i just saw news that apparently, we’ve officially lost the war against climate change. i’m really terrified right now, and honestly might be having an anxiety attack. i don’t know. a world renowned environmentalist said it’s over. that it’s just over and that the world will keep getting worse. i’m sos cared right now. i don’t know what to do
From googling, it looks like you're talking about what David Suzuki said, right?
So, I'm not going to sugar-coat it, he's making a valid point with the information he's using. Mainly, that last year, for the first time, we surpassed that limit of 1.5C that the Paris climate accords set. And secondly, that political and economic will is still severely lagging behind the will of the people when it comes to taking action.
That being said! Suzuki also said he's not giving up. He's not saying "it's over" or even that the world is just going to get worse. He said he's given up on politics solving it, which is fair. He believes the real action has to come from communities now, which has shown to be more effective anyway. And, given we'll likely surpass 1.5C, we need to think about how to deal with that, rather than just preventing it. What are our plans to preserve ecosystems and protect against natural disasters with that in mind? It's saddening, but also pragmatic. We do have to deal with the reality at hand.
I would say, think of this less as waving the white flag of surrender, and more like re-adjusting the plan after a key part of it failed.
It's also worth noting that 1.5C was sort of the "extra safe" measure. 2C is most commonly cited as the catastrophic global tipping point. 1.5C was meant to undershoot that, and preserve some more fragile systems.
Which, importantly, means its survivable. We're going to lose things, people will die, and every executive who lobbied for this should be held accountable for that. But it's not going to be a movie apocalypse, we won't be dying out on a dead planet. If the great oxidation event couldn't kill life on Earth, we won't. Life will continue, just in a different way. It would be tragic, but not the end.
There's also a scenario where we surpass that threshold, but then fall under it again as more and more renewables replace fossil fuels. Which has been happening! China is heavily investing in renewables right now, and renewables generated more power than coal last year. We're also getting better at protecting species, especially by involving Indigenous peoples and local communities.
When we started realizing what was happening, warming was projected to be 4C by 2100. Now it's between 2.5-3C. That's still catastrophic, but consider that we cut the projection by a whole degree or more, even with slow, uneven, lackluster action.
Every 0.1C we avoid is millions of lives potentially saved, ecosystems that might make it long enough to adapt, coastlines that won't be lost completely. That still matters. Even if we surpass 1.5, 2, 2.5. We have to keep working, even if the future doesn't look ideal. We owe it to the world, each other, and ourselves.
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