Editor’s Note: Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of geophysical & climate hazards at University College London and author of “Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide.”
There are way too many things going to shit on this planet to single out one that I should be terrified about. It’s just a homogenous gray mass of terror wherever I look.
Okay but… this is the one that legit may end human habitation on this planet. Ukraine, Gaza, even “but muh economy” and world-wide slavery all kinda pale by comparison.
The difference is that this “may end”, while Ukraine and Gaza are killing lots of innocents.
Also, we have the technological means to stop this one if we really want to. We just don’t want to.
Aerosol spraying for $1B a year can buy time.
Spending $100B a year for a decade on nuclear power plants built to Chinese/Korean safety standards in addition to current spending on solar, wind and electrification can stop our emissions in two decades.
Which is why it is good that this author is writing this article. We must fight apathy against climate change.
And there should be capacity to do multiple things at once - e.g. lessen dependence upon Chinese computer chip manufacturing and curb Russian aggression for a fraction of the cost that it would have been later after it succeeded in conquering Ukraine and set some kind of limit on giving billions of aid to eliminate people living in Gaza and do some kind of absolute bare minimum effort to save the planet from our abuses of it.
The heating alone would do that, yes. It’s the knock-on effects. As CO2 rises, the ocean slowly acidifies. As the ocean increasingly acidifies, oxygen producing lifeforms (approximately 70% of the oxygen we consume is produced in the ocean) increasingly die out. The Amazon Rainforest (a large producer of oxygen on land) is on fire. What will we breathe? It’s an ecological apocolypse, not merely from getting hot (which your comment seriously underestimates the direct effects of) but from the previously mentioned oxygen crash, and hundreds of other effects that we know about and can reliably predict.
edit: some light reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
DarkNightoftheSoul already helpfully answered that (with link attribution!:-) but I did want to add that I never said that it would - I said that it may, as in in the absolute worst case scenario. By comparison, the ending of a nation, like Ukraine, Russia, the USA, or China, pales by comparison, given how on the other side we are talking something affecting all human habitation on the planet, with the worst case scenario possible being to bring it to an end, though even if that doesn’t happen there will be other effects. Like for one, perhaps no more coffee or chocolate, which historically were grown closer rather than farther from those equatorial zones that you mentioned. Even if the thought of billions of deaths doesn’t motivate us, at the very least the thought of losing our cafe mocha lattes should!
this is the one that legit may end human habitation on this planet
You mind linking some source for that? Even the worst predictions I’ve ever seen only talk about some millions of excess deaths. I’ve never heard a credible person explaining how climate change is going to be a civilization ending event.
The problem is the fucking dinosaurs running our politics and voting for fellow dinosaurs. Our 80 year old president and the congress/senate with an average age around 60 (with those in high positions generally being well above that age) is dooming us all. Their clinging to power with opinions formed a half century ago doom everyone. The fact that the most effective way to get them out is their literal death is why nothing gets done.
Their age is less relevant than the way money corrupts politics. The owning class gets to decide who we can vote for through their donations. The parties are entrenched and captured by corporate interest. The only sure way to end such corruption is revolution. The temporary solution is massive taxation.
The problem is not the age, but their political agenda. Replace them with younger people with the same terrible agenda (there are more people like that than you imagine), and nothing will change. Replace them with people following a good political agenda and things will improve, no matter any of the characteristics of those people. With all the respect, you’re just being ageist there.
sure age may be a small factor but the main cause is bad politics, focussing on age is a divisive distraction https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/ep-167-the-attractive-anti-politics-of-gerontocracy-discourse
Politics has always been this way, b/c of human nature. e.g., look at Rome - surely that worked out well for them? :-P
History has taught me that human beings, just like every other animal on the planet, are creatures that are born from complete chaos and our very (chaotic) nature will doom whatever great city we build. There will always be a Napoleon to stand in the mirror and say, “Look at you, big guy! You hold the whole world in your hands. It is just waiting for your command, so that it may bend to your will. You’re the best! You’re going down in history, son!”
Big egos seek power. Big egos are corrupt by their very nature. We need folks to take command in order to survive, and those confident assholes can get us in line easily, every time.
But hey, if the whole world was like me we’d never get anything done. There would be no wheel. Why do that when I got two feet and I’m very comfortable with walking? There would be no money. You give me meat, I’ll give you berry. No running water. I mean, the creek runnin’ ain’t it?
Power and prestige won’t ever go away. Maybe we’ll get lucky and prestige will come when some big ego decides to save the world so everyone cheers him on as a hero. Unfortunately, by that time the world will be on fire haha.
We aren’t perfect creatures. For too many of us, if someone says, “Hey, there’s a madman with a gun targeting folks with your specific features just around the corner. Don’t go.” We’d shrug it off and keep walking. Only when the bullet is lodged firmly in our gut do we say, “well, shit. I reckon I shouldn’t have walked over here. Can anyone save me?”
Damn, this comment is all over the place. Sorry about that.
You are saying that there is balance in all things. I agree fully - we even need some of these people, so long as it works out, e.g. scientists, engineers, teachers, doctors - these people need their inflated egos, or how else would someone have the audacity to be able to do something like stick their literal hands inside of someone’s literal guts to carve out the cancerous masses and thereby save people’s lives? When it is appropriate, it can be used for all of our benefits - the literal definition of “good” then, as in aka advantageous.
Where you started to go off the rails is when there seems to be a lack of balance - though there too I think it will come, in the future and also here in the present in other ways. e.g. hard times begets strong people, who make better times, which makes weak people, who fall into hard times, and the cycle repeats itself.
