I've repeatedly pondered whether to write something about this but I've held back. I just don't know that it means much to most people. It is compelling evidence that we have to choose - now - whether we're going to be a petro-state or opt for human survival instead. We are making that choice when we proceed with the construction of a massive, 60-year dilbit pipeline just as we made that choice with Keystone XL. I just heard that Enbridge is eyeing a new mega pipeline project into the States. These are decisions that don't give a fig about the future no matter what Justin claims.
Yes the Antarctic melting poses a huge problem but it's just one of a number of major threats that loom in the near future. Finland is pushing the Arctic Council to do something about "black carbon" that is accelerating the loss of ice and snow in the far north. Where is that soot coming from? Wildfires that now worsen by the year across the West from Mexico to Alaska. The new problem of tundra fires that we have no means to control. And industrial pollution from every industrial giant in the northern hemisphere. That combines man-made carbon and a natural feedback loop. How do you deal with that? It prompted Denmark's chief glaciologist, American Jason Box, to incautiously write in an email to a friend, "we're so fucked."
There's the sea level rise problem. Then there is the matter of our much warmer and moister atmosphere, the creation of "atmospheric rivers," and the worsening incidence of massive floods and sustained droughts.
Ocean acidification, we're not even touching that one. Rapidly worsening killer heatwaves. We're giving that one a pass too. Disease and pest migration, ditto. Severe storm events of steadily worsening frequency, intensity and duration. We're coming to realize we can't throw disaster relief money at everything, constantly.
Then you've got the population crisis and our rapacious overconsumption of the planet's finite resources. I don't even know how you would organize all of these things in a Venn diagram. You would think in a world that has grown mortally dependent on a supply of essential resources so far beyond our planet's carrying capacity that it alone would engage all of the world's nations to collaborate on finding sustainable alternatives, primarily in reducing consumption and rapidly curbing population and yet we're not even acknowledging there is a huge and existential threat.
It has been estimated that, in the early 70s, Earth could sustainably support a maximum human population of 3 billion. Today we've already so degraded the ecosystem that the maximum number is 2 billion. Yet we've passed 7.5 billion, headed for 9 billion and more. Our kids will witness events Hollywood struggled to depict in sci-fi movies.
I don't know how we get ahead of this, Lorne. I'm not sure that mankind is up to the challenges.
I made mention in a post last week about the Antarctic ice melting; it was in conjunction with a study that found people people selected Doug Ford as Ontario's new premier because he promised to make gasoline cheaper by ending our cap-and-trade agreement with Quebec and California. The study also revealed that voters care little for things that will affect succeeding generation, like climate change, adaptation, infrastructure renewal, etc. I wrote the post in despair, knowing that such studies merely chronicle our folly and our descent.
Your comments here more than amply demonstrate that collective folly and indifference to the retribution and reckoning that are coming. It is that sheer, widespread selfishness and indifference, I think, that led me to merely post these two news reports about the ice-melt. I could not bring myself to waste words, both because the imagery and analysis are compelling, and also due to my belief that, given both that selfishness and the utter cowardice of our captured leaders, nothing anyone says or does is now going to alter our doomed trajectory.
I accidentally wandered on to a PC facebook site where so many are against any kind of carbon tax or any efforts to deal with climate change because it's all a scam of some kind. I'm not sure who they think is cashing in on that particularly perception of a pyramid scheme, but it sure is eye-opening. There aren't masses rising up against the separation of children and parents at the borders. We're too complacent and our time and energy spread too thinly over all our trivial concerns.
We have become a cossetted people, Marie, where our primary concerns are the gratifications of our immediate desires, just as when we were infants. The world beyond our immediate one seems too remote to contemplate or empathize with.
