A Bogus Call For Emergency Action

The United Nations General Assembly in September 2021 will bring countries together at a critical time for marshalling collective action to tackle the global environmental crisis. They will meet again at the biodiversity summit in Kunming, China, and at the climate conference (COP26) in Glasgow, United Kingdom. Ahead of these pivotal meetings, we — the editors of health journals worldwide — call for urgent action to keep average global temperature increases below 1.5° C, halt the destruction of nature, and protect health.

This of course, won’t amount to anything, it never does. Humankind (and especially global “leaders”) are still beholden to rampant greed and excess, so anything that would even remotely threaten to curtail rampant greed and excess will just receive the usual lip-service, as always.

Now if they were actually willing to do something truly meaningful, like shutting down industrial civilization (immediately) and putting an end to all of the incessant stupidity that humans call “progress” (growth), then we’d have something. But of course, nothing like that will ever happen.

It’s also going to be quite impossible to limit warming below 1.5° C when we’ve already blown right past that phony “limit” (use the correct pre-industrial temperatures instead of the bogus ones a century later). Nothing like reinforcing one of the biggest climate lies out there to make it look like you’re on top of things when you’re (still) really not.

Color me totally unimpressed. This is the same level of distractions as before. THEY ARE NOT SERIOUS. And neither are most of you. You still don’t get it. You don’t want to get it. You refuse to understand or even try to comprehend what is unfolding RIGHT NOW.

I’ll use their own words, even thought they’ve deliberately misrepresented when this would happen (already has):

The risks to health of increases above 1.5° C are now well established.² Indeed, no temperature rise is “safe.” In the past 20 years, heat-related mortality among people over 65 years of age has increased by more than 50%.⁴ Higher temperatures have brought increased dehydration and renal function loss, dermatological malignancies, tropical infections, adverse mental health outcomes, pregnancy complications, allergies, and cardiovascular and pulmonary morbidity and mortality.^5,6 Harms disproportionately affect the most vulnerable, including children, older populations, ethnic minorities, poorer communities, and those with underlying health problems.^2,4

Yeah, that’s bad alright, real bad, and it’s already happened. So now they’re finally going to speak up about it and pretend there is “still time” to “turn things around”. Well, that’s just more bullshit being shoveled your way, I don’t buy it.

Global heating is also contributing to the decline in global yield potential for major crops, which has fallen by 1.8 to 5.6% since 1981; this decline, together with the effects of extreme weather and soil depletion, is hampering efforts to reduce undernutrition.⁴ Thriving ecosystems are essential to human health, and the widespread destruction of nature, including habitats and species, is eroding water and food security and increasing the chance of pandemics.^3,7,8

The consequences of the environmental crisis fall disproportionately on those countries and communities that have contributed least to the problem and are least able to mitigate the harms. Yet no country, no matter how wealthy, can shield itself from these impacts. Allowing the consequences to fall disproportionately on the most vulnerable will breed more conflict, food insecurity, forced displacement, and zoonotic disease — with severe implications for all countries and communities. As with the Covid-19 pandemic, we are globally as strong as our weakest member.

Rises above 1.5° C increase the chance of reaching tipping points in natural systems that could lock the world into an acutely unstable state. This would critically impair our ability to mitigate harms and to prevent catastrophic, runaway environmental change.^9,10

Heat deaths won’t be the real cause of human extinction. It will be starvation, and in some cases, dehydration. That will happen long before temperatures reach the biological thermal limits, because global food crops will have plummeted. Anyone who has followed this blog will understand that, but in case you are newcomer, that’s how this is all going to unfold. Our food supply will wither away first as we huddle for shelter and tolerable temperatures. Some of us will be up to our necks in rising water. As long as the power stays on, some of us will be ok – if we can find enough to eat and adequate shelter, but that won’t last long.

Encouragingly, many governments, financial institutions, and businesses are setting targets to reach net-zero emissions, including targets for 2030. The cost of renewable energy is dropping rapidly. Many countries are aiming to protect at least 30% of the world’s land and oceans by 2030.¹¹

This is more bullshit, as there is no such thing as “net zero” and that term conveniently overlooks the existing greenhouses gasses already in the atmosphere and oceans. It’ll stay there for thousands of years, so when you realize that global temperatures are already past 1.5° C from past emissions, then “net zero” claims means absolutely NOTHING. The entire planet has already dangerously heated up from past emissions that will around for a long, long time and getting THAT temperature down should be the true goal (which they do not seem to remotely understand).

