- Stay abreast of climate science. Accept its difficult conclusions as the best understanding we have. Expect to be alarmed on a regular basis, inescapably. Learn.
- Accept also that both societies and natural systems are already fated to devastating developments. Terrible losses lie ahead. Almost everything will be changing. The future isn’t what it used to be. A great sadness is normal. Cry.
- Recognize that warnings about climate change and forceful proposals for national action to address the threats go back almost five decades. The failure to act over these years may be the greatest failure of civic responsibility in the history of the republic. Get mad.
- Appreciate that no matter how tearful the future, every fraction of a degree makes a difference. Every bit of warming we prevent is important. Learn well what must be done to head off future devastations, including both the immediate steps and the deep societal and economic transformations. Dream.
- Know that the fight for the future requires all of us, each bringing what we can to the effort. Find ways to get involved, seriously involved. Know too that in the end our efforts do not depend on our odds of success. We must act even in the face of hopelessness, warriors defending a sacred place, simply because it is the right thing to do, rebelling beyond hope because the human spirit tells us with insistence that what is unacceptable—all the suffering, all the loss, all the tears—must not be accepted. Fight.
Photo by Galen Crout on Unsplash
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If only in the sixties we had listened to people like the Ehrlichs, Rachel Carson, Club of Rome and Norman Borlaug who were all warning us about the dangers of overpopulation, and that was when there were only three billion of us; if we headed their advice and humanity was currently approaching four billion instead of nine, climate change would be distant blip on our radar, the Gulf Spill, fracking and the development of Canada’s tar sands would not have happened because we would not be that hard up for oil yet, and the word Anthropocene would not have been coined to label mankind driving all other life to extinction.
I would flesh out Point Four thus: for the short term, pre-collapse: work on blocking whatever stupid, climate or ecosystem-killing project is slated for your own region–this is how we push down on those tenths of a degree, how we reduce the number of species lost forever. And for the longer run, start now working with others to envision, and then build, a healthier alternative economy and culture.
1. A very worthwhile endeavor. Unfortunately, it’s extremely difficult for non-scientists to understand and fact-check the factoids they hear or the stories they read about climate science. Even Anderson admits that you have to get a climate scientist alone over a beer in a bar for them to tell the truth.
2. Yep
3. Yep
4. I would cay, plan on changing your lifestyle as much as possible. Maybe, help young people see that the future will not be what their teachers say it will? Doing this may be the most difficult need especially since those kids want to grow up and get good jobs…
5. Always with the “battle,” “war,” “fighting,” verbiage. Literally, the Hyperthreat, in which large-scale organizational approaches are offered.
I would add that there will be increasing problems. Massive problems. Surfacing in the coming handful of years. Try to be a voice of sanity when people realize that the worst is upon them.
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Why haven’t we done anything about climate change yet?
Sure – there has been significant State Capture by the Corporations. Big oil covered up their own climate science from way back in the 1980’s. They knew! It’s also about crazy reality-defying culture wars, and ‘alternative-facts’ from the alt-right. It’s about the science being complicated and counter-intuitive and scary. Many just do not want to believe it.
Also let’s not forget one last and probably the most important factor. A boring factor. It’s about economics. Johan Rockstrom is famous for his 9 Planetary Boundaries talks. Lately he’s also been working on the paleo-climate evidence that shows why it is incredibly important we do not go past 1.5 degrees. One would think he was a doomer from his talks.
But even he says he we are close to a “Montreal moment” in climate change. What does he mean? Well, remember the “Montreal Protocol” where the world banned CFC’s that were degrading the Ozone layer? The world came together in 1987 and just did it. Banned CFC’s. Used the almighty power of legislation to ban an ingredient. Boom! Done. How could they even DO that? Because there was a cheap and easy alternative.
Climate change had no cheap and easy alternative. I was so desperate for a source of reliable cheap energy I became a fan of nuclear – and generally speaking – Australians are NOT fans of nuclear. There is still a ban in our country. Yet here is where the story gets interesting. Johan Rockstrom said in his latest video that we finally DO have a cheap and easy alternative. Renewables. And and a while back I became a fan of renewables as well. I used to worry that they were so intermittent we would have to build 6 times the capacity of the grid just to get through winter and deal with bad weather. That made them economically impossible! Until now. Now – unfirmed – they are 1/4 the cost of nuclear (Lazard). So we overbuild them to reduce storage to about a few days, and we’re almost done! Basically, the market is doing it anyway. Renewables are now doubling every 4 or 5 years – over twice the speed oil use doubled last century! Even Rockstrom of “9 planetary boundaries” fame now has hope. https://youtu.be/7KfWGAjJAsM?t=1191
Even the IEA recognise this – and think fossil fuel DEMAND PEAK will hit before 2030.
In 2025 so many solar factories will open they’ll have FOUR TIMES the capacity of all the solar built in 2022 – nearly a terawatt per year. https://xenetwork.org/ets/episodes/episode-184-eroi-of-re/
A third of Australia’s stock exchange – our largest industrial groups like BHP, Bluescope, etc – have a plan to Overbuild Australia’s 2020 electricity supply by 5 TIMES times to make green steel, aluminium, etc. https://energytransitionsinitiative.org/
The solutions are real now. It’s not hopium, it’s good old fashioned hope. I wish more peak oilers had some.