Reply to Kelman: The foundations for studying catastrophic climate risks

We appreciate Dr. Kelman’s contribution “Connecting Disciplines and Decades”’ (1) in response to “Climate Endgame”’ (2). We naturally agree with Dr. Kelman that exploring catastrophic climate scenarios is vital, neglected, and possible. We further agree that exploring catastrophic climate scenarios requires interdisciplinary work informed by existing research. There is a rich history to draw on when studying catastrophic climate risks. Kelman highlights some of these, but there are deeper and broader roots. In sociology, there is not only Perrow’s normal accidents theory but also the concept of the risk society (3). In statistics, the pertinent area of extreme value theory underwent intensive development in the 1920s and can trace a longer lineage to the 18th century (4). Historical exploration of societal collapse and transformation dates to at least the 18th century as well (5), with a blossoming literature after the 1980s. While many of these ideas are relevant to the study of extreme climate risks, few look at the outcome of human extinction. Attention to this emerged namely post-1954 in the wake of the Castle Bravo nuclear test (6). Systematic scholarly work largely began in the 1990s with John Leslie’s 1996 The End of the World (7).