“Two years left to save the world” U.N. Climate Chief
Still plenty of time to explain to our kids.
Please note: The subject of this diary defies the brevity most reader’s prefer as it lays out a plan employing 3 viable methods for saving the world, while exploring the ways they connect and amplify each other. I’ve done my best to be succinct and hope the contents will be worthy of your patience.
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Survival is supposed to be our number one imperative as a species, but generally speaking, something in the wiring of our ‘magnificent’ brains has short circuited its ‘superior’ cognitive skills when facing the looming shadow of self-annihilation.
I found this dark pearl of discord, ‘set’ with other gems of lesser value in Magnifico’s past diary of April 12th.
UN climate chief says humans have 2 years left 'to save the world' | AP News
Essentially, the U.N. Climate Chief says we have 2 years left to get a sustainable level of control over environmental collapse.
Since I felt the inestimable worth of his message sufficient to be of more than passing interest, I decided to enter it into the daily competition on DK to pick the most newsworthy topic currently impacting our lives. While the Tangerine Traitor’s trial is providing stiff competition, I thought it might stand a chance, as it is in its own way, a remarkably compelling saga of ‘can kicking’ taken to Mount Everest heights of cliffhanging, nail-chewing and finger-pointing procrastination. It is already in the running for “most important information in human history”, but should it win, it will likely lose the crown two years from now. Stay tuned (out).
While two years appears hopeless in the face of the enormity we are facing, when we set our minds to pro-action, it will shock us all as to what we can do and how fast we can do it.
Climatologists are telling us that while there is still time to save ourselves, that time is evaporating like spilt milk in a kitchen fire.
Despite this, by an indeterminable percentage, the bulk of humanity is roughly split between ‘not accepting delivery’ or takin the easy way out through the remarkably effective method of ‘throwing their hands up in despair’ — which is a not so distant, but less popular cousin of ‘magic thinking’.
For giving up prematurely, which is essentially a cynical knee-jerk excuse based in the ‘conviction’ that ‘people’ are too selfish and incompetent to get their shit together in time, is a denial mechanism that affords the denigrator the luxury of not having to get their shit together in time. Ironically, those who cop-out this way, become those they disparage.
In a word, choosing this route of inaction is rationalized dumbfuckery.
For history is larded with examples of just such accomplishments in the face of overwhelming odds, with Ukraine being among the most recent.
As near as I can tell for that matter, no one is really sure how much more we will need to do to fill the gaps in what we have already done and are currently doing. Innovations, which are popping out of the ground faster than crocuses after a spring thaw, remain an unknown factor, as does the degree to which the environment will respond to healing — which it did during the pandemic shutdown in ways that surprised environmental scientists. (An anomaly, along with Chernobyl, that has been pretty much shelved and therefore not taken into account.)
Perhaps due to the media click-bait blanket smothering much of environmental information, it is difficult to determine if anyone is making an effort to tally up as best as possible, the sum total of reparation already banked through the myriad efforts of countless people all over the world.
This becomes particularly difficult when ascertaining the aggregate of individual efforts, as there are limits as to how thoroughly this ‘stealth’ activity can be factored in.
After all, do you know what contributions your neighbors may or may not be making?
As a result, determining how many people are having an impact through individual efforts, and to what degrees, beggars anything other than speculation .
Rather than getting lost in those thickets, the wisest thing to do at this point is to move forward expeditiously, in an attempt to beat the clock. ‘Erring on the side of caution’ and ‘hedging our bets’ , seem to have taken a vacation from their managerial responsibilities, as reflected in the tepid response to this crisis by most people, who prefer to defer.
There are however, several powerful and fundamental things that can be done to still turn this around.
Unfortunately, the widespread knowledge of these is muffled by those forces which are heavily ensconced in profiting from our current economic status quo — backed up by our own willful avoidance of these bummer ‘party’ protocols. As the privileged and the plebeians all share desire, self-centered priorities and a general narrowness of purpose steeped in denial, they continue this tacit dance of consumption to the blissful ‘rhapsodies’ of well-guarded ignorance.
First and foremost of these last minute game-changers would be what I’ve come to call ‘emission reboots’, which is a straightforward method with the unique and proven potential to lower emission rates expeditiously to safe levels. This can be accomplished in the same way it was inadvertently done during the Pandemic Shutdown, by cutting back on all emissions sources that are not focused on absolute essentials, until we can lower harmful emissions to safe levels and put the environment back on the path to recovery. I have written any number of times about ‘reboots’ over the last two years, because when few are listening, repetition is the hammer that drives the nail home.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/3/2185012/-When-you-re-ready-to-listen-there-s-a-path-out-of-this-mess-if-we-re-mature-enough-to-choose-it
Promoting ‘reboots’ is the equivalent of yelling fire at a heavy metal concert where everybody’s attention is already subsumed by overwhelming sensory imput.
Quite a while back, (but evidently too soon for most people’s convenience), climatologists completed their studies of the effect of the Pandemic Shutdown on the environment and what they learned have spurred them to advocate for dropping emissions again ASAP. They proved that greenhouse gases plummeted during the shutdown and they are pleading with us to heed this lesson and find a way to repeat it. There is only one safe way — and it is now ‘tried and true’.
