the ongoing climate apocalypse and so forth is going to kill us all because it's too boring for us to give a shit about
100 species going extinct daily is of no concern to us, because a nuclear plant blowing up 50 years ago is still dramatic enough to make a cinematic HBO series outof it but anything about the climate apocalypse involves way too many graphs and charts to be truly panic inducing
We should be panicking about this. The scientists are, but they can't be in interviews and stuff, because that would be "unprofessional"
It occupies this area of our minds where it's just omnipresent enough and just arcane enough for us to tune it out. It has a significantly less urgent call to action than practically any other poltical issue, and yet it's rapidly approaching a point of no return.
We should be panicking about climate, that is the correct reaction when you're in a burning building with no exits.
It's not like we can't do anything about it, we can just like, build a bunch of nuclear plants and just stop burning fossil fuels. That's our alternative that doesn't involve a crazy, genocidal, and fruitless quest to entirely divorce ourselves from electric dependence.
The idea that we're doomed didn't really sink in until a few weeks ago when I learned about this awful bit of chemistry which basically means in 40-100 years if we continue on our current track, the Amazon rainforest, Canadian forests and Siberian forests will all begin to emit more CO2 than they take in.
I'll say that again because it's worth repeating: nature will, if we heat the planet sufficiently, begin to assist us in heating the planet
So in short, we probably are doomed, unless a dramatic restructuring of our society takes place in the next few decades. The likelihood that this change will be peaceful or not disruptive to our current way of life is non existent unless we just suddenly get really cozy with nuclear reactors
So yeah, we're fucked.
My only solace is that the evil bastards who are fully aware this is happening and yet continue to expand their cancerous industries are human. They have names, addresses, fears, hopes, families, all things we can use to CONVINCE them of the error of their ways. Likewise, global capitalism HAS the resources to address this crisis in the remaining window, it IS still, barely, a matter of poltical will.
We are the last generation that will have this choice.
The window will slam into our faces within my lifetime, in all likelihood.
We only need to raise global temperatures by roughly 2-3 degrees Celsius, which is, well it's the topic of treaties and neoliberal smoke and mirrors