This piece, by Jamie Watt, confirmed my worst fears about people: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/06/17/why-voters-were-attracted-to-doug-ford.html
I've repeatedly pondered whether to write something about this but I've held back. I just don't know that it means much to most people. It is compelling evidence that we have to choose - now - whether we're going to be a petro-state or opt for human survival instead. We are making that choice when we proceed with the construction of a massive, 60-year dilbit pipeline just as we made that choice with Keystone XL. I just heard that Enbridge is eyeing a new mega pipeline project into the States. These are decisions that don't give a fig about the future no matter what Justin claims.
ReplyDeleteYes the Antarctic melting poses a huge problem but it's just one of a number of major threats that loom in the near future. Finland is pushing the Arctic Council to do something about "black carbon" that is accelerating the loss of ice and snow in the far north. Where is that soot coming from? Wildfires that now worsen by the year across the West from Mexico to Alaska. The new problem of tundra fires that we have no means to control. And industrial pollution from every industrial giant in the northern hemisphere. That combines man-made carbon and a natural feedback loop. How do you deal with that? It prompted Denmark's chief glaciologist, American Jason Box, to incautiously write in an email to a friend, "we're so fucked."
There's the sea level rise problem. Then there is the matter of our much warmer and moister atmosphere, the creation of "atmospheric rivers," and the worsening incidence of massive floods and sustained droughts.
Ocean acidification, we're not even touching that one. Rapidly worsening killer heatwaves. We're giving that one a pass too. Disease and pest migration, ditto. Severe storm events of steadily worsening frequency, intensity and duration. We're coming to realize we can't throw disaster relief money at everything, constantly.
Then you've got the population crisis and our rapacious overconsumption of the planet's finite resources. I don't even know how you would organize all of these things in a Venn diagram. You would think in a world that has grown mortally dependent on a supply of essential resources so far beyond our planet's carrying capacity that it alone would engage all of the world's nations to collaborate on finding sustainable alternatives, primarily in reducing consumption and rapidly curbing population and yet we're not even acknowledging there is a huge and existential threat.
It has been estimated that, in the early 70s, Earth could sustainably support a maximum human population of 3 billion. Today we've already so degraded the ecosystem that the maximum number is 2 billion. Yet we've passed 7.5 billion, headed for 9 billion and more. Our kids will witness events Hollywood struggled to depict in sci-fi movies.
I don't know how we get ahead of this, Lorne. I'm not sure that mankind is up to the challenges.
I made mention in a post last week about the Antarctic ice melting; it was in conjunction with a study that found people people selected Doug Ford as Ontario's new premier because he promised to make gasoline cheaper by ending our cap-and-trade agreement with Quebec and California. The study also revealed that voters care little for things that will affect succeeding generation, like climate change, adaptation, infrastructure renewal, etc. I wrote the post in despair, knowing that such studies merely chronicle our folly and our descent.
DeleteYour comments here more than amply demonstrate that collective folly and indifference to the retribution and reckoning that are coming. It is that sheer, widespread selfishness and indifference, I think, that led me to merely post these two news reports about the ice-melt. I could not bring myself to waste words, both because the imagery and analysis are compelling, and also due to my belief that, given both that selfishness and the utter cowardice of our captured leaders, nothing anyone says or does is now going to alter our doomed trajectory.
Some people are cottoning on, Lorne. If only Doug Ford would do the same.
ReplyDeletePopulists like Ford now know the key to political success, Owen. Expect more of the same in our 'democracy' from hereon in.
DeleteI accidentally wandered on to a PC facebook site where so many are against any kind of carbon tax or any efforts to deal with climate change because it's all a scam of some kind. I'm not sure who they think is cashing in on that particularly perception of a pyramid scheme, but it sure is eye-opening. There aren't masses rising up against the separation of children and parents at the borders. We're too complacent and our time and energy spread too thinly over all our trivial concerns.
ReplyDeleteWe have become a cossetted people, Marie, where our primary concerns are the gratifications of our immediate desires, just as when we were infants. The world beyond our immediate one seems too remote to contemplate or empathize with.
DeleteThis piece, by Jamie Watt, confirmed my worst fears about people: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/06/17/why-voters-were-attracted-to-doug-ford.html