CHRISTINE ROSE’s poignant post of 17 November, “Feeling Like A Stranger In A Familiar Land” requires a response more substantial than fatalistic resignation. Tempting though it is to bury oneself in the small delights of everyday life for as long as that avenue of escape remains open, it must be rejected. Something as big as the end of the world as we know it surely merits Dylan Thomas’s unforgettable commandment:
Do not go gentle into that good night
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light
The problem, of course, is science. Unlike the poet and the priest, the scientist who discerns only catastrophe in the data which is placed before him, must disclaim all right to hope. If the data points to the end of the world as we know it, then the only thing a scientist has a right to anticipate is the end of the world. Staring steadily into the dead eyes of the planet’s future is the only honourable scientific response.
For the poet and the priest, however, and all those possessing an artistic and/or religious turn of mind, there is something greater than catastrophe. J.R.R. Tolkien, author of “The Lord of the Rings”, called it “eucatastrophe”.
Ruth Noel, in her book “The Mythology of Middle Earth” explains:
Eucatastrophe is Tolkien’s word for the anti-catastrophic ‘turn’ (strophe in Greek) that characterises fairy stories. The turning occurs when imminent evil is unexpectedly averted and great good succeeds. To Tolkien, tragedy was the purest form of drama, while eucatastrophe, the antithesis of tragedy, was the purest form of fairy story. In [Tolkien’s scholarly article] “On Fairy-Stories”, Tolkien gives the purpose and effect of eucatastrophe: “It does not deny the existence … of sorrow and failure … it denies universal final defeat … giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”
In Tolkien’s great trilogy the eucatastrophe comes in the very heart of Mt Doom, where the One Ring is finally destroyed. Interestingly, it is not the hero, Frodo, who makes this happen. At the end of his quest, like so many of the others who have come into possession of the Ring of Power, it betrays him. Were it not for the intervention of Gollum, the Dark Lord would have recovered his ring and darkness would have swallowed Middle Earth forever. It is Gollum’s mad obsession: the recovery of his “Precious”; that saves the day.
If we must put our faith in fairy stories, I hear you say, then our chances of surviving global warming are slim indeed. And yet, if we put our faith in science, then Christine Rose’s bitter-sweet resignation; her “ecological grief” at the inevitable demise of so many living things; becomes the only rational response to the irrationality of humanity’s wilful self-destruction.
But what if it is in our species’ seemingly indefatigable irrationality that its best hope of survival is to be found? What if, like Gollum’s obsessive pursuit of The Precious, the means of our salvation turns out to be a work of a madman?
Just think of the number of novelists whose plots involve the deliberate creation and release of a virus which wipes out 95 percent of the human species. Now imagine the insane billionaire who turns fiction into fact. That would be a eucatastrophe entirely lacking in Tolkien’s compassion, but it is hard to argue that, from the perspective of all the non-human species facing extinction, it would be a eucatastrophe founded in justice.
Scientists would interject here that even were such an event to occur, the warming already unleashed in the planet’s oceans and atmosphere remains irreversible. Life would still be up against it.
They are right, of course, but life on Earth has been up against it before – and so have we. For thousands of years this planet lay in the grip of an Ice Age that saw sheets of frozen water 1,000 feet high, weighing billions of tons, grinding all the way to the edges of what we now call the temperate zones. Getting through the Ice Age was no easy matter – but, somehow, our far-distant ancestors managed it. There is every reason to suppose that the five percent of the human species which survives the mad billionaire’s eucatastrophic global pandemic (roughly 400 million people) will learn how to survive in a world without ice-caps.
I would like to think that whatever remnant of that 400 million makes it through “The Heat” will arrive on the other side of the Anthropocene with a vastly improved attitude to Planet Earth and its fragile biosphere. There is every reason to believe that these new humans will have no great love of science. Indeed, like Tolkien’s Hobbits, they will likely be profoundly suspicious of “machines more complicated than a forge bellows, a water-mill, or a hand-loom”. They will, however, have a great deal of love for poets and priests. And, most especially, for the tellers of fairy-stories.
