Monday Message Board
Open for discussion
Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. As a reward to paying subscribers, I’m limiting comments to them. But if you want to comment for free, you can do so at my blog
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Doubleplus ungood
No good news from me today. The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/10/world-temperature-in-2024-exceeded-15c-for-first-time:
"Climate breakdown drove the annual global temperature above the internationally agreed 1.5C target for the first time last year, supercharging extreme weather and causing “misery to millions of people”. The average temperature in 2024 was 1.6C above preindustrial levels, data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) shows."
Nine years ago I joined many others in celebrating the surprising inclusion of a 1.5 degrees C stretch limit in the Paris Agreement. Serious action at last, we fondly hoped. No such luck. The leaders of the world – well, the ones who were not actively sabotaging the pact – continued to try to buy off Mother Nature with fine words. So here we are. The first numerical climate target has been broken, and earlier than even pessimists feared. It is a colossal defeat. Weep.
What to do now after a decent pause for mourning? The dominant response will be: we still have a chance, just, to stay within the main 2 degree limit, so let us redouble efforts to fight for it. Fair enough, count me in. But I suggest adding another goal. The news of yet another weather disaster, the $160bn wildfires in Los Angeles, confirms that we have entered the zone of the unacceptable. From now on every gramme of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere will have to be taken out again, until we hit the 1.5 degree target from the upside. Fossil fuel companies should be incessantly reminded of this – and made to pay for it. It’s premature to set this as a limit. When we have the technology and policies to reach 1.5 degrees, they will allow going further down, at a cost of which we we currently have no idea.
Will this work? I have no idea either. In the Book of Jonah, his warning to Nineveh is surprisingly heard (Jonah 3.6):
"When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. "
This is a satire on the godly – the Assyrians were notoriously brutal imperialists even by the standards of the time. A conversion is much less likely than carrying on as before towards disaster.
I fear that Kipling’s dyspeptic lines are a better fit:
"As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man —
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:—
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire."
There is a fourth and it’s no better.
I may have gone down this rabbit hole previously but I still haven't reconciled it in my mind, so here goes.
I was reading an NYT article yesterday about people from Youngstown, OH & how a number of people voted for Trump based on the idea that although they knew he was a charlatan, he didn't hide the fact or words to that respect.
I found this odd.
They also made mention that they thought politics was corrupt and he was apparently the best of a bad bunch.
So can we get Western politics back on track because I have certainly heard a similar sentiment here?
Do politicans even care?
Or is it a problem that is par for the course and inevitable?
If anyone has any thoughts, please add them.
Sorry John, I know this is one for Tim's page but I saw your board & thought, why not.