[green, speaking, looking smug]
Okay, hear me out, here’s the plan…
We go full apathy, basically we let capitalism fully spiral out into fascism. Once it’s done, people will rise up and the system will collapse under its own weight. From its ashes, with our help, a better society will rise. This is how we win.
[we now see that green is tied up in front of a bleak wall, along with a group of other people, being aimed at by a firing squad of characters in fascist uniforms]
[green, smiling] OK?
[blue, pissed] Dude…
Humans are the exception precisely because they can see the axe falling and move out of the way.
Outside of the fossil fuel dominated US/Saudi sphere, we’ve seen an enormous collaborated effort to curb greenhouse gases. Not everyone is ignoring the risks and consequences.
What we have the capitalist West is a conscious choice between short term profit and long term survival.
Yes, some have taken steps to move away from fossil fuels, but not all, and most scientists agree it is too late without negative emissions. I agree that it is largely driven by capitalism, and that in and of itself is a root cause of many problems with our species and should be done away with, but if it takes the entire world falling apart to make the realities undeniably apparent, then so be it. I’m not saying I want it to happen, just that that may be the only thing that can make the conditions for real lasting change.
I mean, “too late” for what is always the question. Folks keep insisting The Apocalypse is next month. And then it doesn’t come, and we get a wave of “I guess nothing actually ever happens” during a new record heat wave.
The world is a big place. It’s not clear what “falling apart” is even supposed to look like.
I’m seeing people predicting a 4% drop in population because of a particularly harsh El Nino this year. I’ve been hearing about a looming economic crash that’s at least ten years overdue.
At the scope of a human life, all of this is still very gradual change. You’re going to be living in the middle of it and not realize how much has changed because you never knew subzero weather in St. Louis or glaciers in Montana were normal.
The talk is of some kind of sharp sudden drop, and not the further churn of a 30,000 year old global extinction event.
When did I say anything about it being rapid or sudden change? Climate change is slow, and the effects are felt over decades. I am fully aware of this, and just because the effects are akin to boiling a frog, it does not mean that the ultimate effects will not be devastating.