Humanity is committing mass suicide.
The IPCC has released their latest Code Red climate change report. The world is facing a massive climate crisis, which is the understatement of the century.
‘Code Red for Humanity’: IPCC Report Warns Window for Climate Action Is Closing Fast
Below is a chart from the BBC of what we can expect in less than 50 years. Already, 1.5 degrees of warming by 2030 is basically locked in. Two degrees by 2050 or earlier. Three degrees by – well, nevermind – 3 degrees and it’s all over. We cannot survive this.
Despite all the scientific evidence for the existential threats of climate change, which has now morphed into a crisis and an emergency, there are still people going ahead with things like pipelines (See Line 3 Story in Minnesota – Protesters now being arrested and even shot with rubber bullets) and more drilling in the newly-melted Arctic. Has humanity lost its collective mind?
This is no longer debatable. Something VERY BIG by big wealthy governments must be done as soon as possible. Yesterday. This is a problem far beyond what we can do individually. People can’t drive EVs if they can’t afford them, and what good would that do anyway if they are still charged by fossil fuel power. People can’t install solar power if the local power companies are fighting them and making everything incredibly expensive. People are not going to spend their life savings on solar panels and an EV, especially during this time period when so many people may have to literally move to escape fires and hurricanes. We need our entire electrical grids rebuilt to use nothing but clean power, and “clean power” does not include any fossil fuels. No natural gas. No diesel. This all takes governments, and it takes big amounts of money.
Can we get to where we need to be in less than 10 years? I don’t think we can. I don’t even think we can get there in 20 years. After the Trump election and January 6th coup attempt I no longer have any faith in Americans and their ability to be rational. I’m not sure about other countries, but America is a country half full of uneducated, certifiably insane people who would rather see this country destroyed by a crazy, violent man than do anything constructive to improve things. They don’t even want to be vaccinated against a deadly disease. Irrational, cowardly people are not going to solve any actual problems.
The non-insane can’t really do an end-run around them and get things done that need to be done (like putting 10 trillion into mitigating climate change in various ways) unless our whole political system changes, and there is no evidence of that ever happening, unless you count changing for the worse.
I don’t mind President Biden, I think it was necessary that he was elected, but he’s also someone who really loves how things are done as they are, and he has a reverence for the rules of the Senate and the government as a whole. That reverence will impede any progress to break it down and redo our politics in a way that will work for solving climate change (and other things like voting rights). Support for the status quo is going to kill us all. Big money in politics is already killing us. Biden talks a lot about climate change, and has done some positive things in that area, but he does not have the political will to do what is necessary. I don’t think anyone in power right now anywhere does. Yet I have heard positive climate change “we can do it!” talk for 15 years or more and it continues. But look where we are. Things are worse than ever.
So I guess the bottom line is be aware of what’s happening and make some plans to save what you can of your own life. I’m going to move. Not sure where to yet, but staying where I live now seems unwise. I think a lot of Americans will be moving, and a lot of non-Americans will be moving, and that will create other problems of its own. Like most people, I have no “survivalist” skills other than what I picked up camping, and that won’t be enough to survive climate chaos.
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its landmark report on global heating on Monday, which showed that greenhouse gas emissions needed to be halved to limit heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – a target that was included in the Paris Agreement only after sustained lobbying by Pacific island leaders.
“In the Arctic, the rate of sea ice loss is currently tracking just below that for 2012 and 2020, the two worst years for ice loss, as per the National Snow and Ice Data Center’s records. Indeed, the record melting rate of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets is in line with worst-case scenarios as outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the climate science arm of the United Nations (UN).
In the Amazon, regarded as the globe’s largest carbon sink, the frantic rate of deforestation and wildfire damage has resulted in a terrifyingly paradoxical scenario: Parts of the rainforest now release more carbon than they store, according to a recent study in Nature.
When Even the Conservative IEA Sounds an Alarm on Climate, the World Must Listen
In the days after the new IPCC report, the media has already moved on to other things. Something else has occurred: the cable news pundits are asking if we should all just give up and move to Mars. Excuse me? Is Mars suddenly habitable? For those unaware of the conditions on Mars – no, it’s actually not habitable. We can’t live there. We also can’t live on the Moon. So just shelve those idiotic ideas. We need to keep the Earth habitable.
And sadly, one day is all that human-induced planet-wide climate change suicide warrants in US media – a day or two, 10 minutes at the end of a cable news show, and some mentions here and there when talking about fires. Then it’s on to hours and hours of analysis about misogynist pig sexual abuser Andrew Cuomo’s long-overdue resignation. Cave men like him have always existed. They don’t deserve our time or consideration. Just keep them out of power. Is that so hard? Yes, apparently, it is. We can’t even do that.
Sorry everyone, the outlook is not good.
