Current Affairs
Climate of Violence
Are We Killing Future Generations?
Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future: A Novel. Orbit, 576pp., $20 paper.
Every second, the global economy burns through 1,100 barrels of oil, 270 tons of coal, and 4,000,000 cubic feet of natural gas. That combustion dumps enormous amounts of heat energy into the climate system. Some estimates put it at the equivalent of five nuclear bomb explosions. Every. Second. Human civilization is a super volcano.
It has long been known that this needs to change. The international community has committed to limiting global warming to 1.5°c above pre-industrial temperatures (we are already at 1.1°c). We have treaties and targets and conferences and pledges. And yet we are not doing nearly enough. Despite knowing for decades that greenhouse gas emissions must sharply turn downward, we have gone the other direction. 2019 set a record for co2 emissions. 2020 was down, but only because of the coVI d-19 pandemic. Emissions rose by 6% in 2021 as the global economy rebounded. To meet the 1.5°c target, emissions have to be slashed by over 7% annually for the next thirty years. Current policies put us on track for 3.2°c of warming, a future that would be grim if not catastrophic.
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