Well, this has got to be the best answer to the entropy of staring into the future void with scientific dead eyes. Perhaps nature will unleash the almost fatal disease which for my sensibility would be better than a crazy gollumn character doing it, maybe it has already started…Ebola perhaps, but I pray not. Even so, humankind msy still be headed for extintion, like many other species before us. Back to art v science descussion you write so well about here, I read something in the preface to an obscure book on chess, written in 1897 by Franklin K Young called The Grand Tactics Of Chess.
Well, this has got to be the best answer to the entropy of staring into the future void with scientific dead eyes. Perhaps nature will unleash the almost fatal disease which for my sensibility would be better than a crazy gollumn character doing it, maybe it has already started…Ebola perhaps, but I pray not. Even so, humankind msy still be headed for extintion, like many other species before us. Back to art v science descussion you write so well about here, I read something in the preface to an obscure book on chess, written in 1897 by Franklin K Young called The Grand Tactics Of Chess, that truly chimed. He said …No amount of knowledge , however well classified is of avail until those processes whereby it may be put to practical use are made clear. This us why the theorist, or mere man of learning, is most useless of mankind; and why the artist, or man of action, is so infinitely his superior in every walk of life… science itself is of little value, and as between the two art is vastly to be preferred….
I little denial goes a long way but.
Even without ‘global warming’ we’d a been fucked. We breed with Gods license on our side and our active loins wake us for many a bought of feverish sheet twisting. Then behold! A lovely little thing’s puking down your cleavage. Repeat as above. 7 billion and in 12 years? 8 billion.
The Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/14/earth-death-spiral-radical-action-climate-breakdown
And who’s going to be the first to educate the ‘consumer’? Consumers consume. That’s what they do. They don’t repair, they don’t grow their own, they don’t hunt or fish. They ‘ consume’. In one end, out the other. They get fat, depressed, sick and die then whoosh! Up the chimney of those ridiculously flamboyant crematoriums surrounded by all those God forsaken shrubs! How many bits of others do we breath in daily?
The lunacy that is us lot was enabled by the money lenders. They quickly learned how to tap into the psychology behind the addiction to stuff and things we couldn’t possibly afford and exploit it for all that’s worth. Which is heaps to them and fuck all to us. And was it worth killing our Little Blue Dot for? Ask someone who drives a 500hp V8 super car. They’d likely say ” Fuck yeah!”
One of the problems with ‘Enlightenment’ is that those few of us who are trying to be so must sit back in horror while the Cletus Cornshucker’s and Dingus Dickbrain’s load up the Charlene’s with babies as California burns to the ground.
In NZ/AO, however, we have a chance. A good chance. Better than anywhere on Earth, our Pale Blue Dot. Meet Carl Sagan. https://youtu.be/wupToqz1e2g
We can start by breaking the addiction to consumption for the sake of piling up tack, pap and shit in the bi-weekly waste bin. We must have a free to air TV station and a rejigged RNZ. Sack the parasitic national party mouthpieces from RNZ and get in a few young, well educated, well travelled and empathetic types. We can, indeed must, scrub the foreign Banksters off our hulls. We can educate people into questioning money lenders. We can educate people to be aware of the cunning tactics deployed against us by the advertising media.
Meet the Sacklers. Lovely, 14 billion dollar family.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/19/sackler-family-members-face-mass-litigation-criminal-investigations-over-opioids-crisis
We can encourage, by way of subsidies, people into the countryside to build small, organic operations unfettered by bankster mortgages and debt pimps sucking on their backs. All that, can easily be done and quickly too.
We Kiwi’s have a better chance than anyone else on Earth.
That’s why the Chinese and the western money lenders are here. Looking for soft tissue they can get their teeth into.
