Wednesday, May 02, 2007

To Baird et al

The other day, the news told me that we might have grossly underestimated rate of Arctic sea ice decline in the face of AGW . As well the latest IPCC report is worse in what is predicts than the last one six years ago. There are dire warnings of what this means that are recognised by governments and experts the world over. Keep this in mind and read on.

A government, any government, that does not take the requisite action to mitigate these impacts, especially with this much foresight, threatens my life and lives of my cohort as well as those that follow me. I do not want to die of starvation or violence in my late middle age, but if governments continue to fuck around playing politics and semantics and listening to the advice of hacks and fools because they tell you what you want to hear, my chances of dying in such a fashion vastly increase. This, of course, is also true for voters that put these governments in place, but you in government have a responsibility for the wellbeing of the people that put you there and have access to expertise that the average voter does not, so you have no excuse for copping out. You are threatening my life in a way no different than the collection of high-minded assholes playing at great games of nuclear chicken. Keep this in mind and read on.

I do not care about recessions and economic loss. We have survived them in the past. If you happen to find you cannot adapt our growth based economic system or your political ideology to climate change, FIND A NEW FUCKING SYSTEM [hint: there are many experts in alternative systems that can help you; academia is full of people who study these things]. I do not care if this means I can no longer drive a car. I do not care if this means I must plant crops on my lawn, or give up single malt Scotch (well, that’ll hurt a bit, but given a choice, I’d go with, you know, life), or move across the country, or pay more taxes, or take the train, or whatever. Sacrifices are necessary.

Perhaps, again, keep the following in mind: There is nothing to suggest that human civilisation must exist as it does now. There is nothing to suggest human civilisation must exist. We are here at the leisure of the Universe and nothing more. We have no ordained right to exist.

So please, when forming environmental policy, recall Hitler’s rise to power, and imagine AGW as a life and death situation as real as a massed hostile army on the border.

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