Well, if World War 3 doesn’t get you, the climate probably will. According to IPCC figures, the last chance to keep warming under 1.5C is this decade. The previous decades of insanity have come to this.
The tale is simple enough. You may have seen this before somewhere:
- Not a damn thing is happening about emissions. Emissions are skyrocketing at a bonny bouncing 59 billion tons per year. That’s about 8.3 tons for every human on Earth.
- Fossil fuels are doing nicely. Some of the world’s folksiest dictatorships are making good money out of selling fossil fuels, including Russia.
- Decades of predictions were right. Extreme climate-related disasters like flooding, droughts, mega-fires and other ultra-expensive hobbies are now normal.
- Water shortages and quality issues are global daily news. Another much-predicted problem, water, is now a continuous issue worldwide.
- The Amazon rainforest continues to disappear. The rainforest is still being decimated on an annual basis.
- Pollution in its many forms is getting worse. Despite decades of evidence of dangerous pollution, and at least 6-digit numbers of deaths per year from pollution, no action is being taken.
- Ocean temperatures, acidification and anoxic (very low oxygen) levels continue to rise. The continuous pattern of chemical change and more heat is causing the ocean food chain to be directly affected. Hot seas also cause hurricanes.
- Crop failure is rising. US crop failures due to drought and similar events are hammering the food supply chain.
- Plastics are as much of a problem as they seem to be. This mega-problem is generating a lot of news, and solutions, but it’s huge and must be fixed.
Synopsis of failure on every level
If simple cheap emissions control measures like basic capture at source filtering had been put in place 30 years ago, this wouldn’t be happening at all. Nothing was done.
Politics, that home of genius, made sure that nothing was done. A herd of political and pseudoscientific skanks took the money and ran out the clock. Billions of dollars paid for some of the worst anti-science rhetoric in history for over a generation.
This “environmental filibustering” is likely to do even more exponential damage. The political positions haven’t changed, and they’re simple enough, too:
Conservatives: There isn’t a problem.
Progressives: Verbose outrage and obsessive naivete.
The conservatives are simply lying and getting paid for it. The progressives seem to believe that the utterly corrupt, criminal system which has created the catastrophes to come will somehow fix itself.
Turnaround is possible
Given the levels of total irresponsibility criminality, and greed, the main obstacle to climate reversal is human rather than technical. The required science is doable, and/or already exists.
The anti-regulatory, anti-compliance political environment is the key to undoing the damage. We’ll leave out the insanity issues and focus on fixing the basic theory that common sense is somehow illegal.
(Yes, conspiracy nuts, not poisoning yourself is a form of socialism, like birds, trees, children, living, and breathing. Happy? Convinced you’re super geniuses, yet again? Good. Go apply for sainthood and disappear.)
This mindless, baseless, pointless “ideology” has no answers to anything. It doesn’t like questions much, either. For those born after about 1980 – This is the way things were done in the past. If something makes money, you get some puny political bozo to support making the money. You reduce costs and maintain profits by blocking laws. It’s roadkill-level thinking.
That’s the whole story. There is no vision of the future or anything else but a few bucks. That’s what has to be turned around.
It’s not as hard as it seems. If money is the cause, risk of losing money can do the job of managing the issues.
What if:
- Polluters were simply shut down instead of fined? Show compliance and cause why they should be allowed to operate again.
- Polluting nations were embargoed? (My own country, Australia, could use a massive kick in the backside for its decades of inaction. We have the money and the tech, but not the political or corporate will.)
- Compliance required remedial measures like CO2 emitters must also install CO2 scrubbers? That’s 100% fair, and doable. (This is what you get for being too cheap to install a few $10 filters, guys.)
- No new carbon fuel projects anywhere on Earth.
- Carbon resources to be repurposed for non-fuel, non-polluting non-emitting uses only.
You’ll note these are very expensive enforcement measures for polluters and they could last possibly for decades. Even the fossil-brains will see an unacceptable risk of very high losses. (Pity you can’t see why, isn’t it?)
Is it possible? Yes. Fortunately, Millennials and Gen Z know there’s an existential risk to their immediate futures. It’s not “a hundred years from now” as it was for Boomers and Gens X and Y.
This fan-destroying big hit is a decade or so away. They’ll be in their 30s and 40s and right there at Ground Zero. Do you think these guys would vote for a bit of sanity? Could be, couldn’t it?
Consider also this scenario: A future based on nothing but total BS cannot possibly be much of a future.
Another way of looking at it is this:
Earth is Ukraine. A horde of criminal invaders are committing crimes all over the place and people are dying in large numbers. The only option is to fight.
Now does it make sense, O mighty intellects?
…Because it’s about time it did. Enough chain-dragging; get on with it.
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