And push will come to shove. If the Chinese or the USA-West can’t buy us out? They’ll fucking take us. They’ll come here as a flotilla, park up and spread out. Dissenters will be kept in ‘secure facilities’ or shot.
But wait!? We’re a British colony remember?
“So fuck off Chinese! Fuck off yanks! Come and play with the Royal Navy if you think you’re so tough.”
Don’t read before bedtime.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/10/autonomous-drones-that-decide-who-they-kill-britain-funds-research
That kind of thing.
The latest IPCC report has lit a worldwide awareness we are all in possibly terminal trouble due to exponential climate change and the 6th mass extinction plus plastic pollution. There’s nothing can be done, denial helps to cope.
Here is some other science you can put your faith into which might make all you Climate Change believers feel better:
https://www.sott.net/article/400195-Professor-Valentina-Zharkova-explains-and-confirms-why-a-Super-Grand-Solar-Minimum-is-upon-us
Actually, that’s even worse given that it’s likely 25% of the planet’s population will starve if this transpires as predicted. Maybe “Global Warming” isn’t so bad after all, given this alternative(?).
Our entire society has retreated into fantasy, distraction and self -delusion. But here is the reality;
1. Capitalism relies on externalisation of costs to make a profit, which means that as long as Capitalism continues to operate, globally, ecological destruction will continue unabated to the very end.
2. Since Capitalism holds the governments of every developed nation on Earth in thrall, there can be no realistic prospect of change, reform or reversal in any significant or effective form in the foreseeable future. Therefore, we cannot look to Nation-States for action.
3. The interwoven systemic complexities involved in remediation of our global ecosystem are currently beyond the capability of ordinary political activists and activism, as it has been traditionally conducted, ie more recycling drives and more public transport options ain’t gonna cut it.
4. To reverse the damage done, on a global scale, will require a response at least equal in terms of its scope of organisation and scale of operations as the system which caused the original problem.
This means basically, that it took 100 years of relatively sophisticated technological, economic and political organisation to get us into this mess, so at least an equal amount of effort and organisation will be required to get us out of out.
Just think: when you get all excited about the promise of carbon sequestration technology, realise that to sequester enough carbon to reverse climate change, you are really talking about putting back into the ground the same amount of carbon as we have already taken out of the ground since the time of J D Rockefeller. That’s billions of tonnes of coal and oil. Billions.
In other words, we don’t just need “Socialism”, we literally need “Reverse Capitalism”.
At this point, you’re supposed to say, “Fuck”.
Nobody really gets the scale or enormity of this. The average person lives in a fantasy, thinking, “Somebody will fix it.” But the truth is, no, nobody is going to fix it.
There is some good news though. It is possible to fix it, technologically. We can create “Reverse Capitalism”. Our civilization is actually technologically advanced enough that we could do this. With enough time, money and organisation, we are now capable of almost anything. And we could do it in a fraction of the time, in a few years.
Except we won’t.
Because the only people who care about this is the Left, and the Left is currently lost in the Liberal briar patch, obsessively parsing and denouncing Micro-Agressions.
The Right has the Means, but not the Will, while the Left has the Will, but not the Means.
If we could ever bring the Left and the Right together in common cause, we would be fine. But that will never happen, as things currently stand.
The alternative to that is, abandon all politics as usual, literally, and put out an Emergency Call to all of Humanity, ignoring all obstacles, bypassing all nation states as worse than useless, and self-organising, in the name of our Children. And if they gaol a million of us, that’s better than the “do – nothing” option, which is to sit on our hands and wait for The End. This is the only Hail Mary Pass left open to us now.
