disorder While we cannot attach precise values of their variables at a we do not have models of quantitative prediction of the particular time, we can predict qualitative features of the outcomes; we are, then, strongly interested in the patterns system’s behaviour. The shift from quantity and formulas to and qualitative features of the dynamics of the situations we quality and pattern is in the meantime a shift to an essential are confronted with. way of thinking with practical consequences to the present human activity. 2. Unpredictability and Order While humans are able to change the natural conditions – and in doing so they have a strong impact on climate – it In physics, including that of the atmosphere or oceans, the would be impossible to determine what climate would have random events may arise from the deeply complex dynamics. done otherwise. The events cannot be predicted under the Henri Poincaré [1] left us a famous phrase: " Chance is only sensitive dependence on initial conditions; nevertheless, they the measure of our ignorance ", because, he said, " Fortuitous can be explained. This became the conventional wisdom of phenomena are by definition those whose laws we do not business as well as political leaders. There lies probably the know". The essential question which derives from this exponential growth of public relations. definition is how the unpredictable events can be harnessed Policies meant to mitigate the consequences of climate for the applications with the greatest impact on the real world. change should be tools to make possible changes in the In the real world we are confronted with situations where tiny society, i.e., to set the foundation of global decisions which variations in initial conditions can have major influence on aim at sustainable development conditions to prevail. unfolding events within the natural systems. We call it When predictions are virtually impossible, we have to be “sensitive dependence on initial conditions”. It was capable of detecting in advance the patterns and qualitative demonstrated by Edward Lorenz in 1963. [2] His conclusion, features of the natural systems behaviour. And such attempts based on a computer simulation of the dynamics of the are not easy. indicated, in 1967, that for weather, was that long term weather prediction is impossible. any problem we try to solve using the methods of building Before him, in the late 19 th century, the Russian models of physics “ we noticed everyday more that by mathematician Aleksandr Lyapunov, invented the exponential adapting these methods to a new context, we ended up with numbers which describe the sensitivity of a system to its results of extremely different form ” [9]. For instance, all the starting point. If a situation can be accurately predicted, it has predictions of the global economic and financial behaviour a of 0. Above that threshold of zero lies failed to signal the dramatic 2008 crisis. International Journal of Environmental Monitoring and Analysis 2021; 9(4): 104-108 106

3. The Critical Threshold in the Natural grounds -the situation we registered then in the Danube River, one of the largest natural bodies on the planet, we can Phenomena imagine the same type of dynamics of the present climate In January this year (2020), the Davos Economic Forum change. It is by no means clear that the dioxide gas organizer, Klaus Schwab, told the press: “ We do not want to accumulation and the greenhouse effect will follow, as of reach the critical tipping point of the irreversibility of climate now, a gradually increasing path. More probable we will face, change. ” This statement, which seems to me to be at the at some not distant point in the near future, a moment when a opposite of the “ Davos spirit ” which prevailed in many critical threshold (tipping point) is reached and then, a previous years, implies that we know when the tipping point dramatic and more dangerous change happens. Another might occur. Well, we don’t. It’s unpredictable. example clearly indicating the same tipping point feature was On the same line of thought, President Trump said that recently published in New Scientist [11], presenting the “fear and doubt are not a good thought process ”. I think the conclusions of scientific studies on the unpredictability of the doubt itself, regarding the geological and anthropogenic melting of crucial glaciers. A major Antarctic glacier is at risk evolution of the Earth, should be an obligatory element of the of disintegrating irreversibly if it passes a key tipping point. thought process. Our faith in the strengths of facts is the A domestic glacier retreat could let water get under the ice foundation of our rationality, guiding the progress of and thus collapse the entire ice sheet, leading to more than 3 civilization. meters of sea level rise, over a long period of time. We may Climate optimists believe that nature's resilience is (almost) be closer