The War on Climate Change is Already Lost
by John Lawrence, April 22, 2019
For years now climate change experts have been warning us that we need a World War 2 type mobilization to fight the war on climate change. The result: last year more greenhouse gasses were emitted into the atmosphere than in any previous year. We're not only not reducing climate change, we're accelerating it. We're dooming future generations just so we can maintain our current lifestyles. Sure, the climate disasters taking place around the globe such as severe heat and drought, severe flooding, destructive tornadoes, loss of coral reefs and fisheries - are only affecting a mere handful of people at the present time, but shortly, these climate induced disasters will affect greater and greater numbers.
CNN reports - We're losing the war on climate change:
For years now, people like environmentalist and journalist Bill McKibben have been screaming from the treetops that we need a World War II-scale mobilization to fight the scourge of climate change.
They're right, of course. And on Earth Day -- that 24-hour sliver of the calendar when we talk about the fact that humans exist on, and because of, a living planet -- it's clear not only that we are losing this war but that we still are failing to recognize it's taking place at all.
I mean, yes, I've met Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teen who is "schooling world leaders" on climate policy and who started a global school walkout movement. I've read the Green New Deal and seen the videos of young people demanding that US reps adopt it. Just this month, protesters in London shut down parts of the city in their calls for a reckoning. It's true that clean energy sources keep getting cheaper. Electric cars are more popular than ever.
But the scale of the outrage in no way matches the magnitude of this disaster, which, like WWII, threatens to cripple or even obliterate human life on the planet as we know it.
It's the story of the frog which was placed in warm water. It loved it, and as the temperature of the water was gently increased, the frog was entirely pleased. It relaxed into the pleasant sensations. No need to leave even though fellow frogs were telling it to get out while it still could. Gradually, as the temperature was increased some more, the frog grew so lethargic that he found it difficult to move. Maybe I should get out now thought the frog, but he had waited too long. He could not move because the water was getting so hot. You all know the end of the story. As the water boiled, so did the frog.
It's an exact analogy to what's happening to planet earth and its inhabitants. When oil was first discovered, it seemed like a good way to power a car. When the number of cars on the planet was small, the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted into the atmosphere was negligible compared to the other gasses like oxygen and nitrogen. However, as the number of people on the planet increased and the number of gas guzzling cars increased, the amount of GHGs emitted accumulated until it reached the point that it is now at where it is changing the climate on the planet. As we continue emitting GHGs at an ever increasing rate, we are completely complacent because it's not our ox that is being gored until it is.
Perhaps a benevolent dictator could decide: NO MORE FOSSIL FUEL PRODUCTION. Then everyone would have to scramble to make their lives work despite the loss of jobs and transportation options. People would say that that was communism where everyone was reduced to taking public transportation, their freedom of choice being reduced. Would we fight wars to make sure that nowhere else in the world was it allowed to produce fossil fuels? Maybe it would have to come to that. How ironic! The US has traditionally fought wars to gain control of oil production and to make sure that oil was traded only in dollars. Now in order to save the planet, wars need to be fought to insure that no more oil is removed from the ground. But will they?