Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
As I sit in 90-degree heat typical of Washington, D.C. in midsummer and a so-called “heat dome” hovers over much of the United States, I am reading the following: “At 11 or 12 degrees [Fahrenheit] of [global] warming, more than half the world’s population, as distributed today, would die of direct heat. Things almost certainly won’t get that hot this century, though models of unabated emissions do bring us that far eventually.”
Four things we can learn from the response to COVID-19 that are critical for climate change resilience.
Radical changes are needed if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change: 2 trillion dollars of fossil fuel related capital investment has to go. Without a better understanding of the basic relationships between energy and production it is hard to say how such changes will play out in the wider economy, and almost impossible to prepare to face them.
So I present an unpopular but fact-based argument in the form of two “Am I wrong?” queries. If you accept my facts, you will see the massive challenge we face in transforming human assumptions and ways of living on Earth.
I welcome being told what crucial facts I might be missing. Even a realist — perhaps especially a realist in present circumstances — occasionally wants to be proved incorrect.
The problem with this warning, and perhaps also why it is shedding supporters, is that it says all the right things but feels like it is speaking to an empty room. It has all been said before. I confess I have the same issue with street protests. At some point, you have to put down the placard and actually do something about the situation.
Qatar is both a country and a peninsula which juts out about 100 miles into the Persian Gulf. It is precisely this geography which makes it both one of the hottest and muggiest places on Earth. The average daily high in mid-summer is 108 degrees F (42 degrees C).
I don’t know where we are going – no one does really – and I don’t know what we will find ultimately in this unprecedented new world, but I do know something about the early days of the voyage and have thoughts and experiences to share.
And what I say to those who choose to criticise XR is please by all means criticise us, and come up swiftly and proactively with something better we can do to meet the challenges of imminent climate catastrophe and ecological disaster. I would be the first to be behind you. But if you cannot then I would think very carefully about what you are going to say to the present generation, Greta’s generation, today’s children and grandchildren when they ask, ‘What did you do when we had our last chance to avoid catastrophe?’ Think very hard about that question.
And you, dear reader, where is it you find your equanimity? Whether it is a place, a person, an activity, or a mental state, please remember to go there, regularly or as you are able, as the unraveling of Earth’s biosphere continues apace.
We’re approaching a turning point on the mainstream’s attitudes towards climate change. // On climate, young Republicans now sound like Democrats // Over 170 news outlets vow to cover climate // McKibben in TIME: “Hello From the Year 2050. We Avoided the Worst of Climate Change — But Everything Is Different”
The date was Thursday, July 25th – the hottest day ever in Europe, part of a record-setting heat wave. Climate change, in other words. By the time we reached the airport the next morning for the long journey home, all the stories had melted in the heat and merged into just one story, one anguished question:
Where indeed, Mr. Gauguin, are we going exactly?
The New Yorker and other mainstream voices are spreading the message about the seriousness of climate change, and the possibility of an apocalypse. The Pope too says that the climate is in an emergency and asks the world to abandon fossil fuels.
