Adapting to the Climate Crisis

Although the media and political leaders want to pretend that what came out of the Paris climate talks is a huge advance, those with more understanding of the actual realities of the environmental crisis facing the human race realize that those steps seem visionary only in comparison with what has been deemed realistic in the past, but not when compared with what actually must be done to prevent global catastrophe by 2070 or 2080. This point is argued well by Steven E. Koonin, director of the Center for Urban Science at New York University and former Department of Energy undersecretary for science during Obama’s first term. Sadly, Koonin and others also argue for learning to adapt to this reality rather than heading it off, offering only scant acknowledgment of the human disaster they appear willing to accept. This adaption may mean climate wars, military measures to keep tens of millions of displaced climate refugees from coming to the United States, and widespread misery elsewhere. No doubt, we will see the rise of fascistic military-and police-state tactics in the United States, implemented to protect the gated communities of the rich from the outrage of the suffering masses.

A better alternative would be to stop the madness of relying on fossil fuels, diminish the huge amounts of waste created by the competitive market societies (including China and others in the global East and South that are rushing to develop the same capitalist-style consumption and production that has been so environmentally destructive), and create a global economic and political system that gives equal priority to the well-being of the planet and all its inhabitants. Viewed in light of this goal, our proposed Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the US Constitution (ESRA, www.tikkun.org/esra) looks more like a modest first step than a utopian fantasy dismissed by political “realists.” Actually, the real utopians are those that think we can continue going in the direction we’re heading with only the paltry objectives outlined in the Paris agreements to protect the well-being of the human race in the coming decades. They suffer from delusion after delusion after delusion.