than we thought to Earth’s dangerous tipping points. unbreakable and, as a consequence, the damages inflicted to “It’s highly likely that things might happen over a quicker the natural environment by human activities are very limited. period of time” says the study. Their optimism is based on their impression that the damages are gradual and very often are also invisible. But, the moment 4. Does Humanity Have Property Rights of truth, unpredictable, can appear in the form of a drastic change, when a critical threshold (tipping point in the A recent result [12] of the investigation on the ice core American terminology) is reached. records from the Himalayas aimed at understanding the onset From my own experience as a scientist in the field of and timing of the human impact of the atmosphere of the hydrology and environmental quality, I can bring a specific “roof of the world”. In 1997, at the altitude of 8013 meters, example [10]. the research team extracted three ice core samples measuring In 1975, an ample yearly program of sampling and 150 meters depth. The successive layers of snow revealed the hydrodynamic measurements was initiated in order to information from the past, as if they were tree rings; from the determine the quality of Danube water all along the 1075 km year 1499 to the present day (~500 years). Until 1780, the of the Romanian sector, from the discharge of the Nera River composition of the samples, determined with the latest into the Danube, at the frontier with Serbia, and downstream techniques of investigation, showed only traces of metals of up until the discharge of the Danube into the Black Sea. I led natural origin. the hydrological research, and together with my colleagues, The results from 1780 onward suggest a strong chemists and biologists, we took samples of water and contamination with toxic metals (augmented factors of 2 to 6) simultaneously measured the speed and location of dozens of which was the consequence of the combustion of coal, likely from the Western Europe during the first Industrial points of the dozens of sections selected along the 1075 km th of the Danube. To our great surprise, we found that in 76% of Revolution in the 19 century. the samples, the water quality was not just good; the water In the last 50 years the samples indicate more specifically was drinkable. We could see people on the shore taking water traces of lead which obviously originates in the combustion from the Danube and drinking it. We were amazed, but they of vehicle’s engines. In the meantime, the study detected particles emitted by knew better. Ten years later, in 1985, on the order of the then th President of the National Council for Science and the massive deforestation of the 19 century, made not by Technology, Elena Ceaușescu, the dictator’s wife, the whole logging but by burning the forests. program of research was cancelled. But in that year, we Western Europe lost 19 million hectares of forest, Russia found that from 76% of drinkable water, the quality another 33 million, and Romania nearly two million. dramatically went down to 33%. What happened in those ten On average, in a European country today, the emission of years? CO 2 per year and per person is about 14 tonnes, while a tree The most probable explanation would be that a critical absorbs on average 22 kilograms per year. The balance is threshold was reached, beyond which the low grading of the achieved if every person would plant approximately 680 trees water quality went from gradual to drastic. The Danube has per year. It certainly exceeds the real possibility of using this resisted “heroically” the assaults of the massive pollution method to mitigate the carbon imprint. But by the inflicted by the big European cities (Vienna, Bratislava, development of an ample reforestation program (in Romania, Budapest, Belgrade) until its capacity of self-purification was for instance, there are more than 1 million hectares of doomed. degraded land) we could probably achieve an essential result: By transposition - acceptable (at least) on scientific delaying significantly the occurrence of the critical threshold 107 Petre Roman: The Unpredictable Critical Threshold in COVID-19 Pandemic and Climate Change

