2013 And The Climate Crunch Will Squash Us All

IT’S not when the ice will melt and drown us all that triggers any debate, but why we are being made to wait so long for the big flood.

The Indy’s Johann Hari looks into this crystal ball:

We are living through two great meltdowns – the credit crunch, and the climate crunch. The heating of the planet is now happening so fast it’s hard to pluck a single event to fix on, but here’s one. By the summer of 2013, the Arctic will be free of ice. How big an event it [sic] this?

Climate crunch…

The Wall Street Crash hadn’t happened for 80 years. The Arctic Crash hasn’t happened for three million years: that’s the last time there was watery emptiness at the top of the world.

But the North Pole is icy. But Al Gore’s weather machine is working. But the Alaskan glaciers are growing.

To get out of the climate crunch, we need an army of millions of new workers – and billions in public spending – to insulate every home, construct millions of new renewable energy sources, and work on endless innovations that help us to decarbonise.

Wind… waves… nuclear… Waving your arms about. We need millions. Anyone want to help?

This is, perversely, a dazzling time to be alive: every human being who ever lives will deal with the decisions we make here.

Well, that’s pretty much how human history works: people do stuff; people who come later live with the legacy of that stuff; other pople come and do stuff; so on…

On a brighter note, Hari does see a future for mankind. We might not all be dead in 2013. But when, then..?

Anorak

Posted: 21st, October 2008 | In: Global Warming, Media Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink