Oh. My. God. The danger is EXTREME - ooh hold everything, what's THAT? Even in the face of imminent runaway climate change, we are still like cats distracted by a toy. We just can't focus on the actual problem.
The full title of the latest IPCC Special Report on Global Warming, the one that warns that we have 12 years to prevent unstoppable catastrophe, is 'Global Warming of 1.5°C, an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty.' What has poverty to do with climate change?! Wake up, climate people! Climate change is NOT a poverty problem! It is a problem of physics now. It is also a problem of economic growth, but not the lack of it in the poor world. It's because of the resource extraction, the fossil fuel combustion, the massive material processing and production all feverishly clunking and whirring to keep economic growth going that is causing climate change. Poverty has nothing to do with Europe burning this summer. Poverty has nothing to do with California and Canada in flames or record storms in Hong Kong. Stop fiddling about pretending that we can stop climate change by bringing Western-style free market economics to sub-Saharan Africa (and that every dirty-faced, sad-eyed little girl will have her prayers answered if only her country can compete in the money economy). The problem is global addiction to fossil fuel combustion and psychotic obsession with economic growth at all costs. And nothing is going to send the poor deeper into misery than runaway climate change.
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AuthorHow to identify myself... a deeply concerned citizen of a fucked-up world, swinging with circadian regularity between esprit de vie and deep, black despair. PhD, entrepreneur, author, international experience, woman (should I add chromosomes to my list of qualifications....?) Archives
May 2020
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