written 17 Apr 2022
published 24 Apr 2022
Last Friday, April 22nd, was Earth Day, first celebrated in 1970. While climate denial has been well funded, creating confusion to protect corporate profits, the physical and economic effects of the climate disaster increase every year, making it harder to ignore. I am optimistic the tide of denial is shifting.
I recently read "Ministry For The Future", by Kim Stanley Robinson, a well researched science fiction nonfiction novel, examining the complex sociological and economic roots of the climate challenge, as well as describing possible solutions. Written in 2020, it is a story of the next quarter century or so, as humanity actually starts dealing with the climate crisis.
It begins a year or two from now. In India, the monsoons are late, and a high-pressure zone covers an unusually large area, creating a massive heat wave. High temperatures increase the air conditioning load, which crashes the fragile regional electrical grid, shutting down water systems as well. People begin to overheat and die as the temperature never cools off at night. Even the lakes are too warm to have a cooling effect. By the time the heat wave breaks, and outside resources can reach the area, entire villages are dead. More than one million people die, but the final death toll is only an estimate.
The shocked reaction collapses the entrenched political structure in India, allowing a totally new party, unaligned with corporate interests, to begin ruling the country with an orientation toward preventing another such disaster. The heat wave prompts the UN to create a Ministry to advocate for the future, who cannot speak for themselves yet. The entire planet begins to shift, though progress is slow, given the global power of the economic and political status quo.
I want to focus on three of the many issues and solutions described.
The first is that most of the effective actions are led by women. Patriarchy has dominated the world for thousands of years, bringing us to this moment when all life on Earth is at risk. At the very least, it is time for women to not only have a seat at the table, but to bring their wisdom for solutions for a sustainable future.
The second is shifting the financial world from prioritizing the destruction of everything for short term profit for a few, to prioritizing the long-term nourishment of the entire biosphere. Capitalism is a powerful economic model, but fundamentally flawed, thus giving flaw consequences. One of the flaws is discounting the future, which means that future events have relatively no value in present day cost benefit calculations. This is due to the laziness of economics which ignores costs that are difficult to quantify, and the silo effect of looking at isolated parts rather than whole, complex, interconnected, systems.
The proposed solution is called a carbon coin, convertible to local currencies, backed by a collection of major central banks with long-term bonds paying out over 100 years. This forces a long-term perspective into the financial world. Carbon coins are paid to anyone forgoing extraction of fossil fuels, giving financial incentive for "leaving it in the ground". Any activity that reduces fossil energy consumption is also paid in carbon coins, as is all activity that actively sequesters carbon in the soil, giving financial support for actions beneficial to the health of the biosphere. The energy reductions and sequestration activities are rigorously measured and monitored to insure against fraudulent "greenwashing".
The third issue is a little darker. After the heat wave, the anger within India that they should die while the world goes about "business as usual", brings forth the secretive Cult of Kali. It is justifiable homicide to kill another in defense of your life. Republican "stand your ground" laws allow killing even when you simply "feel" threatened. The Cult of Kali takes that attitude global. On what becomes called Crash Day, 20 airplanes, primarily private business jets, crash after drone swarms attack their engines in flight. Subsequently, all airline flights decreased sharply. This was just one of many actions.
Millions are already facing economic loss or dislocation from drought, floods, crop failures, stronger storms and heat waves. The world gives lip service, but atmospheric carbon content still grows. What size "natural" disaster will it take? What is enough? We all need to think about this, and then vote, and act.
