31 December 2019 (Desdemona Despair) – In 2019, the climate data show Earth’s climate system unraveling mostly as predicted, although faster than expected by some. But the really scary chart was penned by none other than the President of the United States himself.
Trump would not be gainsayed by the National Weather Service and insisted that Hurricane Dorian posed a threat to Alabama, even though NWS was quite confident in predicting no impact. A stroke of his Sharpie remedied the offending chart. Science in the U.S. now hangs on political whim.
It’s like the President of Brazil saying that scientists studying deforestation in the Amazon are lying about their data. And it’s like Australia’s PM Scott Morrison denying that the megafires consuming his country are a climate catastrophe. The authoritarian style is to assert absurd claims as truth, against all facts, to solidify the support of followers; dissonance reduction is a powerful tool of social control.
Desdemona has worried frequently about the time when the overwhelming volume of scientific data would reveal abrupt climate change to any reasonable observer. Will we mobilize at the required “world war” scale, or will we listen to authoritarian madmen and kill the messengers?
False-color satellite view of the burn scar from the Kincade Fire as it appeared on 26 October 2019. The image combines shortwave-infrared, near-infrared, and green light from Landsat 8 (OLI bands 7-5-4) to better distinguish between burned vegetation (brown) and...
Spatial pattern on differences of oceanic evaporation trends between 1999–2015 and 1957–1998. Gray shaded area in (A) indicates ±1 SD. The inset in (B) shows the frequency distributions of the corresponding differences. Graphic: Yuan, et al., 2019 / Science Advances...
Soil degradation in China. Graphic: UNCCD 3 July 2015 (Desdemona Despair) – Will world agriculture be able to support a human population of 12 billion people in the year 2100? The answer largely turns on how much land is available...
One Response
“Will we mobilize at the required “world war” scale, or will we listen to authoritarian madmen and kill the messengers?” If by we, you mean humanity as a whole, I think you already know the answer. These are also not the only two options, another is to ignore it, which is what I believe most are doing. Until grain prices start to skyrocket, resulting in rampant food inflation, most people are not going to take this seriously. Of course by then it will be far too late.
“Will we mobilize at the required “world war” scale, or will we listen to authoritarian madmen and kill the messengers?” If by we, you mean humanity as a whole, I think you already know the answer. These are also not the only two options, another is to ignore it, which is what I believe most are doing. Until grain prices start to skyrocket, resulting in rampant food inflation, most people are not going to take this seriously. Of course by then it will be far too late.