The Climate Catastrophe is Here

People my age were born at the end of an era, a time different than any period before it. Marked by the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, it was a time of expansive growth; humans advanced quicker than any time in history. This advancement gave us mastery over our environment. We could scientifically alter livestock to suit our needs, allowing us to produce all the food we could ever want. We leveled entire forests and jungles with our machinery to make way for development. Our daily use of technology has even altered global temperatures and our climate as a whole.

The geologic age that we live in is unofficially called the Anthropocene, defined as the period that human activity became the dominant influence on the climate. Scientists disagree on when this period started, some saying as recently as 1945 and others at the start of the Industrial Age. The one thing that remains indisputable is that through our scientific advancements, humans gained the power to dramatically change ecosystems, and claim near complete dominion over the natural world.

A lesser-known term for the period stretching from the Industrial Revolution all the way to 2020 is ‘The Fossil Fuel Age.’ As renewable energy is now cheaper to produce than fossil fuels, this era is ending.

The power the Fossil Fuel Age brought to humanity has rapidly brought deadly consequences. We’ve been talking about climate change since the late 80s, but the magnitude of the effects are just catching up to us now. Out of control wildfires, increasing hurricanes and the spread of new diseases are all linked to human activity.

The ice in the arctic is melting dramatically, and as time passes it’s only melting faster and freezing slower. This is perhaps the least discussed but most threatening effect of climate change we’ve seen. As permafrost melts away, it’s releasing methane into the atmosphere, which only accelerates the destruction climate change is currently causing.

The consequences of our actions as a species are already present in 2020, and they’re not going away. All of this is going to get dramatically worse as we grow older. Maybe 2021 will feel like a normal year. Maybe things start to feel like they’re getting better like we’re back on the path to progress. It won’t stay that way.

Humans are adaptable to changing circumstances, it’s one of our greatest strengths. But it also comes with a downside, we have the capacity to normalize situations that should not be normal. The day will come when the 2020 wildfires look like campfires in comparison, and it will feel regular to those of us that still have a home. We’ll be used to climate refugees from our own country moving inland, fleeing flooded coasts and burned homes. We’ll check our cell phones in the morning and check the air quality. Smoke fogging up your city will be a regular day. Seeing even a sliver of blue sky will be a rare occurrence.

I can’t predict the future. So far, I’ve been quite bad at it. But the science indicates that if we continue on our current trajectory, the climate will invariably get worse. How much worse? For the first time in our history, humans have the power to wipe ourselves out. No asteroid required.

Climate scientists have had a difficult time conveying the true gravity of their research, which I don’t blame them for. People typically like to focus on optimistic but unrealistic timetables for when the effects of climate change will catch up to us, which is why most Americans still don’t think they’ll be affected in their lifetime, and why Biden’s plan of becoming carbon neutral by 2050 sounds adequate to the mainstream news media.

Since the scientists can’t, allow me to tell you what they’ve wanted to scream into your face for years: climate change threatens to kill every last one of us, no matter your race, social class or nationality. A sixth great extinction, within our century.

This won’t be like a disaster movie, where everything is destroyed in one big event. We won’t recognize this is happening until we’ve lost everything, when it’s far too late. Civilization is never built in a day, and it never ends in a day.

The more I think about what the world could become as I grow old, the more I think that the term ‘climate change’ is wholly inadequate to describe what we’re facing. The climate is not just changing – it’s headed for total catastrophe.

That is, unless we put a stop to it. This is not the end of the world, Earth will keep on spinning, all the better without us. This is a matter of saving humanity’s future.

I might sound insane to you. To be fair, that could be the case. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. I would argue that it’s more insane to not assume the worst.

I was raised religious. I’ve seen too many people from my old religion relying on the prophesied second coming of Jesus Christ to save us from our fate. While this might sound crazy to you, it’s no crazier than thinking renewable technology is the only answer we need to solve the heating climate.

The problem with these lines of thought is that no one single answer will save humanity. No one technology and no savior is coming to the rescue. The climate is warming not just because of CO2 emissions. It’s not just because of desertification, or deforestation. It’s about the developed world’s entire system of living. Our free-market economy relies on the destruction of natural ecosystems to function.

We need to drive our cars to work to make a living. Cities need to keep developing land to accommodate more citizens. Companies need to maximize their profits. It’s the system that we’ve built that’s suffocating us.

Take a look at the Environmental Protection Agency’s breakdown of United States fossil fuel emissions. People will often talk about overpopulation like it’s the primary cause of climate change, but activities coming from residential homes and commercial businesses only accounts for 12% of emissions. The other four categories, Agriculture, Transportation, Electricity and Industry all together account for the other 87%.

And that doesn’t even account for the dramatic differences between the average person’s carbon footprint compared to that of the One Percent. Hypocrites like Leonardo DiCaprio will speak to the urgency of climate action while they own several houses and vacation on private jets and yachts. These people will speak to you about how important it is that you recycle even though your carbon footprint doesn’t mean a damn in the grand scheme of the catastrophe.

No one holds more culpability than Big Oil executives. As early as 1981, seven years before climate change became a public issue, ExxonMobil knew that the climate was warming due to its internal research. Despite this, they spent the next 27 years pouring millions of dollars into climate change denial.

This is why climate denial exists today. Despite how it may look on Facebook, humans aren’t stupid. Everyone has a reason why they believe what they believe, and people wouldn’t mistrust science if there weren’t capitalists pouring their resources into public messaging, baking misinformation into the general public and selling it as the repressed truth.

The worst part about all of this is that oil companies are looking to enter the renewable energy market now, because they know that’s where energy is moving. Don’t think for a second that this is an altruistic move. The only reason why it’s happening now is that it’s good for their bottom line. Within this decade we’ll see oil companies advertising their move to renewable energy, marketing it as an environmentally friendly move.

The problem is that this transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy is all a little too late. The news cycles often talk about cutting carbon emissions before we reach the point of no return. All mainstream plans to address climate change have been wholly inadequate to respond to the crisis. We may have already passed the tipping point. I welcome any action that’s taken to address climate change, but I’ll always argue for a more radical plan.

Due to my religious background, I value preparedness over everything else. When you read the Bible, it’s not about people sitting on their ass waiting for God to do the work for them; it’s about people who prepare for threats God warns them of. Joseph, son of Jacob, heeded the warning God sent to the Pharaoh and prepared Egypt for the coming famine, rationing and storing wheat. Noah built an ark to prepare for the great flood, even though he looked insane to his neighbors. Sometimes necessary actions of survival look like madness to people who haven’t seen the larger picture.

I hope that I’m wrong about the path we’re on. I hope that we have more time to save our climate before it cooks humanity. The only thing I know for certain is that we’d be fools to count on it.

We’re choosing the future right now, for better or worse. Either we rise to the challenge, the greatest generational calling in the history of our species, or we perish.