More wistful navel-gazing than rant (or diary....)
I live in Sub-Arctic Alaska. I have pretty good bush and wood craft skills. As long as there is water, there will be a way to live here. In every comment I've ever made about the outcomes of climate uncertainty (my own preferred term) I have expressed a healthy skepticism of our ability as a species NOT to fight over resources, especially water. My mantra continues to be:
"Without potable water, there is nothing. Prove me wrong."
For form's sake I will continue below the Fleur de Kos (also my pref.... never mind)
I truly believe we went past the tipping point, climate-wise, sometime between the First World War and the 1960's. Since that time, the voices on the left of these issues have been crying the truth into the increasingly warm wind. Governments around the world listened with varying degrees of interest based on short-term gains and acted accordingly. It didn't matter that our own Military has called it our greatest national security concern. Yet we ignored the proverbial gorilla in the room, we ignored truth, and we went down the carbon rabbit-hole along with the rest of the world. (Old news, yes I know) Still, the voices calling for change weren't being heard until it started to cost some people money. Welcome to the party Andrew, Katrina, Sandy! And your Twister-Sisters,The E-F5's!!
Now this, which I have warned about for years, is finally getting attention. Living here, I have literally watched the climate shift "northward" and invasive species kill massive forests of Black Spruce in just years rather than decades. Now I can hike to a place where I can light the freakin' water on fire. And there's this.
I have said and I repeat it here. Do your studying. Move your genetic legacy to a place where there will be fresh water for at least 50 years. Move where there will be agriculture, for at least cold-tolerant crops at first.
Keep something else in mind. When the Tibetan Plateau and the other glaciers in the Himalayas vanish, the seasonal monsoons will go away as well, as the glaciers are what causes the thermal low pulling in the warm moist air. On the Chinese side, there are 37,000 rapidly vanishing glaciers providing water for three of the Great Asian Rivers which rise there and feed BILLIONS of people. On the South Asia/India/Pakistan side there are 3 other Great Rivers, plus thousands of other rivers feeding BILLIONS of people.
And they all have 'nukes or know someone who does.
In the meantime, I can only hope that we are the most aptly named species rather than the most ironically.