Although some see the logic in this approach, thehill.com/...
the common response is to release a flood of counter-rationale arguments to undermine the viability of ‘reboots’.
But it is useful to remember that the Pandemic shutdown was not initiated by a quorum.
It was in fact aggressively resisted by monied interests, and seen as unwelcome by the majority of average citizens, most of whom were brought to heel by fear, imposed restrictions and peer pressure.
We have reached the moment in which the choice of implementing ‘reboots’ has become binary —
do or die. What remains mutable is the ‘load bearing capacity’ of our will to survive.
Having been there still too recently for their tender privilege to have recovered, most humans remain recalcitrant of further sacrifice and hardship, which our ‘inbred domestication’ ill prepares us for. When considered rationally, these are a small price to pay to avoid annihilation, which is after all, the greatest form of sacrifice and hardship imaginable. Nevertheless, with our prior experience, the differing parameters of a non-pathogenic crisis and post shutdown advances in technology, it is highly likely that economic and emotional suffering can be mitigated this time around.
But we must accept the fact that they can no longer be avoided.
When it does manage to get past the iron door guarding the singularity of purpose of our ‘overlords’, ‘emission reboots’ is summarily ejected, as it is perceived as short-term profit hostile and worse yet, a ‘deck-shuffler’. We should expect no succor from the ‘corporate beast’, which confronts reboots as a profound threat to ‘business as usual’ and their intrenched power base.
Even so El Nino seems to have seeped in, as ‘big business’ appears to be seeing the necessity of doing something, perhaps as a result of analyzing all contingencies in terms of their profitability. This is most likely why they are championing the alternative to ‘reboots’, Geo engineering, as a ‘climate business-friendly’ quick fix. For their ‘gilded’ ears, its siren song promises the least impact on our consumption-based ‘‘normal’, while offering the luster of divinity to their sacred profits.
Self-delusion becomes pervasive when fueled by greed.
Cloud engineering could be more effective 'painkiller' for global warming than previously thought | ScienceDaily
“Of course, while it could be useful, MCB does not address the underlying causes of global warming from greenhouse gases produced by human activity. It should therefore be regarded as a 'painkiller', rather than a solution, and we must continue to improve fundamental understanding of aerosol's impacts on clouds, further research on global impacts and risks of MCB, and search for ways to decarbonise human activities." (My bold)
Unfortunately, we do not have the luxury for any such research and my great fear is that, due to time constraints, geo-engineering will become a rush job, as well as the ‘bum’s rush’.
https://news.agu.org/press-release/emergency-atmospheric-geoengineering-wouldnt-save-the-oceans/
By contrast, ‘emission reboots’ are ready to go anytime we are.
Prioritizing the economy over such insured results is insane and a product of our pecuniary addled brains. But in the ‘dominion of the dollar’, we will look for any solution other than ‘reboots’, with a willful recklessness to incur risks to our survival rather than desecrate the economic ‘temple’. We are willing to play environmental roulette, tempted by the deceptive ‘promise’ of less pain, while remaining fearful of the relative cost of suffering and hardship — even when it promises success.
For the bottom line is that geo-engineering has a long history of fucking the environment, as the human mind is too impatient and woefully incapable of comprehending the multiplicity of criteria that must be taken into account to micro-engineer such ‘tinkering’ with the environment without sabotaging its finely tuned, incredibly intricate inter-connectivity. Even if we possessed such omnipotent capabilities, our ‘greased’ priorities guarantee failure.
While we think we’re playing grandmaster chess, we end up losing at checkers.
Contrasted with this, ‘emission reboots’ are modeled on, but differ in many ways from the Pandemic Shutdown, which had a profound and completely beneficial impact on the environment. Although for most humans, the short term benefits seemed scant and completely crowded-out by hardships aplenty, the shutdown was a gift that we continue to fail to accept and appreciate due to the ‘long haul’ psychic damage of ‘shutdown fatigue’.
The suffering of the spoiled is always magnified by their insular lack of perspective.
The second and inter-allied weapon we have in our ‘emergency first aid kit’, is the slumbering ‘giant’ within us, which is fully capable of controlling global consumption of both energy and material goods. This can be done simply by cutting back our personal consumption to basic necessities. Critical to this self-mastery is understanding that our consumption is not based in need, but rather in desire amounting to addiction. The realization that consumption never fulfills these desires, but rather inflames our urge to consume, is our escape-hatch from the consumer hamster-wheel. By breaking this vortexual trance, we can start to take power away from the fossil fuel industry, the powerful, aberrant wealth and corporations — enabling us to reclaim an environmentally and economically stable world.
Simply put, we either reach that level of mature self-determination or we perish.
For the past 70 years, economic growth has become a means and an end in itself. As this ‘wealth harvest’ has been preempted more and more by a tiny percentage of humans, this ‘healthy growth’ has morphed into a rampaging obsession — fomenting rapacious financial blight and massive material destruction.
We are stripping the world of its resources to feed the untethered beast of our misdirected compulsions.