in the climate change. definitions of property rights. Today, under the huge stress imposed by the COVID-19 Adam Smith was probably the first and certainly the most pandemic, it became clear, once more, that the exit strategy important economist to consider the fact that ethics play an should be a global effort since no country has a monopoly on important role in economics. He expressed it by the fact that science. In this context I want to refer briefly to the ability of supply curves and demand curves depend on convictions and scientific expertise to guide governmental policies. It is commitments that are fundamentally ethical in nature. important to understand what are the real limits of treating In another kind of approach, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen the huge array of data which presumably should be correlated stresses that [14, 15], "the true economic process is not a in order to offer a valuable response to the many questions material flow of waste, but an immaterial flux: the enjoyment underpinning the strategy elaboration. Unweaving the true of life” and that: “the complete data of any economic connection between cause and effect is crucial. The problem problem must also include cultural propensities (of the is to correctly distinguish correlation from causation. A great people)” ; and also “if we deny the people’s capacity for deal of scientific practice is based on using statistical tools. empathy, then our exercise doesn’t have any meaning”. (A Data and correlation are essential to indicate which method, detailed economic and mathematical analysis of the same is among several different ones, lead to good results. But it presented in [16]). doesn’t mean that we know why or how to improve the Whenever we attempt to resolve conflicting claims, we try methods. As the scientists say, we need to have a causal to avoid unexpected decisions or outcomes. And the understanding. Science without causality doesn’t make sense. decisions we take within an economic system depend As a matter of fact, intervening on the cause will change the crucially on the property rights which were established and effect, but not vice versa. We are always seeking to improve are accepted by the society. Let’s remember that property decision-making and that necessarily leads to understanding rights create expectations which, on one hand, are very the cause-effect sequence. So, every leader in the world important in shaping economic decisions but, on the other should ask: if I were to do this, how would the world change, hand, are confronted with the uncertainty of decision making not just my country and my people. The COVID-19 and unpredictable events. pandemic is the most recent case in point while better Within this framework of ideas and concepts a different understanding climate change is increasingly important for kind of question is needed: Does humanity have property the future of humanity. The global science effort today is to rights? get a causal picture of biosphere and atmosphere interactions. It is absolutely clear that the market forces cannot temper These interactions have potentially dramatic consequences the perturbations and negative effects in the dynamics of for our plans to tackle the global health problems and climate climate; on the contrary, as a rule, they amplify them. Who change effects. Urgency demands patience. then will take care of the property rights of humanity on the In the functioning of democracy there is rational ignorance. path of harmonious conviviality with the planet? Voters do not need to know all the aspects of political, The subject of the present day is global coordination and economic and social life to vote. They do have a clear idea of even more: cultural evolution. Worried about the effects of their own expectations. In the functioning of politics today climate change, we need to remember that every single action we can observe political decisions which often indicate within a global system depends for its success on cooperative irrational ignorance, in the sense that political leaders do not behaviour. There are still dramatic gaps between the reality want to know more because- they believe - it is useless. And of unpredictable climate dynamics and the expectations and they are wrong; at least because they ignore that we live in a state of confidence of the people. Governments should take world where both the expectations and the degree of steps to close the gaps. confidence of the people, in many areas of the world, are situated at very low levels compared to not-so-distant times 5. Conclusion in the past. The cumulative interaction of the state of confidence with people’s expectations at any moment can When you can't say what a system is going to do next you transform small disorders or disturbances of the “rules of the are confronting a situation of unpredictability which just game” into major events with a tendency to break the generates uncertainty and disorder. existing systems. We can see already that the economy and A system normally functioning represents the routine, an the political systems are increasingly under the influence of ordered and hierarchized assembly, settled for its scheduled climate change but it seems they do not seem to master operation. Uncertainty results from changes in the context or strong enough stabilizing forces. in the data usually employed. This means a new state-of-the- Let’s use property rights as an example. To the economists, art, created by a change produced beyond our reach. property rights mean something similar to the “rules of the Modification of the normal condition is imposed by game”. “Property rights are rights to control the way in uncertainty, which forces the decision: either changing in the which particular resources will be used and to assign the system, or changing of the system itself. The decisional resulting costs and benefits ” and “Property rights create transformation of the system, not only for the sake of expectations. Expectations guide actions. ” [13] And I think adaptation but, possibly, for qualitative improvement, is that in our present world there is a demand for new either very important, if it means transformation in the International Journal of Environmental Monitoring and Analysis 2021; 9(4): 104-108 108

