by Doug – the northlondonhippy

Even with urgent action, the climate apocalypse is a threat to all life on Earth, but you probably don’t want to think about it.

The most recent IPCC report on the climate crisis is a sobering read, but even more so when you understand that nearly every prediction you have ever read regarding our future climate has been underestimated, or downplayed by the scientists who authored them. This is a hidden feature in climate research, the need for researchers to tone everything down, for an audience that remains in deep denial over what’s coming, that will all be arriving faster than expected.

“Faster than expected” is a catchphrase in climate crisis circles. Whenever real world evidence is compared to a previous prediction, whatever the worst outcome is happening “faster than expected”. It doesn’t matter what the specific subject is, it could be the melting of sea ice at the poles, it could be the continued rise in greenhouse gases, it’s all happening faster than expected.

I’ve been reading about all this for a long time, I’m what can be described as “collapse-aware”. My eyes are open to all the evidence, and I am not in denial. I can see the direction of travel for society, and the planet. It’s not good.

Being “collapse aware” is more than just having a handle on the climate crisis, our society has a lot of moving parts, and none of them seem well- oiled at the moment. From the pandemic, to the cost of living crisis, to the war in Ukraine, it feels like everything is in some sort of death spiral, but looming largest over all of it, is our rapidly warming planet.

Even if we ceased all carbon production, by putting an end to all fossil fuel usage today, right now, there are still enough greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to ensure we exceed our stated limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius rise of global temperatures. We are already approaching that limit, we may even exceed it this year, and we are seeing climate impacts caused by it, all around the world. But what happens if we do exceed 1.5 degrees? Then the feedback loops begin, and everything else becomes “faster than expected’ too, but at an exponential rate. That’s where we are headed.

There are some really scary predictions out there, from reputable scientists, if you can be bothered to seek them out. The end of civilisation? The extinction of all human life? All by the end of the century? Yes, I have read predictions that state each of those things as extremely possible, if we don’t take urgent action immediately.

We are not going to take urgent action. If we were going to do that, we would have done it by now. We have known about global warming, and climate change, for many decades, and yet we have done nothing of substance to address them. We have prioritised short term profits, over long term sustainability. We won’t stop until we have extracted every last drop of fossil fuel from the planet, unless our extinction comes first. It probably will.

Maybe you’ve seen the Adam McKay film, “Don’t Look Up” on Netflix. If you haven’t, I highly recommend it. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but the meteor in the movie, is a metaphor for climate change. And by the time the public finally looks up, and really sees the impending doom approaching, it is already too late. This is where we are now.

I wish I could offer you more hope, but we are well past that point now. Even with the will, and determination to turn things around, it still is probably already too late. We lack the will, and determination, we’re hardly even paying attention, as we sleepwalk towards extinction. There may be no genuine hope, but there is plenty of “hopium”.

One of the cornerstones of our plan to prevent the climate apocalypse is something called carbon capture. It doesn’t actually exist at scale yet, but much of our hopium is based on imaginary technology, and future discoveries. Sure, it might actually work, but it hasn’t so far, and many are convinced it never will.

We’re told to take personal responsibility, recycle, take shorter showers, you already know this. What they always fail to mention is that around 71% of all greenhouse gas emissions come, not from the general population, but from around 100 companies. Compared to that, the length of our hot showers, is meaningless. It’s not about personal responsibility, but our collective responsibility. We are all failing.

Many climate scientists are depressed, and despairing, it’s not just me. People far more knowledgeable than myself, are doomers too. We can’t help it, our eyes are wide open, and we can’t ignore it any longer. Even if we take the most urgent actions imaginable, it may already be too late. Open your eyes, you’ll see it too, even though I know you would prefer not to see it. Once you’re collapse aware, it’s hard to see anything else.

Doug – the northlondonhippy is a writer, and journalist (lapsed), with over 30 years of experience in the media. He spent the 2nd half his career as a duty editor for BBC News, before that he worked for AP, and Reuters, but he got his start in the industry at MTV – Music Television in NYC, in the mid 80s. He is also the author of “Personal Use by the northlondonhippy”. Doug tweets as @nthlondonhippy