Sacks
on our Heads
Americans
(and Germans probably pictured above) are amazingly sanguine about the Climate Crisis as compared to people
in other responsible countries. While we are the greatest emitter per person and the second greatest per person in total behind China, we
are number twelve in terms of concern. (The chart below
excludes China, Russia and Iran, all high emitters.)
July
21 and 22 were back to back the hottest
two days ever recorded, yet it wasn't even a lead story on the
key US online news sources (NY Times, Wash Post, LA Times). So much
is happening in terms of weird bad dangerous weather that people (and
MSM editors) have become blasé. Climate change related bad news has
become just another ho hum every-thing-is-getting-worse news item.
Many Americans have simply given up worrying about it - if they ever
did. Also one's political views play a role especially in the US. If politically on
the right especially if having contracted MAGAitis,
people are in moderate to full denial regarding human responsibility for climate change . But even those who are concerned are
experiencing 'distress fatigue' along with what could be termed
'distraction syndrome'. And underlying it all is a sense of
powerlessness.
For
right wingers in the US climate related disasters - mega-fires, 1,000 year
floods, more Cat 5 hurricanes and tornadoes, long term droughts are
just some other poor fucker's bad luck – like traffic accidents or
being picked off in a mass shooting. Yet ever more distressing data
keeps pouring in re: CO2 levels increases, ocean acidfication, coral
reef loss, glacial melt rates, cessation of the warming currents
affecting Europe, increases in extinctions and so on. Apparently for nearly
half (45%) of the US population it is just part of the regular
(mostly bad) news cycle. As per the chart above degrees of denial range from disengagement,
to doubts about science, to full-on dismissiveness. That 45% figure coincides
with support for the now dangerously reactionary, anti-science fully
Trumpized GOP.
Globally
politicians in leadership positions (prime ministers, presidents and
such) must first do what they can to keep their always teetering economies afloat or they
might be bumped out. So they all only pay lip service to the climate
change issue grave as it is and only take baby steps in terms of real
change. But they always send delegates to the annual
United Nations Climate Change Conferences, more commonly known as
COP(_). COPs come up with much promising and posturing but nothing
really changes the grim upward climb of greenhouse gases. There is
always lots of upbeat talk about more sustainable of this and that
promising technologies with blissful aspirations, but precious few solid
commitments. So things just keep getting worse as we blow past
targeted barriers and move ever closer to some deadly tipping point.
The US and China are both making some limited measurable progress. In the US C02 is down
by 11% from 2005. And China now produces inexpensive solar panels and EVs. But much more needs to be done here to even reach the our goal
of 50% reduction by 2030; made more difficult now that the Supreme
Court has
limited the authority of all federal agencies including the
Environmental Protection Agency.
There
is abundant research and information available from concerned
researchers and activists globally. For instance the Collapse
Chronicles is
a newsletter
that comes out every day. This is from the July 27 edition. In it
was a from a paper by William H.Rees. It is an excellent concise
summation of what we face and how deeply embedded this problem is and
how shallow are our simplistic diagnosis and proposed remedies.
The
human enterprise is in overshoot; we exceed the long-term carrying
capacity of Earth and are degrading the biophysical basis of our own
existence. Despite decades of cumulative evidence, the world
community has failed dismally in efforts to address this problem. I
argue that cultural evolution and global change have outpaced
bio-evolution; despite millennia of evolutionary history, the human
brain and associated cognitive processes are functionally obsolete to
deal with the human eco-crisis. H.
sapiens tends
to respond to problems in simplistic, reductionist, mechanical ways.
Simplistic diagnoses lead to simplistic remedies. Politically
acceptable technical ‘solutions’ to global warming assume fossil
fuels are the problem, require major capital investment and are
promoted on the basis of profit potential, thousands of well-paying
jobs and bland assurances that climate change can readily be
rectified. If successful, this would merely extend overshoot.
Complexity demands a systemic approach; to address overshoot requires
unprecedented international cooperation in the design of coordinated
policies to ensure a socially-just economic contraction, mostly in
high-income countries, and significant population reductions
everywhere. The ultimate goal should be a human population in the
vicinity of two billion thriving more equitably in ‘steady-state’
within the biophysical means of nature.
Below
is a chart showing our collective global failure to date.
And
then there is food. Kind of important, right? This
from the David Wallace-Wells in NY Times (7/28/24):
..NASA
calls it “the challenge of our generation” - how to save the food
system from what he calls a “quadruple squeeze.” First, the
problem of productivity and hunger. Second, the risk to ecosystems,
under threat from fertilizer runoff deforestation and other
pollution. Third, the challenge of nutritional deficiency, as those
foods we are growing more of are generally getting worse for us over
time. And finally climate, which is driving a “fundamental change
across most breadbaskets on the planet,” he says. “It’s pretty
complicated,” he admits. “And the scary part is that we have to
solve them all.”
A
final word
Before
this climate catastrophe unwinds any further, first and foremost we
have to prevent the head-up-their-asses quasi-fascist political
opportunists like the Trump 'n Vance tag team and their wholly owned
subsidiary, the GOP, from commandeering the Presidency and putting
their idiotic retrogressive and Handmaiden's Tale 2025 vision in
place. If that can be prevented, the entire US
political establishment must be redirected away from business as
usual.
The US Democratic party with its moribund 20th century
warfare Keynesism and geopolitical pissing contests with other
thermonuclear armed adversaries must be stopped. Their weak tea lip
service to this world-historical crisis and their slow walking fossil
fuel tolerant approach must be wound down. We need to get serious,
otherwise our gooses are cooked - literally .
