Tuesday, September 27, 2011

The Damage Has Been Done - 3

Two years ago on this date, a Dredd Blog post delved into the concept of "too late".

"Too late" is a reality that goes across many aspects of the landscape of life and of death.

If someone tells you a "bridge is out ahead" (a la "don't go there!") yet you speed towards your coveted destination anyway, because you are in a modern hurry, at some point in time and space you will reach a point where, even though all of a sudden you realize what was meant by "bridge is out ahead", and you then deeply regret your behavior up to that point (with fear and remorse flooding your emotions) you can no longer change the substance of what is going to happen.

All you can do, at that point, is to try to mitigate the inevitable damage.

Anyway, here is that post of two years ago:

What remains to be seen now is how the planet is going to react to the damage:
Robert Corell, who chairs the Climate Action Initiative and reviewed the UNEP report's scientific findings, said the significant global temperature rise is likely to occur even if industrialized and developed countries enact every climate policy they have proposed at this point. The increase is nearly double what scientists and world policymakers have identified as the upper limit of warming the world can afford in order to avert catastrophic climate change.
(Washington Post, emphasis added). The question is "how catastrophic" and when. Some scientists already see some damage.

Some islands are already being evacuated as the oceans rise, some villages in the Arctic are having to move because the permafrost is melting under them, reefs are dying as the oceans warm, and the melting of ice sheets is accelerating.

Remember that this prediction of double what was expected to cause some catastrophe is new, and is worse than expected by almost twice. Will it increase even more in the near future?

Legislators, military, and other government officials seem so oblivious to the realities, even as they give lip service to the dangers.

What will they say when millions die in this century and we move closer to failing as a fit species?

What has happened since that post of two years ago?

What has happened is that the psychosis has engendered growing denial as a means of coping with the fact that we have the pedal to the metal, rushing to our demise like Thelma and Louise.

Meanwhile, many folks who look around them to see the eerie floods, droughts, tornado storms, hurricanes, wild fires, crop destruction, record breaking climate change, and everything else along that line, tend to want to stop the damn world so they can get off.

But our owners in this world are not going to allow that to happen.

So, buckle up and hunker down.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in the series is here.

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