We live in a day with an abundance of serious problems and challenges. Existential ones that pose an active and on going threat to our democracy, our freedoms, our lives – a fractured political system with the threat of the US moving from a democracy to an autocracy; the threat created by a growing divide between those who have and those who don’t; the claiming of facts as lies and lies as facts; China: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and more.
So, which of these do I consider the biggest existential threat to the United States, our democracy, and our lives? Is it the Election was stolen crowd? The religious crowd who are actively working to limit our freedoms starting with a woman’s right to bodily autonomy and working out from there?
For myself, I believe the greatest threat to the United States, to our freedoms, our democracy , and our lives is the one we share with the rest of the world, Climate Change.
I just finished reading Greta Thunberg’s book “The Climate Book: Facts and the Solutions”. In this book she has collected the writings of over a hundred experts in various fields. These include the ones most would expect – climate scientists, geophysicists, oceanographers, etc. She also though includes those from fields that are sometimes but not normally heard from on this topic – economists, mathematicians, engineers, philosophers, historians. And then there is a third group whose voices are heard the least of all, the indigenous, what they see, and what they have to offer in regards to dealing with climate change. Theirs are a very personal story because they, more than us in the more developed world are the ones suffering now from climate change’s effects.
In this blog I am not going into the mounds of evidence and data showing that climate change is happening and is caused by human activity. Even though we, unfortunately, still have to prove the world is round to too many politicians and people, we also need to be preparing ourselves for what is already happening and what is coming. One of the main points of this book is that climate change and its dangers is not some future event, a nebulous maybe. It is here. It is now. And it is harming millions of people, and will continue to get worse.
“One of its biggest evolutions took place on the precise date of August 9,2021. This was the day when climate change officially arrived – the date when the IPPC working Group I …published their sixth assessment report……For the first time, they stated, ‘It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land’ and that, due to human -induced climate change, the global temperature has been raised by 1.1 degree C. We are no longer just anticipating or planning for climate change, it is here. And its fingerprints can be seen on every region of the planet. Every year now, across the globe, extreme weather records are being broken, be it a heatwave, a typhoon or a torrential downpour. Somewhere in the world, records are being broken. And every year that will continue to happen and every year it’s going to get worse than the year before.” Dr. Saleemul Huq, page 157 – 158.
In other words, now we can no longer avoid the consequences of climate change. Not only are these consequences playing out right now, and getting worse, they are harming us not only in terms of money, but also in lives harmed and lost
Climate change is our greatest threat because they make each of the threats I mentioned above – fracture political system, increased wealth gap, etc. – even worse and more dangerous, they create new ones too. Dealing with the consequences of climate change stresses our societies and governments and can do so to the breaking point.
To illustrate this I am using an extended quote from the book by Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Chadian environmental activities and geographer, about the climate change effects on Chad.
“Thirty years ago, when I was born, Lake Chad was enormous. And sixty years ago, when my mother was a child, the lake was almost a little sea in the middle of a desert. But today it’s a small drop of water in the heart of Africa. Ninety percent of our water is gone. Our average temperature has risen. We are now living with temperature increases greater than 1.5 degrees C, meaning that my people already live over the threshold of the Paris Agreement. And this is just a preview of what’s to come…..
Over my lifetime, the face of Sahel will not be the same. Most of the rain is already gone. The land is often dry and infertile. Our cows used to produce 4 litres of milk each day, but now they barely produce 2 litres or even 1, because of the missing grass. And more and more often, rain, which had been our ally, is our enemy. Over the last five years, floods have repeatedly destroyed out lands, our houses, the culture of my people. We now live on the edge of climate wars.
People are fighting for the few resources left. When nature is sick in a region where 70% of people depend on it for farming, people lose their minds. The old alliance between farmers and pastoralists has been broken in the competition for nature’s bounty. In Mali, North Burkina Faso and Nigeria we have seen villages burned by people who want to grab the land of their former friends.” Page 171
Climate change causes stress in resources and political systems within a country. As can be seen in Chad. In fact, that stress due to climate change is one of the causes of the ever-going Syrian Civil War. Climate change caused farmers to move to the cities as their farms failed, the government did not have the resources to help and provide, and tensions that already existed, became much worse.
This story is already playing out in many areas, especially among the poorer nations. But it is also happening even in the richer nations, even in the United States. The Colorado River provides water for over “…40 million people across seven US states, plus 29 Native American tribes…It supplies US cities including Phoenix and Las Vegas and countless farms” (“Running out of River” by Chelsea Whyte in New Scientist 2023). In 2021 the US federal government, for the first time ever, declared a water shortage at Lake Mead, a reservoir created by damming the Colorado River. This meant cutting water supply to farmers and is causing real concerns and challenges in providing water to those living in these areas. This increases stress between farmers and those who use water for drinking and living, between the seven states on who gets the water and who does not. Worse, Mexico also uses water from the Colorado River, adding an international stressor.
This has not caused violence yet, but it has the potential to do so. Especially as the years go by and the drought and heat gets worse. The US is stable enough, for now, and has the resources, for now, to deal with this. But if it does not take action it will at some point not. All of which is made worse by all the other changes and stresses caused by climate change: fire seasons stretching and becoming year-round instead of seasonal, increased and longer droughts harming our nations ability to produce food, or even to provide enough water for many to live. As catastrophic weather events – tornados, blizzards, rains, etc – become more and more common with the costs of building back becoming more and more frequent, with the costs and unsettlement caused by massive amounts of people moving to other places within the United States – the dust bowl writ large and caused by more than just drought, this stretching of resources and forced decisions on how to allocate increasingly scarce resources will become more and more prominent.
