I’ve been banging on about climate change a lot lately. Well, I don’t intend to apologise for that. Just because too many of us are either not aware of what’s going to happen, or are ignoring it and choosing to carry on regardless, or, like me, carry on fully aware that everything I can do to reduce the damage I’m doing is like using a teaspoon to clean up an oil spill, it doesn’t mean the future we’ve decided for ourselves is something I can stop going on about.
Because I can take a pretty decent guess at how I think my kids are going to die. The latest IPCC report paints a pretty bleak picture of our future if major changes aren’t made yesterday. That bleak picture is actually pretty rosy compared to the likely reality, knowing full well as we do that those with the power to effect real change don’t have any intention of doing it. Keeping within 2 degrees of warming will merely mean the deaths of millions and the resettling of millions more. Not speaking for myself, we’ve always pretty much accepted this, because it will mostly be impoverished countries taking the brunt of it, so we’ll all be able to feel sorry for those poor folks living far away, maybe donate a bit to a charity and keep on pissing away the planet’s resources like we always have, assuming we can do enough to keep within 2 degrees.
But we’re not doing enough. It’s years too late. Maybe decades. But hey, this has only been known for 100 years or so in scientific circles, so it isn’t like we had enough time to change, you know? Murdoch, Koch and other names of very rich white men are continuing to push the discussion in other directions. The good we could have accomplished, and the progress we could have made if we hadn’t spent our time focusing on shite like leaving the E.U. (noticed how the Venn diagram for those heavily in favour of leaving and those that deny climate change is a clear and present threat (or even exists) pretty much overlaps?), abusing folks migrating from other countries (you have no idea of the shitshow coming if you think we’re overwhelmed now (which we’re not)) or countless other political pursuits that won’t mean anything in the long run if this isn’t tackled simultaneously breaks my heart and fills me with fury enough to, when I let it, stop me being of any use to anyone.
We’re currently banking on technology that hasn’t been invented yet to fix this mess at some point in the future. The truth is too ridiculous for parody. It’s like an American senator assuming praying will do a damn thing to stop idiots shooting schoolchildren so they can continue to do nothing (as with climate change, the lack of action by those with the power to affect change, leashed by the power of money, is now beyond reprehensible). There’s a Venn overlap again in there somewhere.
The increasingly likely outcome then is looking more and more like 8 degrees. That’s not ‘just’ the deaths of millions. That’s ecological collapse. That’s impossible to grow food (no, we can’t just switch to growing bananas and coconuts). That’s everybody dying. I’m guessing those on top of the economic tree using their influence to convince as many people as they can to keep the status quo and allow this to happen are assuming their money will protect them, and that they will somehow be able to profit off it. But sooner or later, food won’t just be expensive, it simply won’t be there.
And that’s why I’m worried I can take an educated guess as to how my kids might die. If it is, it’ll be the same way your kids will die. It might even be how I go out if I hold on long enough: starvation. Doesn’t seem possible at the moment does it? That’s why you listen to the people spending their lives in study of it telling you this could happen. It’s probably too late to swerve it, and we’re still going straight at it full throttle, ignoring the shouts of those telling us to change course.