If we are ever to implement ‘emission reboots’, in conjunction with the necessary establishment of sustainability, our current economic model has to be disassembled and reconfigured to support equality and stability, neither of which can exist without the other.
This third environmental ‘life preserver’, is being championed by preeminent and enlightened economists as economic “degrowth”.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/19/2230323/-Economics-for-Our-Earth?utm_campaign=recent#comment_88273750
This Pioneering Economist Says Our Obsession With Growth Must End - The New York Times
With the ‘super power’ of 20-20 hindsight, with which we peer through the fog of our own gluttony, some are starting to recognize the value of properly balanced economic stability, tuned to sustainability, rather than tailored by our insatiable appetites to promote the growth of our greed.
Emission reboots and cutting consumption, run parallel and mutually reenforce this return to an earlier, more beneficial financial and consumption moderation.
In fact, “reboots” are the best way to begin ‘degrowth’.
During the Pandemic Shutdown, with a wide variety of compulsive and counterproductive human activities severely curtailed, many rediscovered the ‘simple pleasures’ and returned to interacting with the life affirming ‘gifts’ of nature. Economic “degrowth”, through pruning our consumption, would foster the restoration of our inter-connective placement in a harmonic balance so beneficial to health and emotional equilibrium.
Of course, ‘degrowth’ is not popular with the ‘lords of finance’. Here is one such near-sighted ‘visionary’:
“This unorthodox school of thought has no shortage of critics. Bill Gates has called degrowthers unrealistic, emphasizing that asking people to consume less for the sake of the climate is a losing battle. And even believers acknowledge their framework can be a political nonstarter, given how difficult it is to imagine what weaning off growth would look like in practice.” (from “Degrowth: A dangerous idea or the answer to the world’s biggest crisis?” By Julia Horowitz, CNN Business)
Mr. Gates speaks through the bars of ‘our times’, unable or unwilling to see outside our communal cell block. Like most people he does not comprehend the profound changes environmental collapse is causing as it tears down the walls of this prison to rip our ‘normal’ to shreds.
People will consume less “for the sake of the climate”, either once our economies collapse along with supply chain and crop failures or when they realize that the survival of their children demand they do so. Already El Nino is flushing awareness out of the overgrowth of complacency, and many are finally connecting consumption to destruction.
While there any number of things that can and will need to be done to achieve the goal of long term survival, as I see it, the three mentioned above are the fundamental ‘organs’ of this ‘body’ of actions. If in one form or another, they are not responsibly adopted and managed, it is highly likely that the vaporizing time that remains will not be sufficient “to save the world”. While I do not discount the possibility of ‘cosmic participation’, I prefer relying on our own capabilities and leaving ‘intervention’ in the bonus category, as self-help is more dependable.
The caveat to all of this is that we will still need to deal with the interference of monolithic human stupidity, as ossified by selfishness and fear.
The only productive path forward to environmental salvation heads straight through this extravagantly imbecilic maze laced with trigger wires.
Although our survival seems at best tenuous, there’s little doubt in my mind that there are still enough people in the world who won’t lay down and accept annihilation. For example, as self-centered as so many are in America, there have been sufficient numbers willing to stand up and push back on the spread of fascism — effectively.
First we will need to confront and own our limitations, if we are to rise above them to realize our potential for survival. Even then, whether we can undermine the enormous and seemingly unassailable battlements defending the current world order and stop burning through what time is left us by engaging in the destructive distraction of global power struggles, remains to be seen.
While it doesn’t look promising for now, history specializes in plot twists, cliff hangers, and the mysterious dissipation of threatening hordes.
After all, when it comes to plans, we’re mice as often as men.
This range in human character is now being tested by the choice we face between the fool’s option of sitting this one out, or embracing the formidable, but still viable path forward — which the brave choose because they compel themselves to do so. Action conquers fear.
While I observe so many of the world’s events, sociological patterns, technological advancements, scientific breakthroughs, human knowledge, insights and perspectives etc., converging on the singularity of collective cathartic crisis — the awareness and tracking of this has made it crystal clear to me that saving our democracy has become the linchpin of saving our planet.
‘Reboots’ will require an emergency executive order, the possibility of which hangs in the balance.
Joe Biden is a master politician in full command of his mental faculties with profound political experience, as well as being a fearless and fearsome humanitarian. Fate has provided us with the right man, in the right place, in the right time. We must do everything we possibly can to see that he gets reelected.
But as we can vote while at the same time actively administering to Gaia’s wounds, we need to roll up our sleeves and get to work in whatever way we can, great or small. The best place to start is by breaking free of our consumer shackles to become the masters of our own personal consumption. While that may seem inadequate to many, such disparagement is a construct of denial — for the truth is that the world has been trashed incrementally by the actions of individuals, and so therefore, clearly the reverse has to hold true.
Thinking otherwise is avoidance of the kind that can lead to coronary failure from too many bonbons.
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Note: In the comments, Gardening Toad provided this link to a plan for world restructuring and maintenance that has been as sourced from and is based on the structuring of ‘primitive’ societies.
As I felt it pertinent to this diary, I’ve added it here: www.tagaripublications.com/...