As Thomas Paine once said during a similar existential crisis, “Gentlemen, either we all hang together, or we shall all surely hang separately. “
I agree that the human race is not about to be extinguished, but at this stage the size of it looks like it might be reduced considerably with everyone assuming (like the Christians) that it is they who will be saved. The depressing thing is that for the rest of humans’ existence on this planet little of what made life worth living will be here to enjoy. Humans won’t be around long enough to see whole new species evolve. We will be stuck with dogs, cats, artificial intelligence, perhaps some aliens (if they turn up), and a small amount of the animal kingdom that manages to survive, comprising most of the more unpleasant species such as cockroaches, rats, etc
Not so fictional either, and not necessarily a mad billionaire
https://www.livescience.com/63765-darpa-insect-allies-or-biological-weapon.html
https://www.rt.com/news/438543-georgia-us-laboratory-bio-weapons/
Codswallop.
The scientist is the only one who has hope as their the only one who can, possibly, see a path to it. The priest and the poet are delusional twerps who have NFI WTF they’re talking about. We don’t get to stop global warming by hoping it will get better while continuing to do what caused the problem.
It’s not. Irrationality is, after all, irrational and no amount of hoping is going to change that.
I suppose a billionaire releasing a virus that wipes out 95% of the population might actually save the rest of the species from extinction, reduce the GHG emissions to the point where even the damaged ecosystem could balance against and even leave enough of humanity to continue on.
Just to do the same thing again as they wouldn’t have learned the lesson.
That’s a really great example of just how ignorant and arrogant journalists are.
The Earth has – we haven’t. The last time anything like this happened was ~250 million years ago. It’s called the Permian–Triassic extinction event and wiped out most species of life on Earth. It took 10 million years to recover. This is what climate change truly represents and we won’t be part of the recovery unless we stop doing what we’re doing.
That doesn’t seem to be happening as the governments of the world want more growth.
The scientists have shown us the path – we’re not walking it because of greed.
There were still temperate regions with water and wildlife to support them. Global warming with massive ecological collapse would indicate that there won’t be. Most of the landmasses that we live on now will be uninhabitable for humans. We actually require an ambient temperature below 40 degrees for our own cooling to work.
you are in for a shock mate, pure fiction is the best way to describe that Global Warming Shite, look out the window, see all that rain and if you live in the States that SNOW with 25 degs below normal temp.
or watch what NASA put outs, or take any notice of the real citizen scientists.
Then your fantasy becomes so much verbal diarrhea, people like you spouting that drivel make total fools out of your selves, but one more time for the slow learner, The sun drives our climate, the earth has its own magnetic electric field, both are in flux a normal cycle for them. this means more cosmic rays which means more and lower rain clouds. More hurricanes and weather events is caused bye the magnetic waves being out of sinc, CO2 is plant food, you are an idiot.
I say that because you are causing people to prepare in the wrong way for future events, expect quakes and wild weather, next year will be a lot colder, its down hill from there.
Wake up, stop spreading bullshit, quite drinking the kool-aid.
Soon folks will look for someone to blame for all the bad info and straight up lies you lot be spillin.
Real News is Cold coming from Solar Minimum, food shortages on the horizon (Globally wheat crop 30 percent fail this year) several decades of cold expected, volcanic activity and earthquakes.
HINT: Warmer air holds more water.
This means that in a warmer climate in some areas you will see more rain and snow.
It is suggested that if we put half the world’s land space out of bounds to humans we still have a sporting chance of the survival of most of the fauna that still exist. It will buy us time.
The half that remains to humans will be grossly over-crowded so we would need to reduce it by a half?? to sustainable levels. That on its own would probably save us; the replacement of fossil fuels by solar energy etc would probably give us a fair margin to work with. So there is still a place for science and cold logic.
The problem still not addressed is “Who gets sacrified at the altar?”
I have asked this question often on TDB. No one ever responds.
the answer is you and who ever else holds anti-human positions
Thanks at least for responding but, as usual, the question of massive overpopulation is not addressed. There are none so blind…
Dont bother to reply unless you have a solution to offer.
Chris, the fight for survival of the few will be brutal, truly brutal, and it may even involve a scenario of trying to survive a nuclear winter. I know some hate me for my negativity, but only those able to be a bit depressive, and looking at the cold facts and developments, they can see what may well be upon us over coming decades, certainly centuries.
