I hate to break it to you, but. . . [View all]

[MadHound]

The simple, stunning truth of the matter is that despite the increasingly warm summers, despite the ever more destructive storms, nothing, not one damn truly constructive thing is going to be done about global climate change until it is far too late. There is a simple reason for that, our society is based around short term thinking, absolutely entrenched in short term thinking.

Corporations main focus is on the quarterly and yearly balance sheets. Sure, they make forecasts five, even ten years down the road, but those forecasts are flawed, since they are based on the physical conditions that they can see.

Politicians are even worse, focusing two, at the most six years down the road, whenever their next election is. Worse, while corporations are at least based on black and white, profit and loss, politicians base their actions on the vagaries of their constituents, who often have conflicting messages, thus forcing the politician into incremental change at best.

For example, fifty years ago the alarm started to be sounded about the dangers of man's environmental destruction. Some major accomplishments were achieved, rivers that once burned were cleaned up, cities that once choked on smog could breath again. But real, fundamental systematic change simply didn't happen. We continued to burn fossil fuels, we continued to poison our water, air and earth. It wasn't like we didn't have the technical means for change, hell, the hybrid vehicle came out in '67, in Germany.

No, it was short term thinking that was the problem. Why should auto dealers convert to electric, why should oil companies give up their hold on power and money when the consequences would be paid later, by someone else. Why should politicians put their ass on the line to prevent global climate change when doing so meant that it would get shot off in the next election.

Thus, down the merry road we went, and here we are. The hard decisions, the long term decisions aren't being made. Oil companies and other such industries are successfully defending their turf. Politicians are still too timid to make the real changes necessary to save our country, our people. And those who are creating change on their own, well, they are far too few.

Nope, now we're entering the death spiral. As the days get warmer, we'll simply crank up the AC. As crops fail, one after the other, we'll simply truck the food in from somewhere else through scorched fields of drought stricken crops all across what was once the bread basket of this nation. Sure, it's going to cost us more, we the people. But we have an amazing toleration to such things, taking such events in stride without complaint or the bread riots of other countries. Corporations aren't going to complain, because they're going to be making more profit.

And don't think that technology will save us. After all, what is used in today's technology? More resources used, more polluting products that are a short term fix at the expense of long term destruction. Technology is a rope and lumber bridge being built from one side instead of both sides. It will get you only so far before collapsing and throwing you into the abyss.

So, we'll continue down that merry slide, and when the crash comes, it will be devastating. Famine, riots, blood in the streets, the whole apocalypto-porn grand production. That is what happens in the classic J curve when resource demand outstrips actual resources. A sudden, sharp rise followed by a catastrophic collapse.

So what to do, out here dancing on the edge of the abyss? Party like it's 1999, cruising in the SUV while cranking up every single electrical device you can possibly own? I'm sure some people are. Me, I'm still trying to do my best to lessen my impact upon the world, and will continue to do so throughout my life. I'm still trying to enact change in a world I already know won't change. After all, I couldn't live with myself otherwise.