I accidentally heard a sound byte on FOX NEWS yesterday and I was scrolling through radio channels on my way home from the donkey rescue ranch. The female talking head said something like: Coming up next more climate hysteria … is it just another Democratic political stunt? I continued to scroll after enduring a sudden anxiety caused stomach cramp.
I don’t read or write much about global climate destabilization (GCD) anymore. It’s just way too stressful. It generates in me such a sense of hopelessness that I can barely function.
Recently I saw a speech given by Michael Shellenberger that you can watch on YouTube where it is titled, “Michael Shellenberger’s Guide to Escaping the Woke Matrix“. In that video he said (~2:20), “Carbon emissions peaked in Great Britain over 50 year ago. Same thing in France. The United States and indeed over the last decade total global emissions declined.” And then he asks, “Why haven’t you read that in the New York Times or the Washington Post?” BTW, he references Carbon Brief as the source for the carbon emissions data.
That made me sit up and take note. Because, like everyone else, I’m desperate for some good news about GCD. I cling to the notion that perhaps it’s not as bad as we’re being told it is. He gives a few more references on other things like global annual death rates from natural disasters, the costs of disasters being on the decline (citing Our World in Data and EM-DAT 2022), and how the Great Barrier Reef recorded highest amount of coral in 36 years (CNN). All of which made me wonder, “OMG, are we being lied to about GCD?”
Of course he was misleading in the information he was providing because his point was about why this data wasn’t being reported in mainstream media (please note that last one was reported by CNN in Australia). So he had his agenda, which is to question censorship in our news sources but for people like me it sowed a moment of doubt about what I believed with regard to GCD.
But what I do when I see and hear information like that is to research for myself what’s happening and as you can see I rewatched all those bits of the video and tracked down his sources to see for myself if, maybe – just maybe, things weren’t as bad as they seem. They are.
Carbon emissions have not declined, btw… are even Shellenberger’s reference site, Our World in Data, has a chart for that. Also, world wide Global atmospheric CO2 concentrations only keep rising. And even that CNN article said “PARTS OF the great barrier reef”. Florida has lost 93% of it’s coral reefs and with the scalding temps just this week that could put the final kiss of death on the last 7%. And as for cost of disasters, I call bullshit. I just don’t believe it when I see places like Mayfield, Kentucky being wiped out by a EF4 tornado in 2021 and now being flooded beyond belief. Hell, insurance companies AIG and Farmers are pulling out of insuring Floridians! And look at all the wildfires… oh, I guess millions and millions of acres of land, forests, wildlife has no actual value in those charts. And all the data and models tend to never include feedback loops, tipping points, and collateral damages.
Climate hysteria. Yeah. Right. Perhaps the real hysteria belongs to those who threaten the lives of meteorologists for reporting on climate impacts.
To those who love to say, weather is cyclic this is just a phase, I answer, Yeah – we are in the Anthropocene Epoch and it’s all man made and it’s only just getting started!
I’ll never forget a conversation I had with a dear friend one time. She doesn’t “believe in climate change”. I asked her what she based that belief upon. And now, mind you, this is a very intelligent woman, highly educated… She answered, “Well, I don’t read about it really. I just don’t think it’s real.”
How can you debate that? How can you change that person’s mind? You can’t. The real information is out there, you just have to do a little research and hope to plant seeds here and there in those people who still have open minds. Show them charts like this:
and this:
Only profoundly stubborn, closed minded folks can ignore that type of information. k
Twenty plus years ago I used to say, “Oh, things will change when rich people are affected by disasters and climate driven shortages, etc.” But twenty / twentyfive years ago The Rich were different than they are now. They have even more now than they did then. They do not care. They jet off to Greece to watch a basketball game, or take their yachts to their summer homes in their favorite places, or buy up shit tons of land and farms in the USA and elsewhere as they try to “prepare for it”.
Those at the top of the ladder fighting for climate justice are just new age carpetbaggers. What have they accomplished? What has changed since the 70s? Not much. Things have only gotten worse. The United Nations’ 17 SDGs are still based on development and growth. The #1 SDG isn’t even about climate change, that’s way down the list at #13!
#1 is No Poverty. Really?! WTAF?? Okay, I get it, as long as there are people struggling to house and feed themselves they won’t care about the environment. But they are not the problem, really, are they? This is a problem that super wealthy people have to solve. The people behind the politicians and large corporations. But I have no hope in that because they want more growth, more development, more exploitation of everything the Earth holds… A beautiful old growth forest holds no value to them except in the harvesting of them as products. It’s disgusting.
I read Jeffrey Sach’s book, “a world-renowned economics professor, bestselling author, innovative educator, and global leader in sustainable development”, The Age of Sustainable Development. It’s all about development folks. And he’s considered a climate / environmental champion. I consider him a greenwasher.
Little Greta Thunberg gets roasted every day but she’s the real hero here. Say what you will, think what you will about her but I can only respect someone who puts everything on the line for our beautiful blue dot.
So, yeah, that idiot on Fox News fucked with my head yesterday. I’m much happier when I can bury my head in the AI developments or new music released by my favorite artists, or writing a new story that I think is pretty good. It’s just too hard to think about what’s happening around us when there is so very little I can actually do about it … and in one sense, Mr Shellenberger is right, you’re not hearing about the right stuff in the media. I’m bloody well sick and tired of hearing about Trump or Hunter Biden’s laptop nudies. They should be reporting on the fact that the surface water temperature in the Florida Keys exceeded 100 degrees this week. What does that mean for all the marine life? What does that mean for the food chain? What does it mean for the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current?
You probably don’t want to know.