It was the prophets in the old ages, mentioned also in the bible, who were never understood or appreciated by many, but they knew what was about to come, they had the rare ability to see the true, cold facts, in human behaviour and how nature may impose its rule over humanity.
The prophets of old were seeking refuge in the desert and mountains, because nobody wanted to hear their warnings. We are about to have another period of extinction, at least near extinction, it happened before, but was never quite as severe and serious as what is about to hit us.
Perhaps…..?
There is no ultimate antagonism between science and religion, and the many ethical variations in-between. Humankind has sensors and receptors to pursue both.
….perhaps, nothing is wrong with this?
Induction (‘from particular to universal’) and deduction (‘from universal to particular’) are main accepted methodologies to create scientific knowledge and understanding.
Both ways of conclusion-building allow for material and spiritual proofs and experience.
….perhaps, nothing is wrong with that, either?
From an evolutionary point of view, humankind is the attempt of nature to gain consciousness over its own substance, character, creation. This is where science meets religion.
….perhaps, that’s seems to be okay, too?
From a point of view of historical materialism, capitalistic means of production are destroying beauty, innovation and potential of this evolution.
….perhaps, this is where science and religion would need to counter, jointly, vigorously?
On a less theoretical note, and as we are scrutinizing the content of modern-day fairy-tales, let me respond to Tolkien by quoting Donovan (1968):
“Knowing her fate,
Atlantis sent out ships to all corners of the Earth.
On board were the Twelve:
The poet, the physician, the farmer, the scientist,
The magician and the other so-called Gods of our legends.
Though Gods they were –
And as the elders of our time choose to remain blind
Let us rejoice
And let us sing
And dance and ring in the new Hail Atlantis!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAMYGzwUTK4
I read this while rereading, “The Revenge of Gaia,”so did some simple cherry picking.
“Because ultimately our welfare, even our survival, is wholly dependent on the health of Gaia, we ask the urban Greens to think again and see that their primary obligation is to the living earth. Humankind comes second.”
“The Jesuits discovered a child’s mind could be moulded… we could, if we chose, make Gaia an instinctive belief by exposing our children to the natural world, telling them how and why it is Gaia in action, and showing that they belong to it.”
“We are in our present mess because the luxuries of whole-house heating and private transport by car have become necessities and far beyond earth’s capacity to provide.”
Whole-house heating ? Why ?
Bedroom heating was totally unknown for me, and for most, as a child in ChCh’s freezing winters. Getting up in the morning was achieved only after several parental threats. There were nine of us, we all survived childhood, although one was asthmatic, and there was usually a baby.
The fairy story is true: A NZ creative writer, male, whose name I forget, wrote of a melancholy teenage winter in Timaru, when he decided to court death by sleeping alongside an open window, hoping to catch pneumonia and die. He said that he was never more healthy in his life, and I don’t think that he even caught a cold. Hopefully he is still alive and writing.
Lovelock concludes,”I have to stress that the well being of Gaia must always come before that of ourselves : we cannot exist without Gaia.”
Me: We can exist without luxuries. We’ve done it before – that’s how it mainly used to be.
Good article Chris, where is Jacinda on this demise of our planet now” she was ‘preaching to us
“climate change is our generation’s ‘nuclear moment”!!!!!!!’
“So why is she not reducing truck freight for more less carbon emission transport such as rail which emits 5 to 8 times less carbon emissions than trucks per km of tonne carried each km??????.
Regional rail is not being increased under her “transformative” Government and sadly her government is one third into it’s “first term” so they had better get moving else they will be out in 2020.
Chris you said it right here; – Christine Rose was quoted correctly as saying;
“our chances of surviving global warming are slim indeed. And yet, if we put our faith in science, then Christine Rose’s bitter-sweet resignation; her “ecological grief” at the inevitable demise of so many living things”
‘Nuclear moment’ is a catch phrase, it is in fashion, it is something people take note of, as they did before, when the Cold War ruled much of the world, and where nuclear destruction was looming almost daily.
