There is no alternative to urgent global action to protect rapidly diminishing biodiversity. Without protecting it, we can not protect our future generations, civilization, and species from catastrophic near-extinction. Past efforts toward that goal have all misfired. The global goal of a sustainable and green future should not be misused to establish a global leftist or far-right dictatorship. Aggressive dictators, such as Putin, do not care about biodiversity. All they know is how to escalate global dangers. Thus, they should be contained and left without power to endanger mankind's future. Present heat waves are already killing people. It is time we all realize they are the consequence of fossil fuel burning and the destruction of forests. Scientists have also failed. Their predictions about a rise in temperature of 1.5 in 2100 have already materialized in 2024. Politicians have scaled down and falsified these predictions. Our job (if we care about our future) is to educate our children that present economic and political trends are suicidal when world leaders do not consider sustainability and biodiversity.
“Deeply flawed logic, obscured by shrewd and unrelenting propaganda, actually enabled a coalition of powerful special interests to convince nearly everyone in the world that Co2 from human industry was a dangerous plant destroying toxin. It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world – that Co2, the life of plants, was considered for a time to be a deadly poison.” – Professor Richard Lindzen, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT
“Global mean temperatures before 1980 are based on untrustworthy data.” – Dr. Mototaka Nakamura
“More CO2 benefits the Earth.” – Professor William Happer, Princeton University, Former Director of Science at the US Department of Energy
“The whole climate crisis is not only fake news, it’s fake science…of course climate change is real—it’s been happening since the beginning of time—but it’s not dangerous and it’s not caused by people…climate change is a perfectly natural phenomenon and this modern warming period actually began about 300 years ago when the little ice age began to come to an end. There is nothing to be afraid of and all they are doing is instilling fear. Most of the scientists who are saying it’s a crisis are on perpetual government grants.“ – Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, and President of Greenpeace in Canada for seven years
“The links between the world’s largest financial groups, central banks, and global corporations to the current push for a radical climate strategy to abandon the fossil fuel economy in favor of a vague, unexplained Green economy, it seems, is less about genuine concern to make our planet a clean and healthy environment to live. Rather it is an agenda intimately tied to the UN Agenda 2030 for “sustainable” economy and to developing literally trillions of dollars in new wealth for the global banks and financial giants who constitute the real powers that be. “ – F. William Engdahl, strategic risk consultant and lecturer
“One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.” - Dr. Otmar Edenhofer, the head of Working Group 3 of the UN IPCC in 2010
Due to the complexity of our collective environment, both social and ecological, we're always going to be doomed to be reactive rather than proactive, both as a species overall and as nations and institutions individually. Human history is just riding the pendulum from 'action' to 'reaction' with ever increasing stakes and less chances.
Our species has existed in a stable climate that enabled habitation of much of the earth's land mass. But major systems, chiefly ocean and atmospheric currents that help maintain temperature stasis are starting to weaken and potentially disappear.
So climate scenarios that used to be improbable may not be absolutely unlikely in the future. Imagine a year long rain storm. Or how about a decade long heat dome with insufferable humidity that borders on the wet bulb temperature limit for our species' existence.
A different set of climate scenarios are locked in for us.
What is lacking is our lack of imagination. Our life revolves around material accumulation and doing bullshit work for billionaires. To reform this worldview will require time that frankly might not be allotted to us. To me, a simple start is to live locally. Support local producers of good and services. That will be a tough challenge!
There will be virulent opposition to every word I wrote here. But let this contest become the politics of our coming years.
Regenerative agriculture would reduce atmospheric CO2 and help reduce the heat imbalance. Of course that would require the enormous sacrifice of eating items in season rather than having blueberries flown 15,000 km for your breakfast cereal.
Mother Nature might provide a different method of relief in a series of well timed and placed volcanic eruptions.
The sad fact is the economy is an all consuming construct of our world view. We have subsumed the joy of simply living with the accumulation of trinkets and a barrage of not very informative information.
This is an existensial crises. Should we start living a lot more simply now and insure that we will have descendants living in the future? If your answer is no, well the graphs show that future generations will not get the opportunity to make the same grievously irresponsible decision.
