April 20th 2020

By Scott Trimingham                      

This isn’t a long story. Unfortunately, it isn’t a story at all. It’s simply a statement of facts that lead to a tragic conclusion – the ending of civilization as we know it.

Despite what a tiny number of skeptics say, climate change is real, it is manmade and the clock is ticking. Merely calling it “climate change” is misleading as well, because it’s really climate collapse or climate catastrophe. I won’t get into the mechanics here of what is coming, but the cascade of events will be a combination of slow-moving horror (droughts, disease and insects migrating north and south with the warming weather) and immediate disasters (out-of-control wildfires and storms, flooding, hurricanes and tornadoes with a force and magnitude we’ve never seen before. Agriculture will take some hits leading to food-insecurity. It will sap our will as we expend all of our energy just to cling to what we have left.

I’m almost 70 now, so I may not see the bitter end. Although I expect to experience plenty. And I mourn for all that are young enough, and those being born now, that will experience the grueling brunt of the coming calamity.

If you think the COVID-19 pandemic is frightening, then you will look back at this period longingly after experiencing what is to come. In fact, if there is one lesson to be learned from our current pandemic it is that we had better prepare for what is next: global disruption and our virtual extinction due to climate collapse.

And we will be confronting these events with an ever-weakening ability to protect ourselves as we descend into a spiral of chaos, lack of resources and will.

But let me get to the point. There is only one significant organization on our planet that is actively and simultaneously dismissing this crisis, fueling the crisis and at the same time beating back our attempts to save ourselves from it.

The GOP.

It’s not complicated. You see, the GOP is funded by the companies that profit from the carbon production that has caused and is fueling climate collapse. The GOP is paid to deny this obvious threat and allow these corporations to continue operating as profitably as possible. (The Democratic party also receives funds from polluters but is not entirely under the control of the carbon producers, as is the GOP.)

And it looks like they have “won”. We are at a point now where it will take all we’ve got to mitigate climate collapse – before it mitigates us. If we don’t start now, with serious and effective strategies to reduce carbon, then it looks like this era of having a significant number of humans on the planet will come to an end well before the end of this century.

The bottom line is that we must act now to reduce carbon emissions. It’s our only hope.

(And vote accordingly.)