University College London
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A climate scientist has shared his insight into the dystopian future which will occur unless we do as he says.
Don’t despair – climate change catastrophe can still be averted
The future looks fiery and dangerous, according to new reports. But political will and grassroots engagement can change this
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As a research scientist in this field, I can give some nuance to the headlines. One common way of thinking about climate change is the lower the future carbon dioxide emissions, the less warming and the less havoc we will face as this century progresses. This is certainly true, but as the summer heatwave and the potential hothouse news remind us, the shifts in climate we will experience will not be smooth, gradual and linear changes. They may be fast, abrupt, and dangerous surprises may happen. However, an unstoppable globally enveloping cascade of catastrophe, while possible, is certainly not a probable outcome.
Yet, even without a hothouse we are on track to transform Earth this century. The world, after 30 years of warnings, has barely got to grips with reducing carbon dioxide emissions. They need to rapidly decline to zero, but after decades of increases, are, at best, flatlining, with investments in extracting new fossil fuels continuing, including last month’s scandalous announcement that fracking will be allowed in the UK. Temperatures have increased just 1C above preindustrial levels, and we are on course for another 2C or 3C on top of that. Could civilisation weather this level of warming?
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It is then easy to see these intersecting crises dovetailing with calls from the new far-right populists for strong authoritarian leaders to solve these problems. Inward-looking nationalists could then move further away from the internationalism needed to ensure the continuation of stable global food supplies and to manage migration humanely. And without cooperative internationalism serious carbon dioxide mitigation will not happen, meaning the underling drivers of the problems will exacerbate, leading to a lock-in of a deteriorating, isolationist, fascist future.
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Who but a climate scientist could so eloquently establish the link between permitting fracking in the UK, and the global downfall of Democracy?
One world government would lead to global fascism.
I suppose we in the US should apologize to Europe for the impact one of our political parties has had on your lot. The Democratic Party was and remains the source of true evil in the United States and it had the same effect in Europe by being the model.
So we either we go to world wide communism or we devolve into isolated fascist states? Not a good choice either way. Good thing this is total BS as usual.
Always get a kick about how the lefties use Fascism as the ultimate boogeyman, usually alongside the NAZI boogeyman, to scare people into doing and thinking as they’re being told to do and think.
The incredible irony is that both Nazism and Fascism were clearly 100% socialist parties in their roots and in their thinking and in their party platforms and in their governmental policies.
The left-wing Fascists are scaring people with the threat of fascism from the right. Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it.
So…if we don’t submit to climate fascism, the result will be….fascism. Riiiiight.
Oh, no. We are beyond the “tipping point” and are doomed.
EMBRACE THE HORROR
Let me add some nuance. The less climate scientists we graduate the less politically motivated fear mongering we can expect. You can take that to the bank
But, controlling CO2 emissions will REQUIRE Global Fascism. Because I’m not going to give up my CO2 emissions voluntarily, and neither will tens of millions of other freedom-loving Americans. So, even if the moron is right, and failing to control CO2 emissions WILL lead to global fascism, I’d rather put it off for another generation.
These idiots just don’t seem to get it. The degree of control governments will have to exercise over their people’s everyday lives in order to “stop global warming”, that IS fascism. They can call it whatever they want. I don’t give a damn what they call it. If I’m not free, either it’s fascism, or it might as well be.