There is no alternative to urgent global action to protect rapidly diminishing biodiversity. Without protecting it, we can not protect our future generations, civilization, and species from catastrophic near-extinction. Past efforts toward that goal have all misfired. The global goal of a sustainable and green future should not be misused to establish a global leftist or far-right dictatorship. Aggressive dictators, such as Putin, do not care about biodiversity. All they know is how to escalate global dangers. Thus, they should be contained and left without power to endanger mankind's future. Present heat waves are already killing people. It is time we all realize they are the consequence of fossil fuel burning and the destruction of forests. Scientists have also failed. Their predictions about a rise in temperature of 1.5 in 2100 have already materialized in 2024. Politicians have scaled down and falsified these predictions. Our job (if we care about our future) is to educate our children that present economic and political trends are suicidal when world leaders do not consider sustainability and biodiversity.
Thanks for the impassioned reply, Davor. I wish I thought there was still time to stop the flood.
Thomas
Replying to Ian:
The first sentence in his final quote is true:
> “One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.”
It’s clearly true that climate mitigation policy is also economic policy — which is why climate policy is so frightening to the world’s already-rich….
And why that group so assiduously campaigns against any climate mitigation that touches their wealth…
Which is also why the world has no practical climate mitigation policy at all.
Thoughts?
Thomas
“Deeply flawed logic, obscured by shrewd and unrelenting propaganda, actually enabled a coalition of powerful special interests to convince nearly everyone in the world that Co2 from human industry was a dangerous plant destroying toxin. It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world – that Co2, the life of plants, was considered for a time to be a deadly poison.” – Professor Richard Lindzen, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT
“Global mean temperatures before 1980 are based on untrustworthy data.” – Dr. Mototaka Nakamura
“More CO2 benefits the Earth.” – Professor William Happer, Princeton University, Former Director of Science at the US Department of Energy
“The whole climate crisis is not only fake news, it’s fake science…of course climate change is real—it’s been happening since the beginning of time—but it’s not dangerous and it’s not caused by people…climate change is a perfectly natural phenomenon and this modern warming period actually began about 300 years ago when the little ice age began to come to an end. There is nothing to be afraid of and all they are doing is instilling fear. Most of the scientists who are saying it’s a crisis are on perpetual government grants.“ – Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, and President of Greenpeace in Canada for seven years
“The links between the world’s largest financial groups, central banks, and global corporations to the current push for a radical climate strategy to abandon the fossil fuel economy in favor of a vague, unexplained Green economy, it seems, is less about genuine concern to make our planet a clean and healthy environment to live. Rather it is an agenda intimately tied to the UN Agenda 2030 for “sustainable” economy and to developing literally trillions of dollars in new wealth for the global banks and financial giants who constitute the real powers that be. “ – F. William Engdahl, strategic risk consultant and lecturer
“One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.” - Dr. Otmar Edenhofer, the head of Working Group 3 of the UN IPCC in 2010
Ian, see reply above.
Thomas
Due to the complexity of our collective environment, both social and ecological, we're always going to be doomed to be reactive rather than proactive, both as a species overall and as nations and institutions individually. Human history is just riding the pendulum from 'action' to 'reaction' with ever increasing stakes and less chances.
Interesting point, Nico. Our great virtue as a species is adaptation.
Thomas
Our species has existed in a stable climate that enabled habitation of much of the earth's land mass. But major systems, chiefly ocean and atmospheric currents that help maintain temperature stasis are starting to weaken and potentially disappear.
So climate scenarios that used to be improbable may not be absolutely unlikely in the future. Imagine a year long rain storm. Or how about a decade long heat dome with insufferable humidity that borders on the wet bulb temperature limit for our species' existence.
A different set of climate scenarios are locked in for us.
What is lacking is our lack of imagination. Our life revolves around material accumulation and doing bullshit work for billionaires. To reform this worldview will require time that frankly might not be allotted to us. To me, a simple start is to live locally. Support local producers of good and services. That will be a tough challenge!
There will be virulent opposition to every word I wrote here. But let this contest become the politics of our coming years.
Regenerative agriculture would reduce atmospheric CO2 and help reduce the heat imbalance. Of course that would require the enormous sacrifice of eating items in season rather than having blueberries flown 15,000 km for your breakfast cereal.
Mother Nature might provide a different method of relief in a series of well timed and placed volcanic eruptions.
The sad fact is the economy is an all consuming construct of our world view. We have subsumed the joy of simply living with the accumulation of trinkets and a barrage of not very informative information.
This is an existensial crises. Should we start living a lot more simply now and insure that we will have descendants living in the future? If your answer is no, well the graphs show that future generations will not get the opportunity to make the same grievously irresponsible decision.
The question of sacrifice is key to this discussion. That's what my closing is about. Good point.
Thomas