It’s been awhile since we heard from St. Greta Of Stockholm. Nice to see she hasn’t given up on doom, as this is and edited extract from The Climate Book created by Greta Thunberg and to be published on 27 October
Maybe it is the name that is the problem. Climate change. It doesn’t sound that bad. The word “change” resonates quite pleasantly in our restless world. No matter how fortunate we are, there is always room for the appealing possibility of improvement. Then there is the “climate” part. Again, it does not sound so bad. If you live in many of the high-emitting nations of the global north, the idea of a “changing climate” could well be interpreted as the very opposite of scary and dangerous. A changing world. A warming planet. What’s not to like?
Perhaps that is partly why so many people still think of climate change as a slow, linear and even rather harmless process. But the climate is not just changing. It is destabilising. It is breaking down. The delicately balanced natural patterns and cycles that are a vital part of the systems that sustain life on Earth are being disrupted, and the consequences could be catastrophic. Because there are negative tipping points, points of no return. And we do not know exactly when we might cross them. What we do know, however, is that they are getting awfully close, even the really big ones. Transformation often starts slowly, but then it begins to accelerate.
So, doom?
The German oceanographer and climatologist Stefan Rahmstorf writes: “We have enough ice on Earth to raise sea levels by 65 metres – about the height of a 20-storey building – and, at the end of the last ice age, sea levels rose by 120 metres as a result of about 5C of warming.” Taken together, these figures give us a perspective on the powers we are dealing with. Sea-level rise will not remain a question of centimetres for very long.
So, um, what caused that to happen? Bueller? And why is that different from today? Of course, most of that ice is nowhere near the oceans, and wouldn’t make it there. Anyhow, there’s more doom and gloom from St. Greta, moving to
Saving the world is voluntary. You could certainly argue against that statement from a moral point of view, but the fact remains: there are no laws or restrictions in place that will force anyone to take the necessary steps towards safeguarding our future living conditions on planet Earth. This is troublesome from many perspectives, not least because – as much as I hate to admit it – Beyoncé was wrong. It is not girls who run the world. It is run by politicians, corporations and financial interests – mainly represented by white, privileged, middle-aged, straight cis men. And it turns out most of them are terribly ill suited for the job. This may not come as a big surprise. After all, the purpose of a company is not to save the world – it is to make a profit. Or, rather, it is to make as much profit as it possibly can in order to keep shareholders and market interests happy.
This leaves us with our political leaders. They do have great opportunities to improve things, but it turns out that saving the world is not their main priority, either.
Sounds like she wants government to institute those restrictions. You know, the ones that most Warmists won’t voluntarily put in their own lives based on their beliefs.
We cannot live sustainably within today’s economic system. Yet that is what we are constantly being told we can do. We can buy sustainable cars, travel on sustainable motorways, powered by sustainable petroleum. We can eat sustainable meat and drink sustainable soft drinks out of sustainable plastic bottles. We can buy sustainable fast fashion and fly on sustainable aeroplanes using sustainable fuels. And, of course, we are going to meet our short- and long-term sustainable climate targets, too, without making the slightest effort.
So, what economic system does she want? Maybe the full book will say. Not that I’ll read it. It will be very silly.
Read: St. Greta Says The Name ‘Climate Change’ Is Too Timid Or Something »
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