To do that – you have to change the energy balance, and find ways to draw down the greenhouse gasses already released, and finally, STOP PRODUCING MORE. Net zero claims rely on you to not understand these basic facts, or that net zero means that they fully intend to release MORE dangerous greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere with the (empty) PROMISE that they’ll “offset” these gasses in some unspecified way (from the same companies that already wrecked the planet and ignored their own science warnings about what they were doing). We’re now supposed to “trust them” you see, they’ll fix it this time…. Utter HOGWASH.

This is not a call for “emergency action” so don’t fall for it. It’s more propaganda and empty promises with ill-conceived claims and little to no understanding what really needs to be done.

These promises are not enough. Targets are easy to set and hard to achieve. They are yet to be matched with credible short- and longer-term plans to accelerate cleaner technologies and transform societies. Emissions reduction plans do not adequately incorporate health considerations.¹² Concern is growing that temperature rises above 1.5° C are beginning to be seen as inevitable, or even acceptable, to powerful members of the global community.¹³ Relatedly, current strategies for reducing emissions to net zero by the middle of the century implausibly assume that the world will acquire great capabilities to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.^14,15

This insufficient action means that temperature increases are likely to be well in excess of 2° C,¹⁶ a catastrophic outcome for health and environmental stability. Critically, the destruction of nature does not have parity of esteem with the climate element of the crisis, and every single global target to restore biodiversity loss by 2020 was missed.¹⁷ This is an overall environmental crisis.¹⁸

Promises is all we’ve ever seen, so to finally claim the obvious that they are not enough is more then a bit late. The powerful members of the global community have made sure that empty promises are made and will still be made (profits come first). The utterly ridiculous and false notion that there will be a net zero strategy by 2050 totally misses the mark – it’s very unlikely that there will be much civilization left by 2050. This proves that these authors really do not understand what is unfolding right now, or how we’ve already blown right past their proposed  1.5° C limit.

Allegedly, their clamoring for “rapid action”, but what does this mean? They don’t know. Plans to accelerate cleaner technologies and transform societies sounds nice, but it’s more bullshit. Energy intensive civilizations create enormous quantities of greenhouse gasses, they are inseparable (which they don’t realize). This is how I know that they don’t understand what they are asking for.

To achieve these targets, governments must make fundamental changes to how our societies and economies are organized and how we live. The current strategy of encouraging markets to swap dirty for cleaner technologies is not enough. Governments must intervene to support the redesign of transport systems, cities, production and distribution of food, markets for financial investments, health systems, and much more. Global coordination is needed to ensure that the rush for cleaner technologies does not come at the cost of more environmental destruction and human exploitation.

These targets are already “lost”, so other then that fact, it’s not only governments that must change society but business and industry too. They are the primary polluters and the primary planet-wreckers. Call it what you want, but capitalism and civilization go hand-in-hand wrecking the planet. Ending capitalism would be another good place to start – but that “conversation” will simply never happen either. Capitalist wrongly believe that technology will finally fix the emissions issue, which is a load of horseshit. Supposedly, technology is the pathway towards nirvana, and this too has never panned out. Giving up one or both won’t be in their planning.

The greatest threat to global public health is the continued failure of world leaders to keep the global temperature rise below 1.5° C and to restore nature.

Told you so. Climate change is the greatest threat to humankind and the rest of the planet. Nothing else even comes close, because if we cook the planet beyond habitability, there is simply no other place to go. There is no other habitat for us or anything else living. We will go extinct. So now that we’ve established that fact for the umpteenth time, their still wrong about the 1.5° C limits (it was NEVER possible to do this by the way, past and present emissions made this inevitable) and how we might go about saving ourselves (including restoring nature). They do NOT understand what this will take (not even close).

I wish they did. I wish some of these authors and writers and scientists would read this blog. I wish they’d reach out to the people that have extensively studied this topic for many years and ask for their input. What I’m reading here is the same old “business as usual” script that does not offer meaningful change, and certainly NOTHING that will actually work to limit further warming. You cannot have more technology and more growth and more industry without increasing energy consumption, pollution, resource consumption and rising greenhouse gasses. They need to stop with these stupid proposals, they won’t work. Somebody will get rich from these dumb ideas, but global temperatures will just keep rising and rising.