23 April 2014

A Clarion Call

OK. This needs to be said, not that it hasn't been already, by more and more reputable scientists and ordinary informed citizens. But truly, it needs to be said, over and over, by everyone who realizes the truth of it. 
 
I have robust confidence that this is true, and that the survivors of this century (if there are any) will consider this a glaringly obvious historical truth of which they can't understand why the leaders of our time could have been so very deep in denial. 
 
• The threat to the human habitability of our world from Global Climate Change is the greatest threat to survival the human race has faced since long before the invention of agriculture; and this Sixth Extinction now appears to be likely to be on a par with some of the gravest crises to life on this planet in its entire planetary history.
 
We have spent as a nation over a trillion dollars since 9/11 on so-called homeland security. Virtually all of that has actually been counterproductive; making us more insecure, more paranoid, more distracted. Meanwhile our government and the governments of almost all the world's nations have continued to make the real crisis... the threat to homeworld security, worse and worse. Biogeographers and climate and energy experts ... at least some of them... think it may already be too late to avoid catastrophe. 
 
We WILL experience huge shocks to our economy and civilization. These may come on gradually, but maybe not. It's not all that unlikely that as soon as ten years from now the world will look very different from today, with major disruptions and political crises at a fever pitch. 
 
The tragedy is that we, as a species, probably do have the power to survive and even mostly reverse this. But will we? The signs are not favorable. 
 
Everyone needs to become alarmed and start demanding the kinds of changes that will make a habitable world for future generations possible. It probably is not too late. But if we don't force major paradigm shifts in the behavior of our species; and make the equivalent of World War II effort to change to renewable energy and sustainable resource use; catastrophe will be unavoidable.

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