But politicians, including Jacinda, like to use such catch phrases to get the attention of voters and potential voters.
What then happens after the election, when the ones having succeeded with their catch phrases and slogans are in power, that is mostly a totally different story.
The fairy tale of who pays the piper calls the tune is the fundamental basis of mainstream neoliberal science which blinds it to the radicals and heretical free thinkers. What independent scientists are proving is that there is NO Global Warming. For example, the recent scare story about the oceans warming has turned out to be based on faulty assumptions unearthed by a independent scientist who actually read the details and found the maths did not stack up at all:
Climate contrarian uncovers scientific error, upends major ocean warming study – https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/environment/sd-me-climate-study-error-20181113-story.html
Consensus by the many can be tipped over by just a few who actually think for themselves. So what are the independent scientists showing us:
1. Earths magnetic poles are reversing heading into a full reversal.
2. Magnetic shield of earth has faded by 15% since 1850’s and is fading faster thanks to magnetic poles reversing.
3. This process leads to more solar and cosmic energy entering through earths magnetic shields to affect weather patterns.
4. 400 year cycle of mini-ice ages is also happening at the same time.
5. Grand Solar Minimum looks to be worse than expected given current maths (but in reality we wont know exact effects for another 100 years).
6. All this equals more extreme weather heading into a colder phase of temperatures e.g. look at crop losses/failures due to cold weather extremes in northern hemisphere.
This is the tip of the iceberg of independent science that completely disproves the global warming hoax. Is the climate changing? Of course! What is at issue is the why. How bad does the above scenario look? Much worse than even Trotter is predicting because there is nothing we can do about it except adapt to the fact we live on a constantly dynamically changing planet which we are only beginning to understand.
That magnetic shield that is fading also protects us from solar flares. I went to a talk on solar weather hosted by Otago University last week and the odds of a large solar flare occurring that could knock out the electrical grid are put at 27%-30% in the coming years. In perspective the alpine fault line going off in the same period is guessed at around 14%. So twice the risk from a major X Class solar flare all the while the earths magnetic shield continues to decrease every day. Yet solar weather is still not yet listed by government along with the usual disaster risks of earthquakes, floods etc. yet will be far more devastating to our society than any of those.
In other words climate wise things are going to get much much worse than even currently expected based on a failed global warming hypothesis. Time to wake up and smell the coffee while there is any coffee left. We must adapt or die as a species.
thumbs up for the easily digested explanation i salute you
“Across countless centuries I have seen civilizations manifest and crumble. Truly, none last. Arrogant Empires, everyone content in their belief that only they merit a place among these stars. Dogs chasing conquest, glory, even faith! (ha ha ha). I have seen the servants of the Elder beings seek only to spread their malice, one galaxy to the next. Merciless agents of discord, committed to the annihilation of all they once stood for. Seekers of depravity, and forces of cruel savagery. I watch the beleaguered populations of dying planets struggle tirelessly in a futile pursuit of betterment, or prosperity, or… survival. And yet, no matter how fleeting their existence, I welcome all… to a place in my carefully curated collection”.
– Unknown Necron Lord
Meteorologist Nick Humphrey
I apologize for the very long post but, this is an important statement for me and I want to make it easy to share. “Doom and gloom” folks (like me?) are constantly thrown under the bus for saying that there’s nothing that can be realistically done on climate change. I have no issue with our global society doing things to alleviate the effects of climate change as much as possible and limit the suffering and hardship of people and our biosphere. This is a moral obligation I believe. However, the idea that “doom” as opponents call it is a self-fulfilling prophecy is laughable and assumes that humans are in complete control of the planetary climate change underway.
We are not.
