Climate Change: We Are All In This Together
By Jeff Berg
06 February, 2016
Countercurrents.org
The one upside......there actually is one.....is that scarcity alone would have driven us ever further apart. Violence would have become the coin of the realm to an even greater extent than it is today, and both the quality and sacredness of life would be massively devalued. Wealth would have become an even more potent political force. Regions at each others throat in a murderous zero sum competition. Yes, very much like we have today only more so. Scarcity and environmental degradation ramping up as the gap and power differential between the haves and the have nots widened inexorably.
Climate change by contrast puts us all in the same boat to a much greater degree. The U.S. thinks the rest of us have weapons of mass destruction? Well in this sense they are right. We will either all pull together to live as simply as necessary to get past this critical moment in human history. Led by the richest countries making the biggest changes. Or we will go forward as we have. Forcing sacrifice on to an ever expanding group of 'others' with the developing world copying us. Assuring that we far exceed 2C, And by developing world yes I do mean the countries with over 5 billion people and climbing. If we want them to do something serious about that we are going to have to give them something serious in exchange.
If that does not happen and if the worse of climate change is allowed to take place. The following is James Lovelocke's projection for the future of humanity I.e. "There will be a few breeding pairs left in the north where the climate will be reasonably tolerable." By the by. In case you didn't know. Lovelocke is widely described as the most important life scientist since Darwin. What I take from all of this. There are two things you don't fuck with. Father science and Mother Nature.
I think it was about 70,000 years ago when humanity was reduced to a thousand or so breeding pairs in Africa. Is this really the circle we want to complete for our children? Only this time in Iceland?
One thing is for certain. For the first time in a very long time. We are all in this together.
Jeff Berg is Chair of Post Carbon Toronto
www.postcarbontoronto.org