Is there time to rearrange the deck chairs as in the Paris Agreement, or should we just start passing out lifejackets? Many people still hope we’ll make a manageable transition to a low-impact economy. I’ve pretty much lost hope for that outcome, primarily because two factors now must be included in a realistic forecast—currently discernible collective human will, and already-appearing climate impacts.

  1. Currently discernible collective human will

Oil companies have known of the link between their products and climate change since 1965. The news media was told about it when James Hansen testified before Congress in 1988. By 2000 environmentalists were beginning to educate the public and elected officials, testing terminology to find words that would capture attention and motivate action. “Should we say ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change?‘ ‘Greenhouse gases’ or ‘climate pollution?’” For at least two decades there has been steady and often brilliant effort by scientists, climate activists, and energy experts to show both the perils we face and the possible solutions.

We know the results. Major emitters have clung to fossil fuels and used their clout to obfuscate the issue rather than change direction. Emissions are rebounding post-pandemic, and 2023 is predicted to see the highest levels of CO2 emissions in human history. At this point it is probably a fact that the desire not to exceed 1.5oC is just a wish and not a fully inhabited intention for most of those who have the power to make it happen.

I’ve been surprised by the inertia, but I shouldn’t have been. The climate crisis may be seen as the logical result of cumulative actions that go back thousands of years. The agricultural revolution seems to have encouraged top-down social and economic systems, and perhaps the subjugation of nature and of humans lower in the hierarchy encouraged the development in the human population of what I will call insensitivity…

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