3 to 4°C – a Choice
Kevin Anderson speaks very clearly here on the predicament we face:
“We are heading towards 3 to 4°C of warming across this century, an absolute climate catastrophe for all species incl our own.”
But here’s a problem. He points to examples where we have made significant, radical interventions. He references the COVID crisis, the suffragettes, Roosevelt, race laws, the banking crisis as examples of rapid change.
He says “it is choice to fail and it is a choice to succeed”.
But there are some obvious problems here. The first is the idea of rational choice, that there is a global ‘we’ who are actors making decisions. The second is that the examples he gives are littered with elite self-preservation and none of them are remotely on the scale of the climate crisis we face.
The earths position to the sun has shifted…I read that somewhere…not alot we can do about that…If its true… however
We can stop polluting the sea
We can stop destroying the soil
We can eat less rubbish containing poisons which pollute ourselves
We can be kinder
We can be less judgemental
We can do so much
We need a government which observes common sense…and recognises our humanity and the other sentient creatures we share this earth with
Meg,
Agree wholeheartedly – but where does such a government exist? The Tories have gone fascist, Labour have gone old Tory, the SNP? , the Greens vilified by the press? We need a revolution, that may have to be violent, in order to create the change needed. Currently we tolerate the intolerable. I remember that many years ago, BP at Grangemouth were fined for a catastrophic accident – the fine was doubled when six months later the episode repeated.On that occasion, the judge indicated that any further episodes would lead to custodials being handed down – I believe there were no further episodes. Why are the water company CEOs not in Jail? It would be a good start to the society and government that you want. Of course we could ask the French for a loan of Madame Guillotine!!!
Bill
We don’t need a loan of one; the Maiden’s at Chambers St. in the museum…
The main problem, as I see it, is governments of all colours trying to achieve economic growth at all costs. I can’t see any of them about-turning on that.
@Meg Macleod, I think the point that Kevin Anderson is making is that we need a new political system, not a change in government.
#biocracynow