Last year was the hottest year on record. Temperatures rose above the long-term average for the 36th year in succession. Global temperatures in 2022 rose 0.6C above the long term average, and that makes it the ninth hottest year on record globally, according to NASA. (NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric a administration)
Last week, Sydney endured its hottest day since records began. Temperatures reached a blistering 45.8ºC (114.4ºF) in the city – beating the previous record of 45.3ºC, which was set in 1939.
And yet, despite the consensus of respectable scientists and the evidence of their own eyes, so-called “intellectuals” such as George Will, write dismissive opinion columns damning concern about climate change as a liberal plot (see today’s Washington Post). Of course, right-wing ideologues won’t be on the planet when the seas swallow chunks of the land, when there are no edible fish and when harvests wither, so why would they care about other people’s grand-children? Right-wing economists and bogus researchers are, however, very much in evidence right here and now, when there is money to be made from oil, gas and coal interests, keen to misrepresent what is happening to our environment.
Empathy, aside from common sense, is a key ingredient of Epicureanism. No, we (the older people) might not see the worst effects of global climate change (although even that isn’t at all clear) but we have an inescapable duty to “do no harm” and to try to leave the planet a better place than we found it. Safeguarding the profits of corporations at all costs is not a strategy to be of.
Your last remark sums up the difficulty this world is in. It is not in the interests of the Big Mining conglomerates to concur with the facts of global warming, and especially not when it comes to their responsibility with regard to slowing it down.
Mining companies in Australia are fighting the carbon tax they have been ask to pay, by fuelling the myth that climate change does not exist. Or at most, the changes we have seen are natural ebbs and flos. This plays into the hands of the conspiracy theorists and other ‘deniers’. Meanwhile, promises of money and support, made by polititions at several international conferences are not followed through.
I really fear for the next generations who will have to cope with food and water shortages, the mass movement of peoples and the accompanying violence.
I wonder if Epicurus would still advise us to go and rest in the Garden if he could see the plight we were heading towards. Would he not urge us to forget moderation for a moment, and DO something?!
You are quite right, and it is a scary prospect. We will all be judged harshly by our grandchildren, I fear.
Yes, we ought to do something. The problem is what. In the United States , to name just one country, there is a big majority in polls for cutting carbon emissions among ordinary people. You can organise petitions and write to your representative, but big business and their hired lackeys trump everything you do. These people, especially, as you say, mining companies, oil companies and electricity generators are not interested in your grandchildren. They are not interested in their own. Profit and the next quarter’ financial results are all they bother about, aside from their own bonuses. Aside from violence, resurrecting the tumbrils and the guillotine, I wish I knew how to save the planet.
No, Epicurus might have lived in dreadful times, but he didn’t face planetary cataclysm, and would , I am sure, advocate getting out of the garden and demonstrating at least