The most obvious cause for dread is the 2024 election campaign and the elections themselves. As 2023 ended, the polls showed President Biden with low approval ratings, and several polls showed Trump ahead in preference for November's voting. But politically, November is a long time in the future. Nobody really knows what polls measure these days, except whatever it is they measure is in the present, not that future. A lot will happen between now and then--and I suppose that's as much reason for dread as the possible outcome.
I've called him Homegrown Hitler on this blog since 2016, and so I am not surprised that Trump has become so obvious about it that even major media has noticed. His election would be a defining tragedy for this country, as it is likely to complete the destruction of constitutional government he and his cronies and minions have begun. I don't think he will be elected, but the institutions of government and law, as well as the Constitution itself have already been seriously weakened, perhaps fatally in the long run, with the pressure that the future is highly likely to bring.
Regardless of the election outcome, it's all but assured that the coming year of news will relentlessly and copiously be about Trump. Even worse that last year. The media can't shake its addiction to him (even the progressive British paper the Guardian features his photo on every online front page, sometimes several of them), since he is for many the ultimate in clickbait. President Biden has so far signaled that he will make Trump and his threat to democracy the primary issue of his campaign, which may only be acknowledging reality. (But my few readers be forewarned: you'll need to get your Trump fix elsewhere this year.)
There's almost inevitably going to be a lot of related drama this year: trials for 91 felonies, Supreme Court decisions, the campaign, the election, probably extending into 2025. Just dreading the drama has to head the list.
For me, another cause for public dread in 2024 is that, partly because Trump is likely to be the major campaign issue, once again this year we are no going to get the clear, forthright and vocal leadership on the climate crisis that we need.
If you got past the war news, the front page lifestyle features and celebrity controversies, you may have noticed that 2023 was officially the hottest year in history, and not this time by a little. By a lot. Human civilization is perhaps ten or twelve thousand years old, but the Earth's temperature hasn't been this high in 100,000 years, at least. The jump far exceeded predictions and scientists' expectations.
For the past decade, the clarion cry for climate action has been fixed on keeping the world's temperature from rising 1.5 degrees Centigrade on average. 2023 hit 1.48 and some scientists believe it is likely that sometime in 2024 or shortly afterwards, it will be official that the 1.5C has been breached as the average. This is the number that the nations of the world said in the Paris Agreement of 2015 that they wanted to avoid. "Above that threshold," said a CNN report, "many of Earth's ecosystems will struggle to adapt and summertime heat will approach the limits of human survivability is some places." That's the minimal impact. If it pushes the planet past various tipping points, it will be much worse, especially in the long term.
There was positive news during the year on addressing climate distortion, and the Guardian (the most reliable daily news source for climate issues) published dueling year-end evaluations: "World will look back at 2023 as year humanity exposed its inability to tackle climate crisis, scientist says" vs. "I thought most of us were going to die from the climate crisis. I was wrong."
The title of that second one is disingenuous--nobody expected most "of us", i.e. people now alive to die from the climate crisis. Just when in the future that might be a real possibility depends on a lot of other things as well. It's an annoying simplistic way to talk about the real concerns. (On the other hand, some thousands of people will likely die of effects of climate distortion effects this very year.)
The author of this piece and the book it comes from, Hannah Ritchie, bases her optimism chiefly on statistics about the growth and prospects of renewable energy, especially as it becomes cheaper than coal and oil. She pushes these conclusions to the point where she accuses anyone with doomsday warnings as aiding climate crisis denialists.
The title of the first one, on the other hand, fails to mention that the scientist in question is not just any scientist--it is James Hansen, formerly of NASA, the scientist who brought the news of the climate crisis to Congress and the world--in 1988.
While I don't dispute the numbers that Ritchie and some other climate writers use and apply to temperature rises (she believes the rise could be stopped at 2C or a fraction more) due to the phenomenal growth of renewables, the climate crisis is not just about balance sheets, it doesn't just go by the numbers.
The dangers of the climate crisis to the natural world and to civilization, even in the rest of this century, are not about absolute numbers. They are also about what the effects of climate distortion in the real world can do to push at vulnerable situations, and make already dangerous matters catastrophically worse. That includes exacerbating threats to the natural world on which we depend, from species extinction to the now fragile life of the oceans. But it also includes threats to vulnerable institutions and to the now fragile global civilization, and these may well become more dangerous sooner than later.
Some of the direct effects of climate distortion are evident now--we don't even have to wait for the spring and summer fires and heatwaves of 2024--we're about to see climate distortion-fed and energized storms and coldwaves in much of America, with attendant direct and indirect damage, including flooding. We're seeing coastal flooding on the increase as well. Meanwhile, a quarter of the world's population is living in drought, and huge parts of the world are drying up to a lethal extent.
These begin cascades of consequences. Even in America there are mounting costs of addressing multiple disasters, with communities slow to recover. The danger of disease and epidemics increases. Worldwide, we are especially seeing probably the most proximate cause of danger for the rest of this century: large scale migration; that is, large numbers of refugees. Sometimes it is caused directly by climate effects, sometimes by warfare and political turmoil that is in part caused by climate effects.
But we don't talk about migration that way. We don't see it that way. Many take no thought as to the reasons, and have no empathy for the refugees--something we haven't seen for awhile in the global north, but with dangerous potential for the stability of governments and public institutions. This is one obvious problem related to climate that increases the dangers of violence and warfare, including the eventual use of nuclear weapons. (Speaking of dread, I worry the dread of nuclear bombs has weakened, and their use against people is likely to happen again.)
Refugees and the reaction to them is only one issue that needs to be addressed in the context of the climate crisis. The world dearly needs the leadership to spell it out clearly: to talk about causes and effects, and to outline action to address each. But there is no such leader, even on the horizon. There really isn't one I see in the US. The only possibility I know of is Vice-President Kamala Harris, who seems to have some grasp of the problems, and who I once heard speak in terms of the causes and effects of the climate crisis--which is possibly the only terms that can organize the information in a form people at large can immediately grasp.
While Republicans continue their delusional and self-serving rants, Democratic politicians are afraid to name the crisis and its components. Everything is obscured, disorganized, coded. Electric cars alone aren't going to do it. Saying that the climate crisis is about jobs is not enough. It's just more hiding from really confronting the crisis and its dimensions.
The United Nations had another climate meeting in 2023, another COP. This year's much lauded outcome was to declare that the age of fossil fuels is over, we're going to end them. Excuse me if I see this as akin to an alcoholic declaring an end to drinking, and celebrating that with another round. Meanwhile the US is pumping more oil than any nation in the world, and any nation in history.
Most of the COPs beginning with the Paris Agreement have been about promises. They set goals for reducing carbon output. They never meet them. They set up a fund for rich nations to help the poor nations most affected, especially by rising tides. They failed to put any money in it, and then they contributed too little. It's been mostly about promises. Similarly, there are lots of ideas for technologies and things to do; some of the oldest have been known for years but still nothing is done. And others will require decades more of refinement, when it will likely be too late to apply them effectively. Yes, people and nations are trying, and showing some progress. But not enough to keep the promises from becoming lies we tell ourselves.
Until we dread the lies more than the work that needs to be done, every year will be a year of dread. That's all I've got to say. Captain Future, over and out.
