The Great Heat
Climate change and social change in the slow apocalypse.
This past week, July 3-7, has been the hottest week in the recorded history of the planet.
Flash flooding has struck the North-East USA, Spain and the UK during that same period.
Droughts are occurring in North America, Europe, the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent.
Canada burns with wildfires brought on by years of dry conditions.
We live in a world experiencing unprecedented heating and it’s getting worse faster than anticipated. This is a fact and it is beyond dispute.1
Flash flooding in Zaragoza, Spain.
Neoliberal “solutions” to the crisis like the Paris and Kyoto Climate Accords are utterly meaningless, proposed too late and not adhered to anyways. Excellent renewable sources of energy like solar and wind are vital, but are likewise far to little, far to late, and far to profited from to actually change the course.
The spectacular weather events of the past decade are a foretaste of the future of our planet. Now they are disasters, isolated, and not directly, connected to one another.
Soon these will be region altering events.
As sea levels rise, regions will be inundated by salt water and never drain.2
Heat will render parts of the world uninhabitable for significant portions of the year. 3
Drought is already causing great rivers of North America and Europe to dry up.4
As regional climates change, new and more virulent diseases will likely spread (COVID may be one example).5
Relief from the heat and drought of summer will be found in the freak storms that feed off the excess heat: hurricanes, flash flooding and huge tornado outbreaks.6
Agriculture in several regions of the world is already failing under this onslaught. 7
Fresh water will become harder and harder to procure.8
These are facts.
These changes, unlike many thus far, will create climate refugees. Recently parts of the United States experienced a wet bulb temperatures. This is when the humidex is so high that sweat/moisture do not evaporate from the body. This combined with heat is unsurvivable without relief. This is wet bulb heat.
If it occurs for a day or two, once or twice a year, people die. What happens if it happens every other day? Or every day for weeks on end?
Construction, agriculture, anything involving outdoor activities, ceases to function. The old, ill, disabled, Long-Covid stricken and children die or are forced to leave the region. Soon a refugee crisis will have unfolded.
Famine will undoubtably come next. Agriculture simply isn’t sustainable in many places it is done, especially in North America. Already the rivers that water gargantuan corporate farms are drying. Sources of fresh water will only increase in demand.
The cruel paradox is that many of the systems that give us abundance today are what is attacking us. Food is produced to profit from, not to feed. Out of season fruits and vegetables are grown in far flung places and shipped across the world just to be packaged and shipped to a third location. Cows contribute enormously to climate change via their methane emissions (the fact we could face disaster due to cow farts is something I lack the maturity to expand on).
And yet still we dig deeper.
We are so deep into this crisis because we have never really attempted to see this problem as the existential one it is. How can anyone in their right mind say that climate change is an existential crisis, then in the next breath support continuation of the single worst polluter, war?
The Nord Stream Pipeline bombing alone, was the worst environmental disaster in human history as pertains climate change. The war itself, a diesel fueled funerial-song for the credibility of the Green movement, many of whom, like Elizabeth May of the Canadian Green Party, support continuance of the war.
It becomes crystal clear that governments will never, ever, sacrifice their interests to stop climate change. In fact, they seem disinclined to talk about it, or mitigate the effects on their own populations.
Some liberal-minded politicians will go as far as NY Gov Kathy Hochul, who said that Climate Change disasters are the “new normal.”
Very strong words. I wonder if these words are strong enough to reduce the upwards of 9,000 vehicles that the NYPD possesses?
It would be fair to doubt.
As if the COVID-19 Pandemic didn’t make this point crystal-clear; it’s time we realized that if we want to thrive in a changing climate, it won’t be because the governments of the world lifted a finger, though they will undoubtedly claim any success as their own.
The analog of the movie ‘Don’t Look Up’ (2021), in which Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence try in vain to warn humanity of a world ending asteroid approaching feels relatable, but not for the intended reasons.
Then, having enjoyed the film and the obvious metaphor, you realize people like Hollywood actors fly on private jets, which alone, makes them up to 20 times worse for the environment than commercial airline passengers.
It bears questioning whom the target audience of the film was; we already know the world is dying Leo, that’s why we found your movie relatable. Please stop killing it, you made your point.
At least people get to enjoy their award shows. It must be understood that there isn’t going to be a world in which climate change is solved by people becoming richer.
The rich are the problem, in terms of individual carbon production and because they are the ones who are perpetuating the such “innovations” as expanded fossil fuel usage and private space travel.
The idea that the individual actions of the regular people will in any way stem the disaster while the 1% continue their lives of opulence is perhaps the most damaging myth ever conceived. The rich can afford to mitigate the affects for themselves at the cost of accelerating it for us all.
A future in which we not only survive, but thrive is possible, but we need to change our conceptions of what that looks like. A fundamental readjustment of priorities will be required because this much is clear; this cannot be solved by Capitalism.
Sources
Drought hits the Midwest, threatening crops and the world’s food supply | Grist
Hot, dry weather spells disaster in Foothills County | CTV News
Climate change: Soaring jet private jet flights lift carbon emissions - CBS News
How the rich are driving climate change - BBC Future
I’ve no intention of arguing or acknowledging Climate Denialists. There is no reason to continue to indulge their conspiracy theories.
The public needs to collectively take ownership of the means of production and distribution if there is to be any real progress. The fact that both a housing affordability crisis and falling house prices are both reported on like disasters by the same media shows how anti-human the system is.
Right on, as usual. I take offence at the programs making kids "plant a tree for the planet." This is pure deflection. If every single child in the entire world planted a tree, the number would be insignificant when compared with the forests of Ontario alone. Like all our "feel good" actions in banning plastic straws (for Christ's sake!), or recycling one-use plastics, or whatever mental opiate we apply to ease our cognitive dissonance, the 1% of this world will go on doing as they damned well please.