Humanity has done untold damage to the planets climate system. That damage is now locked in by the buildup of human-generated greenhouses gases—carbon dioxide now exceeds 410 parts per million, which is the highest it’s been in 800,000 years, since a time when humans did not exist. This plague in our atmosphere began to get out of control at the start of the Industrial Revolution, when CO2 was at a mere 280 parts per million.
Along with a rapid explosion in population during the same time, climate change threatens the survival of most creatures that dwell in the biosphere, including we humans. We gobble up the world's resources faster than the Earth can replace them. At this rate, in just 12 years, we will need the resources of two planets in order to support human life, a report warns.
By ignoring the warning of the dire consequences of inaction by climate scientists, refusing to act on adaption policies and mitigation, we gambled—with our lives—on the greatest existential threat our species has ever faced. We cast the die, and foolishly took our chances by kicking this contagion down the road for future generations to solve. Unfortunately for us, and them, a steaming hothouse world won this game, and billions of people alive today will suffer and die as a result.
We broke the Earth’s climate system due to greed and selfishness and honestly, just not giving a shit; consequently, we have only harrowing impacts on the horizon that we have no choice but to endure.
But despite all the damage done, we still have a choice to make our future somewhat better, or significantly worse, depending on which path we decide to take today and tomorrow. An opportunity exists right now to change the trajectory we are on: An election in the United States is occurring in a month. We can vote in a Congress that will act on fossil fuel emissions and technology to remove carbon safely from the atmosphere, and vote out those that won’t. People should choose wisely.
Donald Trump's history of spewing climate denial, extreme paranoia and white nationalism on the international stage is telling. Matt Taibbi, in a must-read article in Rolling Stone, writes about Trump’s narcissism, which may just kill us all. “(O)bese and rotting, close enough to the physical end himself (and long ago spiritually dead),” he speaks to his know-nothing cheering cult that “America was doomed anyway, so we might as well stop worrying and floor it to the end.” Trump’s nonsense is what passes for “winning” in this surreal period that we are all collectively experiencing, much like passengers in a pleasure boat on the Niagara River when the engine stops.
While the press has focused in the past two years either on the president’s daily lunacies or his various scandals, the really dangerous work of Trump’s administration has gone on behind the scenes, in his systematic wreckage of the state.
snip
On a policy level, this apocalypse politics is pure corporate cynicism, with Trump’s big-business buddies showing a willingness to kill us all for a few dollars now.
The broader electoral pitch is just an evil version of every nuclear-age dance tune ever, “99 Luftballoons” or “1999.” The world is ending, so fuck it, let’s party. As crazy as it is, it’s a seductive message for a country steeped in hate and pessimism. Democrats still don’t understand it. Trump’s turning America into a death cult, with us as involuntary members.
In a short exchange between Anthony Hobley (CEO Carbon Tracker) and Professor Michael Mann, Mann offered this:
“2018 is the year where climate change really showed its face. The impacts are no longer subtle. We see this now play out on our TV screens, our newspaper headlines. This onslaught of heatwaves, droughts, and superstorms that we have seen in recent months has finally awakened the public imagination and attention.”
In a separate quote, Mann comments on the consequence of climate change inaction, which pairs nicely with Trump’ s pedal to the metal fossil fuel policy.
“It is not going off a cliff; it is like walking out into a minefield. So the argument that it is too late to do something would be like saying: ‘I’m just going to keep walking.’ That would be absurd.”
This video from World Population perfectly illustrates why we find ourselves in the predicament that we are in today. Energy demand will never slow down with this trend of population increase.
I could write forever on this issue, but instead, I will end with an excerpt from Joshua Busby of Foreign Affairs Magazine, in an essay titled “Why Climate Change Matters More Than Anything Else.”
The world seems to be in a state of permanent crisis. The liberal international order is besieged from within and without. Democracy is in decline. A lackluster economic recovery has failed to significantly raise incomes for most people in the West. A rising China is threatening U.S. dominance, and resurgent international tensions are increasing the risk of a catastrophic war.
Yet there is one threat that is as likely as any of these to define this century: climate change. The disruption to the earth’s climate will ultimately command more attention and resources and have a greater influence on the global economy and international relations than other forces visible in the world today. Climate change will cease to be a faraway threat and become one whose effects require immediate action.
The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, now exceeds 410 parts per million, the highest level in 800,000 years. Global average surface temperatures are 1.2 degrees Celsius higher than they were before the Industrial Revolution. The consensus scientific estimate is that the maximum temperature increase that will avoid dangerous climate change is two degrees Celsius. Humanity still has around 20 years before stopping short of that threshold will become essentially impossible, but most plausible projections show that the world will exceed it.