Winning the Climate Change Battle

Since the release of the terrifying new IPCC report a few days ago, lots of people have been talking about the prognosis for humankind on this planet, wondering what if anything can be done to avert catastrophe.  As suggested in the cartoon here, making real progress in climate change mitigation requires people of different nationalities to come together and work as a team, even though there is identically zero precedent for anything remotely resembling this in human history. 

Making matters far worse are several additional considerations; there are forces that oppose an all-out, World War II-style confrontation aimed at stabilizing global temperatures.  After all, we’re not talking about coming together to fight off an invasion from outer space, or something else that would be noncontroversial. Here we have:

• Disseminators of climate disinformation, i.e., the oil companies trying to maintain their stranglehold on the energy industry.

• Climate deniers (whose information sources may or may not be the one above).

• The OPEC countries, each with its own politics.

• Governments like Russia, whose power lies in its position as a supplier of natural gas to Europe.

• Rich, amoral people, who figure that climate change will not affect them personally.

• Sources of capital that want short-term returns on their investments and have little or no interest in philanthropy.

In all, this is going to be a difficult battle, but it’s one that we must win.