Climate Change | Environment | International Politics

When I was a child, I had a little jar in the kitchen of my family's apartment.

It was usually about a third of the way full of quarters, dimes, and nickels. It wasn't a swear jar, nor was it for allowance or anything like that. I had set it there myself, and it was my mother and stepfather who were putting in the coins.

I had instituted a rule; any time they threw a cigarette butt on the ground outside, I charged them 25 cents. I planned to give the money to a charity to help plant trees.

I was one of those kids. The super annoying miniature activists. I read about conservation, I organized little clean-up crews to pick up garbage on the school playground, and I even convinced my elementary school principal to plant a little flower garden out behind the schoolyard.

That garden never actually flourished, of course — turning a hundred kids loose on a pile of fresh dirt made sure of that. It was a very compact mud hill before very long.

The point is, that I've always cared deeply about the environment. I've always worried about how many animals were going extinct due to human-caused problems, and I've always worried about the specter of climate change looming on the horizon.

And yet, through it all, I had hope. As evidenced by my little cigarette-butt jar, I always thought that there was time to turn things around if people could be made to acknowledge the problem.

I'm beginning to lose that hope now. I'm honestly starting to get scared.

A United Nations report just came out this past week about fossil fuel production.

It discusses the predicted usage of fossil fuels for the next few decades and compares those projections against the pledges various countries have made to curb emissions in the face of looming catastrophes.

They aren't going to be enough. And the reason they aren't going to be enough is because, at this point, they aren't even trying. They aren't scaling back production, they're expanding it.

Even with everything we now know, they're expanding it.

Does anyone remember what the past few years have been like? Have we forgotten the wildfires? The lethal heatwaves that spread across the entire planet? The hundreds of thousands of deaths in natural disasters and unpredictable storms?

Are we goldfish?

I used to have hope, but as more and more evidence stacks up, I keep seeing those in positions of power shrug their shoulders and turn their backs. They fill their pockets with money, and they sign deals to increase output, and more people die.

Call me a naive idiot, but once upon a time, I thought better of my fellow man than that.

Things aren't going to get any better than they were last year. They're going to get worse.

Overall, bit by bit, year after year they're going to get worse. By the time we reach 2030, we're going to have smashed the previous record several times over.

Scientists have already been saying that climate change is progressing faster than they expected, and with it comes severe risks to our health.

They've been saying it for decades. And the governments of the world have said 'Okay, we'll do something about it'. And then the time comes to act, and it's more promises to do something. And then more promises. More promises still.

But when they act, it's almost always been to make the problem worse. Short-term pocketbook gains, long-term health impacts, and loss of life.

And it's always the most marginalized, the most vulnerable people who suffer the most. They're the people who are the least empowered to do anything about it, so their voices can safely be ignored.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again; at this point, we're just externalities. Big business wants cash, and they're willing to spend a little to make a lot. How are we, the average citizens, supposed to fight back against the lobbying interests of corporate power?

We aren't. We're supposed to shut up and take it. This isn't a bug in the system, it's the system of unregulated capitalism running exactly as intended, with all of the consequences that entails.

Here we are, preparing to deal with the fallout of yet another example of callous disregard for human life. I'm pretty sure there's a law on the books about that, at least in the United States.

This is a global problem, and it's going to require a global solution.

The Paris Accords were a start, but they've become a footnote. They're ignored, hand-waved, and even abandoned at this point. The frequent meetings and calls between world leaders about climate change just seem to be fruitlessly spinning their wheels.

Or worse, they only provide a greenwashing effect. The illusion of action without real steps being taken. A balm to soothe the frightened masses.

That only works as long as the burns stop hurting.

Right now, we're staring down the barrel of catastrophe. It won't be the apocalypse or anything, the world isn't going to end. It's going to keep on spinning, and we're still going to exist…life is just going to keep getting harder.

It's a global problem. It's going to require sustained, global, organized pressure to force a change for the better.

Solidarity wins.

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