A Devastating Truth

It's gone way beyond inconvenient.

Worst ever carbon emissions leave climate on the brink is the Guardian headline:

"Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year, to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach, according to unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency.

The shock rise means the goal of preventing a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius – which scientists say is the threshold for potentially "dangerous climate change" – is likely to be just "a nice Utopia", according to Fatih Birol, chief economist of the IEA. It also shows the most serious global recession for 80 years has had only a minimal effect on emissions, contrary to some predictions."

If this story and these numbers are confirmed, it's more than the latest in a series of wake-up calls that didn't wake anybody up because nobody heard the alarm.  It's a kick in the head.

Another British newspaper--the Independent--quotes another study:  " An irreversible climate "tipping point" could occur within the next 20 years as a result of the release of huge quantities of organic carbon locked away as frozen plant matter in the vast permafrost region of the Arctic, scientists have found."

A study into the speed at which the permafrost is melting suggests that the tipping point will occur between 2020 and 2030 and will mark the point at which the Arctic turns from being a net "sink" for carbon dioxide into an overall source that will accelerate global warming, they said.

A Guardian editorial accompanying their story concluded: "The siren sounded by the IEA data is loud and clear. The world's economy is expanding again and belching out more carbon. The benign climate we have known since the dawn of civilisation looks about to blow. We are going to have to start re-engineering the global economy right now."

Let's not even think about how fear fed by fossil fuel interests has, at this precise moment, turned the U.S. Republican party into the irrational extremist opposition: Former New York Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, a 27-year veteran of Congress who was known as a staunch protector of the environment, said he has "never been so disappointed all my life in the pretenders to the throne from my party."

"Not one of them is being forthright in dealing with climate science," he said in an interview. "They are either trying to finesse it, or change previous positions to accommodate the far right. They are denying something that is as plain as the nose on your face."

Whatever the politics, the hope of "solving" the Climate Crisis is gone.  (It's a misuse of words to begin with: you "solve" problems; you meet or address a crisis.)  But the need to act now to save the far future is now transparently urgent.  Stopping the causes, working on prevention, is extremely urgent.

But so is the immediate task, the set of tasks and challenges that will dominate the world of today's children and generations after--perhaps even beginning with today's young adults.  It is the world of Joplin and Tuscaloosa, of the Texas fires and Mississippi floods, of increases in tropical disease infections and heat wave deaths in cities.  It is the world in which we deal with the effects of the Climate Crisis, and work on protection.

On Sunday, President Obama spoke at the Joplin, Missouri memorial service for tornado victims.  In many respects, this was a template for leadership in the Climate Crisis age:

  "In a world that can be cruel and selfish, it’s this knowledge -- the knowledge that we are inclined to love one another, that we’re inclined to do good, to be good -- that causes us to take heart. We see with fresh eyes what’s precious and so fragile and so important to us. We put aside our petty grievances and our minor disagreements. We see ourselves in the hopes and hardships of others. And in the stories of people like Dean and people like Christopher, we remember that each us contains reserves of resolve and compassion. There are heroes all around us, all the time."

Compassion, courage, self-sacrifice--these will be needed in many circumstances and communities, many more times in the near future.  But in another respect, the message will need to change.  The President began this way: "We can’t know when a terrible storm will strike, or where, or the severity of the devastation that it may cause. We can’t know why we’re tested with the loss of a loved one, or the loss of a home where we’ve lived a lifetime. These things are beyond our power to control."

All of that is true, but it is not the entire truth.  While we can't know why a specific storm has devastated a specific community, we do know why the future is likely to be stormy, and why this may be beginning now.  President Obama has so far done the politically astute thing of emphasizing clean energy for economic advantage, for jobs and for a generally better environment.  But today's news tells us that confronting the Climate Crisis more directly can't be avoided.