Will We Choose to Die?
It's STILL our choice.
“The window of opportunity is brief and closing, but it’s still there.”
“The answer is in your hands and the hands of others like you.”
See my previous pieces about global heating:
“Are People In Denial?” (29 December 2021)
“Will We End Ourselves?” (28 April 2022)
There’s been so much horrifying stuff in the news recently about global heating—it’s hard to believe what we’re seeing before our eyes as global heating clobbers us.
Horrors
It seems redundant to explain to people how much trouble we’re in—people who follow the news know all about the horrors:
“Heat wave in India leaves millions struggling to cope” (29 April 2022)
“In 3 days, over 7,800 forest fire hotspots spotted in India” (30 April 2022)
“Historically low water levels in Lake Mead expose intake valve” (29 April 2022)
“Lake Powell officials face an impossible choice in the West’s megadrought: Water or electricity” (30 April 2022)
“Public Outrage Mounts as Siberia Forest Fires Spread at Unprecedented Rate” (20 April 2022)
“It’s 70 degrees warmer than normal in eastern Antarctica. Scientists are flabbergasted.” (18 March 2022)
“Diminishing Arctic sea ice has lasting impacts on global climate” (28 April 2022)
“Global heating risks most cataclysmic extinction of marine life in 250m years” (28 April 2022)
I want to emphasize the following excerpt from the 29 April 2022 article about India:
While heatwaves are common in India, especially in May and June, summer began early this year with high temperatures from March itself—average maximum temperatures in the month were the highest in 122 years. Heatwaves also began setting in during the month.
And I want to emphasize the following excerpt from the article about Lake Mead:
The megadrought gripping the western United States has pushed Lake Mead’s water level to historic lows, below an intake valve that first began supplying Nevada customers in 1971.
The emergence of the intake valve in the nation’s largest reservoir drew attention to the future of the Colorado River basin and the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which supplies water for 2.2 million people, including in the city of Las Vegas.
And I also want to emphasize the following excerpt from the article about Lake Powell:
As water levels decline, so does hydropower production. The dam harnesses the gravitational force of the Colorado River’s water to generate power for as many as 5.8 million homes and businesses in seven states, including Nevada and New Mexico.
Bryan Hill runs the public power utility in Page, Arizona, where the federal dam is located, and likens the situation to judgment day.
“We’re knocking on the door of judgment day—judgment day being when we don’t have any water to give anybody.”
You see horrifying things in the news every single day—so much stuff is hitting the fan before our eyes.
I want to remind everyone that it’s 2022—global heating is already clobbering us and it’s not even 2050 yet or 2060 yet or 2070 yet…or 2100 yet. So you can see exactly why people are genuinely worried that our brittle and fragile and chaotic global civilization won’t withstand what’s coming.
The Industry Wants You VERY VERY VERY Apolitical
I urge everyone to read Emma Pattee’s fascinating piece about the need to challenge the standard ideas about how to stop global heating:
“Forget Your Carbon Footprint. Let’s Talk About Your Climate Shadow.” (12 October 2021)
The piece’s second pull quote reads as follows:
By promoting the carbon footprint as the single most important thing for concerned citizens to focus on, the fossil fuel industry ensured that we wouldn’t put our energy toward what truly matters: collective action and activism.
Read through Pattee’s piece, though—how much does the piece emphasize “collective action and activism”? I’d say the following:
(1) political action will determine whether we survive global heating
(2) political action means building popular movements that’ll compel governments to adopt vigorous government programs
(3) the fossil fuel industry understands very well that their profits will continue to flow as long as we fail to adopt vigorous government programs
(4) based on this understanding, the fossil fuel industry has adopted a diversionary strategy where they try to divert attention to individual lifestyle choices
(5) it’s good that the piece broadens the notion of individual action
(6) it’s unfortunate that the piece displaces attention from political action in a way that plays right into the fossil fuel industry’s diversionary strategy
(7) a more meaningful “climate shadow” would consider the time and energy that each person’s non-political efforts take away from political action
So let’s focus on politics—we need WW2-level mobilization.
Action
There are people who don’t want to die:
I will make sure to interview various climate activists who aren’t interested in watching global heating wipe us out—there’s a tragic situation where a lot of people who could be joining activism are instead building bunkers for themselves.
It’s Not Over Yet
I took notes on Noam Chomsky’s 29 April 2022 talk in which he addressed the World Social Forum:
our world is “hurtling to self-annihilation”
our world “has been on a slow course toward self-annihilation for a long time”
regarding global heating, Chomsky “learned how serious this was 50 years ago”
the “executives of the fossil fuel companies” also knew long ago that it was a serious crisis—these decision-makers in the fossil fuel industry moved to (A) “accelerate the destruction” and (B) “kill any threat that the population might understand their grim fate”
the GOP is “100% denialist”—this is a “matter of extraordinary significance”
the GOP wasn’t always immersed in denialism—in 2008, John McCain had a climate program during his presidential run and “Republican legislators were also beginning to consider similar efforts”
regarding the GOP’s shift to denialism, the “transition tells us something about the institutions that humans have constructed and about the challenges they pose to survival”
the story behind the shift is that David Koch led a “huge juggernaut” that managed to convert the GOP into a denialist party
you now have a situation where in 2016 every GOP presidential candidate was either denialist or anti-action
“This is not Andorra—this is the government of the most powerful country in human history. And that’s not a joke for our sad world.”
human intelligence has “devised social institutions that are a death warrant”
there are proposals for action that are “detailed” and “quite feasible”
we can—if we implement these proposals—“overcome the climate crisis”
we can—if we implement these proposals—“move on to a much better life”
AOC and Ed Markey have sponsored a resolution that “spells out in extensive detail a sensible and feasible approach to ending the crisis and opening the way to a much more livable world”
it’s “not the only such program”—“several economists” including Robert Pollin have “worked out detailed proposals”
the various proposals are “all pretty much similar”
the proposals “can be implemented”
the resolution in Congress “could become legislation and be enacted”
implementation won’t happen unless there’s “enough intense popular effort”
there are also opportunities “in other countries”
“The window of opportunity is brief and closing, but it’s still there.”
will we implement these proposals?
“The answer is in your hands and the hands of others like you.”
Let’s all remember these two Chomsky quotes:
Out here in Santa Fe we are watching our beloved forests turn to ash, taking with them the blue skies that rivaled Greece for the purity of the light. It's a soul-crushing experience especially when we turn to the news and see nothing of the urgency the moment requires. Is it too conspiratorial to think that the entire thrust of the right wing enterprise, from the Kochs on down, is to forestall action until it is too late to do anything? Or to divide us with idiocies so we can't dwell on that which should unite us all under one flag.
I think of all the people who work in these right wing think tanks and wonder, "What world do they think their children will live in?" Is power really so seductive that it overrides concern for their children's future? It must be.
Or perhaps the human species simply hasn't evolved to the point where we can face our own extinction with the sense of purpose and resolve the matter requires.
Alternatively, there may be millions of people who understand the problem and await their marching orders as to how we can move, as a people, to deal with this crisis. Right now we are stuck watching an enormous cloud of smoke and dust descend over our world, clouding not just the skies we cherished but the way forward.