system, or decisive, if it transforms the system. [3] James Gleick, “The Unpredictable Nature of Dynamic th A qualitatively new system, transformed from the old one, Systems” , essay in Gakushu.org, 18 May 2011. demonstrates not only what the old one used to demonstrate, [4] Petre Roman, "Aération naturelle des écoulements à surface but also its own stability. An absolutely new system needs a libre”, PhD thesis , Paul Sabatier University of Toulouse, different consistency. France, 18th of March 1974, introduction and page 96. Transformation is transitional for assuring the system's [5] Paul Manneville and co-authors, “ Le Chaos”- théorie et stability and competitiveness. The change produced by a new expérience, Collection du Commissariat à L'Energie Atomique, uncertainty comes from something having occurred in the Editions Eyrolles, 1988, pp. 83, 89-90, 117, 129, 285-287. past, and yet it is a novelty. Instead, the change induced by [6] Kurt Gödel, “On Formally Undecidable Propositions of decision becomes the – partial or total – future. Principia Mathematica and Related Systems I” , Collected Thinking is a free game of the mind, which operates with Works, Univ. Press, Oxford, 1986, pag. 145. ideas, without the obligation of proving something. By their very nature, human beings are manifested in a daily attitude [7] Bertrand Russell, “Logic and Knowledge: Essays”, Routledge, London, 1956, pag. 339. which includes beliefs, judgements, opinions and theories about the world's reality and its full significance (as complete [8] David Malone, “Can we learn to love uncertainty?” New as possible, as a function of the available data). A Scientist, 4 th of August 2017, pag. 46. phenomenological attitude involves distancing from this [9] Benoit Mandelbrot, “Sur l'épistémologie du hasard dans les “natural” posture, a categorical refusal of illusions and of sciences sociales”, in vol.” Logique et connaissance “bright” perspectives, alongwith assuming the concern for scientifique, Editions Gallimard, 1967 , p. 1112. providing proofs and for rigour, for a permanent need of [10] “The Study of the Danube Water Quality in the Romanian observing and accepting stratification, limpidity and Sector”, Petre Roman, Emil Gruia, Simona Marcoci, concreteness, all these accompanied by the feeling that all we Gheorghe Panaitescu, Research Report no. 213, ICPGA-IPB, have at hand is a never-failing source of information. In this 1975-1985. way, one will never be confined by either interpretation [11] “We may be closer than we thought to Earth’s dangerous patterns, various prejudices or language. We know that logic tipping points”, New Scientist Environment, 23 November operates with the language, and also that both philosophers 2019 and “ Antarctica’s Doomsday glacier is melting”, New and mathematicians felt an absolute need of fully and Scientist Environment, 15 January 2020. definitely formalizing the expression of thinking into [12] “Early atmospheric contamination on top of the Himalayas language. since the onset of the European Industrial Revolution”, Paolo People have a natural propensity to want and to expect to Gabrielli and others, Proceedings of the NAS of the USA, live in an intelligible, comprehensible world. And yet, which February 2020. would be the reason for which, or in what manner could one [13] Paul Heyne, “ The Economic Way of Thinking ”, MacMillan plainly declare that “I know”? Publishing Company, New York, 1987, pag. 233. Indeed, we permanently and eternally harbour in us both the strive for an intrinsic cohesion of the world, and the [14] Nicholas Georgescu - Roegen, “The Entropy Law and the Economic Process”, compulsive limits of our knowledge. Cambridge University Press, Mass, 1971, pp. 211-231. [15] Nicholas Georgescu - Roegen, “The Entropy Law and the References Economic Problem” , Vanderbilt University, 1972, pp. 1-16. [1] Henri Poincaré, “Science et Méthode", chap. 4, Le Hasard'', [16] Thierry de Montbrial, “Thermodynamique et Économie", in Editions Flammarion, 1908, page. 68. “Sadi Carnot et l’essor de la thermodynamique” , Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1976, pp. 321- [2] Edward Lorenz, “Deterministic nonperiodic flow” , Journal of 338. Atmospheric Sciences, 1963, pag. 131-141.