Where it starts to matter the most, imho, is when we are hyporitical, then instead of choosing our own balance point, we (/they) are the ones who will get balanced instead, if you catch my drift. e.g. you alluded to people who upon first deciding that “covid is fake”, refused to take the vaccine, then predictably got covid, then all of a sudden wanted help from a real doctor (why not call the likes of Joe Rogan then, huh?), then spread covid even further. Many irl actual doctors, media personalities, pastors/preachers/priests/ministers/whatever, and average families are dead now. This did not need to happen, yet it did. It was a choice to jump off the cliff, even though it was not always phrased that way by the people goading others into it (which sometimes but not always included themselves - see e.g. the Woodsworth interview where Trump said in advance that he was going to claim that the virus was not airborne, yet admitting that it was, in fact, very much known to be airborne; this was a known quantity, and he knew that he knew, but even so he knew, and even admitted, that he was going to say differently from what was known, which btw we used to call these “blatant lies”, yet now refer to them as “alternative facts”, b/c Might Makes Right I guess, and powerful people get to control the words rather than us adhering solely to what is Truth). And now, predictably (despite how we all act shocked, Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED!:-P), many nurses have quit, some by outright dying, others by simply leaving the field, and some I shit you not have literally taken to the hills and now live in some mountainous area far away from people (if their stories on Reddit were to be taken at face value, which seeing what I know myself I 100% believe that many of them at least are likely to be true).
Likewise, I am sure that you have heard the stories of doctors fleeing from states that refuse to perform abortions - I think it was Idaho who literally closed their final, last remaining (or was it second to last?) maternity ward, due to the final doctor retiring rather than put up with all the BS she had to endure on a daily basis, and they could not keep it staffed anyway due to harassment of the nurses too. I also heard a story in the early days of the pandemic (in Springfield MO iirc) of a doctor who had brought in federal funding to begin an entire new medical research institute there - a JOB CREATOR - but who, predictably, upon receiving death threats decided to cancel those plans and leave the state instead. He was not the first doctor willing to move to Missouri who was convinced to make alternate plans - I hear similar stories far too often, and even from literal decades in the past, to attribute them to anything short of an actual pattern of behavior.
I wanted to point out how those problems did not start there though, but themselves had earlier causes, and also that “those people” never simply remain where they are, i.e. appeasement never seems to work, as history has taught anyone willing to learn from it. e.g. when they got covid, they drove in from their rural areas where they already had decided not only to not fund hospitals themselves, but they also caused people who WERE trying to bring in outside funding to build those to flee. And when they came in, many treated the nurses (and doctors) horribly - sometimes threatening them LITERALLY AT GUNPOINT, to say or do whatever they wanted, e.g. “don’t say that this is covid, everyone knows that isn’t real, now just save them!”. These kinds of temper tantrums affect us all, whereever we may be - and I do not mean solely emotionally. B/c when these same nurses quit their jobs, who now is lining up to take their places? Supposedly we held them up as heroes… with all the clapping and surrounding media blitz, but when push came to shove, we did not have their backs, nor do we have them even now as they continue to strike for better working conditions (where did all that media blitz go?), and one day we may find ourselves in need of medical care, but be unable to find a qualified practictioner, as a direct result of our choices of actions (again, even though the words went the opposite direction). We will be “shocked” to discover, then, that medical care is no longer what it once was, even just a few short years ago. (Also, importantly, while this does affect people “everywhere”, it does not do so “equally” - some areas are, obviously, affected to a higher degree than others.)
We all just want “daddy to take care of us” - whether that be in the form of Big Brother, or a God (real or imagined), we cry out for salvation or at least acknowledgement of our pain. And Donald Trump… yes, just like every politician ever, gives them that. He gives them what they say and think that they need, and so they will vote for him, even again, even after all that has happened before. B/c appeasement always works, don’t you know? :-(
One way or another, the balance of the USA, and UK, and Australia, etc. will be restored. Though we might not remain sovereign nations anymore as a result. Just. Like. Rome. The rich & powerful do not seem to “need” (or want) democracies around the world, anymore. So therefore we will not be allowed to have them any longer.
I believe what he knows. I know that I’m powerless to stop it. I’m just riding it out.
I’ve been beyond powerless. Im about 20 years old and don’t have the finances nor the knowledge to do anything about this fuck shit show
Seems to me the two biggest personal changes one can make are related to diet and transportation.
Realize the destructive nature of the animal agriculture industry, as well as the automobile industry and adjust accordingly.
Go vegan, and swap car for ebike. Hopefully inspiring others to do the same eventually.
If you did this for 1000 people, it would not make a difference. This must be changed at an industrial level or it will never work.
So stop thinking about it. Build a life for yourself. Have fun. Get drunk. Make friends. Go fishing. There’s no good reason to obsess over things beyond your control. If it’s going to happen, and you’re powerless to do anything about it, then it’s going to happen regardless of what you do. You might as well enjoy what you can, while you can, and then deal with shit when shit happens.
The article gives me zero reasons for why I should be more worried than I already am. Infact I don’t even understand what was the point of all that.
The article recommends collective action. Join a group of people passionate, read terrified, and actively working to make a difference. Find a local group and soothe you’re anxiety with the knowledge you’re doing what you can. Also feel free to read How to Blow Up a Pipeline if you’re feeling spicy.
It’s the capitalism.
Capitalism maybe the cause but climate change is way more terrifying than capitalism itself. Which is to say that climate orders of magnitude worse than something which is very bad.