That’s not even including the stresses caused by the increased migrations of those who from poorer and less stable leave in hopes of finding a place to live. Even here in the United States, which has the resources to assimilate those trying to migrate here (for now), this is true, as witnessed by some groups in the United States playing upon the fears created by illegal immigrants and the supposed the threats they pose to Americans in order to limit and restrict rights, to get into and stay in power and to put into actions policies which will harm democracy but further their hold on power – election fraud anyone?
Climate change will and is already stressing not only the poorer counties, but even richer and more stable governments. And the stress will get worse, making other even minor problems and issues even worse. In such situations the possibility of a strong ruler, an autocrat, or group, can, and has in many places, come to power with the promise of easy and quick fixes, with the ability to stay in power by changing a democracy into something worse.
This is why climate change is the greatest threat to the United States. It makes pre-existing problems worse, and creates new ones. We must also realize that climate change is a global threat requiring global actions. No more of “well my country is OK you need to take care of our own”. Climate change is impacting the world. It is a threat to life, livelihood, and stable governments all across the world.
Weather is not isolated by borders. Winds, waves, ocean levels, droughts, floods, changing rain patterns, snow – none are stopped by a country’s borders. Weather is linked together, and the impacts are global. So too with CO2 emissions. They do not rise and just linger over one country so that its impact is not felt in other countries. The cause of climate change is global, its impact is global, and its solution will have to be global.
While individual actions matter in regards to reducing our carbon footprint, individual actions such as changing our diet, driving electric cars, and so forth, such actions alone will not stop climate change. Or even slow it. While such actions are necessary, they are not sufficient. One soldier will always lose against an army, and climate change is a very large army.
Individual actions taken together to put pressure on governments and media to deal with this issue – that is what is needed. Governments must change and for them to do that the people must put pressure on them with all available peaceful means – protests and demonstrations, petitions and letters, testimonies before city/county/ state/ and national government organizations, voting and running for office. Actions taken together is what is needed if we want to preserve our liberties and country, and rights and lives. As Greta wrote, “Start local, aim global.”
Actions taken at the local level – towns and cities, counties, states – will help. But will not be near enough. Even actions taken by individual governments will not be enough. It is going to take a world wide coordinated effort in order to limit the damage caused by our self-induced climate change and to prevent it from becoming worse.
What is also clear is that every country is not only low balling how much carbon they are emitting, their measurements and goals are rigged too. For example, burning biomass is not usually included in the count of carbon as it is widely considered carbon neutral. However, it is not. Burning biomass increases the amount of CO2 emitted into the air by human activities. But that is not counted in countries report cards.
There are other similar loopholes – outsourcing energy production and since it is not done in that country it does not count as part of that countries emissions is just one example – and unfounded assumptions about the ability of future technology to capture the carbon has even made our current dark outlook a rosy one compared to reality.
Most who know this ascribed a conspiracy between lawmakers and business to hold onto power, to not inconvenience themselves, to not have to change their rather nice lifestyles. And there is a great deal of truth to it, although I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a conspiracy. Not always. However, this is also the natural result of unrestrained capitalism … and of democracy of whatever type.
Greta Thornburg states several times that democracies are our best chance for making needed changes. Getting the massive push of millions and billons of people to make the needed changes, and to make them now rather than in a future date. And she is right, democracies offer out best chance of doing so. In autocracies, dictatorships, and so forth there is no hope for the needed changes. However, the same forces that make democracies our best hope for effecting change are also why this issue has been ignored and denied for so long, and why it so often continues to be so. And why even politicians who are fully knowledgeable and wish to act on that knowledge are not able to act on the best science and advice.
Democracies also can gather the voices of those who are against change, who are ignorant and wish to remain so for ideological or religious reasons, who have a vested interest in things staying as they are, and more. And these voices are able to be latched upon and used by ideologues and demagogues to not only block needed change, but to take measures that will cause further harm. Even when they don’t though, these often represent substantial voting blocks. And, let’s face it, the changes needed had we started back in the 1980s would have been much less and more incremental than what are needed now that we have delayed for so long. Now the necessary changes will be great and the costs great (although still much less than not doing anything). Which means the battle to win hearts and minds, to make people accept what is needed is now that much harder to fight. And those political leaders doing so have to be careful to not go too far or they may lose office and be replaced by one who would not fight at all.
Americans have shown themselves able to sacrifice much and change much when faced with a crisis such as a war. Witness WW2. The problem though is that though we are in a war now, with stakes at least as high as any during WW2, the type and nature of this war is different so that most do not see it, or can more easily ignore it.
The difference is that this war is taking place over decades, and the initial advances were slow and minor and so easily dismissed. Not like the German blitzkrieg or the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Although I will note that FDR saw this WW2 coming but could not fully mobilize in the way he wished due to public opinion. Instead he acted in what ways he could, that although not as good, were at least some help. Perhaps something to keep in mind for those politicians who are in similar positions.
Now though the changes caused by climate change are becoming greater and the effects more damaging. But here is where there is another difference between past emergencies and now that numbs too many to reality. There is no nation declaring war on us. It is instead Nature striking back at us for our actions against her; striking back without slogans, without words, without declarations. Just with actions.
Between the slow start of this war, and the lack of a clear focus or enemy, and the fact that in reality the enemy, in the words of the immortal Pogo, is us, made this a hard sell to the public from the beginning. And means that this issue shows both sides of a Democracy, its flaws and its strengths, different sides of the same coin.
For now though we, we the public, need to start to motivate our politicians and make democracy work not only for us, but for our children and their children. I earlier referenced a Pogo cartoon, we have met the enemy and he is us. The good news is we met the heroes too, and they are us too
Bad Atheist 