Methane, powerful greenhouse gas as well as carbon dioxide, in just recent years has begun to pour out of the Arctic…subsea and land…at increasing rates on top of increasing human emissions. The planet is losing the ability to reflect sunlight because of decreasing Arctic sea ice and alpine glaciation allowing the planet to take in more heat which it will retain. The ocean is becoming saturated with carbon dioxide as it undergoes acidification. Tropical rain forests are becoming emitters of carbon and not sinks. The oceans are warming rapidly and retaining massive amounts of heat into the climate system. The planet has enough CO2 and other greenhouse gases to warm to a “hothouse climate”. Etc, etc. Population declines and extinctions are increasing. In other words there are processes now beyond human control which cannot be stopped simply by humans stopping things. They must and will continue to full fruition. The incredible level of greeenhouse gases in the atmosphere make this reality absolute. It can be called a “doomer” viewpoint, however I call it reality. Humans are not in control of everything and this seems to be an extremely difficult, but harsh lesson for a species so used to controlling its own destiny.
You might ask how can a meteorologist with a masters degree and experise in weather forecasting, know more than the big PhD climate scientists who say we can still turn this around? I actually do not. These problems are well known and have been discussed among scientists. And *technically* by the laws of physics (as the UN Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change has noted), it is possible to remove the massive amounts of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere (which must be done in addition to ending use of fossil fuels) to stop and reduce the planet’s warming.
However, what’s possible by the laws of physics vs. what’s physically practical are two different things.
The enormous amount of energy and land areas which would be required to build a carbon capture and storage infrastructure make it extremely impractical (to put it mildly) as well as far far above any industrial scale process humanity has ever created. And to build both a global carbon capture/storage and renewable energy infrastructure to power a growing civilization would add to the tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide added yearly just from humans into the atmosphere, which then has to also be removed or climate change will accelerate even further. You need “business as usual” to speed up to get off of business as usual. These are all well known paradoxes.
Scientists who have taken the torch of trying to deal with the difficult task (not helped by outright climate denying campaigns) of communicating this mind boggling predicament have, in many cases tasked themselves with being “climate solutions champions” so as to give hope that science and technology along with individual action will save our world and not paralyze people with fear. This is the strategy used by many public communicating climate scientists…Mann, Hayhoe, and others.
But to me, scientists have an obligation to be providers to the hard truths and not social engineers of hope or dispair. People have a right to react as they see fit to terrible news, but we should be like doctors providing a diagnosis and not cheerleaders of hope vs. dispair. If certain treatments can’t work or are unrealistic, we must say so. This does not mean one cannot act. Humans are actors and hope is part of being human. But we need a different kind of hope and action. My “hope” would be society moving to a “deep adaption” recognizing the catastrophic to existential crisis underway and do everything possible to reduce harms as much and as long as possible. Migrate people away from coastal cities which will be underwater and increasingly under threat from more powerful storms. Help those migrating from the tropics because of climate change (the current caravan isn’t just about geopolitics…nor the Syrian Civil War…droughts are increasing in these areas) and allocate resources more fairly to provide basic needs to those most in need within and between nations. Have more restrictions on not only greenhouse gas emissions, but food, water waste recognizing the predicted declines in supply..end insane deforestation practices and trading of products which promote deforestation and extinction of species. Forget “stopping” climate change, humanity is not even doing these physically “easier” (using the term loosely here) big deal measures to slow the extinction of species and suffering of fellow humans! Why? Because we are too busy either denying the problem all together or denying there are irreversible consequences we must accept.
My “doomer” mentality to some is simply realism. We do not control Nature’s response to us (we are a part of Nature!!) and what people can control they refuse to do on an industrial and governmental level. We cannot stop climate change. Saying that is not a goofy self-fulliling prophesy, it is reality. My only hope is that society realizes this and stops screwing out with climate denialism or hairbrained schemes to stop the mess that’s already been created and the irreversible response by our world; instead work to actually do things which show compassion for each other and our fellow species.
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