The Later We Stop, The Worse the Result
If we don't stop in this generation, the next will curse our existence
Each corporate sector bribes Congress. Their conflicting interests doom us to an early death on a dying planet with our children cursing our existence.
—Tom Wells, here
There seems no awareness at the level of “people who matter” — people with the power to act — that climate change will be a species-wide disaster. They’re either so out of touch that they think there’s not going to be a problem — true-believer types, or in this case, true-disbelievers — or they think that it’s a problem for “later,” which means, by an implication too gruesome to state directly, “after this generation is dead.”
“Climate change is good”
For example, here’s Vivek Ramaswamy, Republican presidential candidate, former hedge fund partner, former biotech executive, on his beliefs about climate change.
In answer to the question, why does he label people “climate cultists” who are merely climate-concerned, he says:
Let me lay out some hard facts, both about my views and facts on the ground. Are global surface temperatures going up? Yes. Is that likely due to man-made causes. Yes. Is that an existential threat to humanity? There is no evidence to support that.
To the contrary, eight times as many people die of cold temperatures rather than warm ones. The earth today is more covered by green surface area than it was even a century ago, because carbon dioxide is plant food. Plants actually grow in slightly warmer climates. The climate disaster–related death rate is down by 98 percent over the last century, directly attributable to more abundant and plentiful access and use of fossil fuels.
So I want to be really clear about my view. This is not a "Does climate change exist or not?" [question]. It's the wrong framing of the question. The question is, what impacts human prosperity, human flourishing, in a world in which there are net positive and net negative effects of climate, but also net positive and net negative effects of the use of fossil fuels?
I also find it to be a mystery … why is it that many of the people who are the staunchest opponents to carbon emissions are also among the staunchest opponents to hydroelectric energy or to nuclear energy? … There's something else going on here. … There's a religious conviction that goes beyond a commitment to the facts.
For people like this, the facts are that the “earth today is more covered by green surface area than it was even a century ago, because carbon dioxide is plant food,” and “there's a religious conviction that goes beyond a commitment to the facts” among those concerned about climate change.
He later says about Greta Thunberg, “I actually respect Greta. For one thing. she's honest. She says it's not just about the climate — it's about social justice,” which he’s presumably against because it interferes with the right of the property class.
About that concern, he’s right.
“It’s wrong to move fast”
On the other hand, articles on the Fox News website ridicule climate fears as sparking dangerously fast reactions to climate change. One piece points out the danger of “accepting blackouts” as part of the climate solution. It quotes this tweet:
.@latimes article out today muses, "Would an occasional blackout help solve climate change?" Ironically, it is actually net-zero policies - or decarbonization pushes - that lead to grid instability, energy insecurity, and blackouts.
This is all part of a campaign to make people afraid of losing their lifestyles via “liberal” policies of energy rationing (I wish “liberals” actually were so bold), and thus slow the response to the coming climate crisis.
“Stop being mean to BP”
All this to forestall the day when people try to really take us off fossil fuels and shut down that industry for good. As a 2020 Bloomberg article, “Outgoing BP CEO Warns of Moving Too Fast on Climate Change,” said:
BP PLc’s outgoing Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley warned Big Oil of moving too fast on investing in new technologies to counter climate change, because their failure could lead to financial ruin.
“If you go too fast and you don’t get it right you can drive yourself out of business,” Dudley said in a Columbia Energy Exchange.
Oil companies must retain a strong financial footing to be able to invest when game-changing technologies are developed, he said.
Keeping the current system alive — meaning, keeping the money flow flowing — is all that matters to some people.
“It’s all just getting started”
Which makes this all the more tragic. From actual climate scientist Peter Kalmus:
[I]t’s all still just getting started. So long as we burn fossil fuels, far, far worse is on the way; and I take zero satisfaction in knowing that this will be proven right, too, with a certainty as non-negotiable and merciless as the physics behind fossil-fueled global heating. Instead, I only feel fury at those in power, and bottomless grief for all that I love. We are losing Earth on our watch.
When normally Conservative climate scientists freak out like this — “I only feel fury and bottomless grief” — you know the situation is far more dire than anyone else is saying.
In fact, Kalmus is not alone among climate scientists with these fears, this sadness. He’s just the one speaking out.
All the more tragic
The conflict of forces in our society — the interests of those with control vs. the needs of those controlled — produces a tragic collision. On the one hand, an emergency exists and should be declared:
Declaring a climate emergency would unleash additional powers such as banning oil exports and further accelerating renewable energy buildout on a scale not seen since the mobilization for the second world war. It would send an unmistakable signal to investors still living in the past, to universities that have been shamefully slow to divest, to media outlets that have failed to connect the dots, to all the dangerously lagging institutions of our society. And it would be a desperately needed win for climate activists.
Yet:
Biden’s refusal to declare a climate emergency and his eagerness to push new pipelines and new drilling – at an even faster pace than Trump – goes against science, goes against common sense, goes against life on Earth. … I have no doubt that fossil fuel executives and lobbyists – and those who chose to stand with them – will, in the future, be considered criminals.
Thus the quote at the top. If we let the current situation persist — if we let those with control maintain that control — we doom ourselves to death on a dying planet. And our children will curse us indeed for doing it.
