Climate change: the worst case scenario our government covers up

It scares the hell out of me because I am certain society as we know it will not exist even 20 years from now. The writing is on the wall, yet the masses remain blind to it. I'm talking about climate change and not whether it is caused by man or nature, but the fact that it is happening and that we as powerless peasants to the elite continue supporting the machine, waiting for the last hour before mobilizing. It's just not bad enough now for the people to smell death. It is very understandable to me why this has occurred. CO2 emission increased 3 times that of the 1990's in a four year span from 2000-20004, coinciding very much with the economic boom of numerous developing countries, not to mention our own growing output. Seeing as this was a far greater rate of CO2 consumption than every scientific model used, it just shows that science is modeled after a very conservative approach, and conservatism is something we can ill afford in reaction.

http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=75951

Being as frank as possible, here is what this means, brought to you by a report our United States government commissioned through the Pentagon, then covered up, surprise, by our government in 2004.

"Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters.

"A secret report, suppressed by US defense chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

"The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.' "

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1153513,00.html

Understand where we are going. The ice caps are melting, the glaciers receding and all of that water is going into the oceans, which is beyond dispute. In the not too distant future unfathomable amounts of coastline will be swallowed whole by the sea, meaning millions of people worldwide will be displaced, forcing massive migrations inland where the infrastructure doesn't exist. That's New Orleans the world over. And if you thought the response to that was bad, imagine this response occurring as the human population continues to rise unsustainably upwards, as our economy absolutely collapses beyond anything even comparable to the 1930's, as how do you replace such financial cogs as New York City, Boston, coastal California etc... Everything will stop, our economy is interconnected globally and our needs are going to change from consumerism to survivalism, meanings millions will go jobless as the industry's of gluttony will collapse overnight. There will be widespread famine, yes here in America, where we will experience the new definition of a dust bowl. Higher global temperatures mean greater occurrences of droughts, and it will only be a matter of time before our ground water sources are exhausted. Water will become our new currency and survival our sole purpose. Everything we currently enjoy and value in our society will be inexistent, and we are beyond ill prepared for this scenario. My fiancé and I recently shared the discussion that having a child is akin to a death sentence, as it is very likely we will be experiencing anarchy in the course of our lifetime. We've in effect had that right taken from us.

Yet it's happening because of global capitalism on two parts: One in actually causing it by fostering a world of materialism and consumerism and the CO2 emissions needed to support this, (need I mention American's dispose of over 4,000 cell phones every day, consider the resources spent here in creation and disposal) and two by these very same elitists who dictate this production intentionally suppressing this information from the public and intentionally not responding to it, i.e. the Bush administration and this report they suppressed, not to mention the lack of attention and initiative from the media.

This machine needs to be brought to a halt, and the only way to do this is to form solidarity among the masses and restructure the direction of the economy, to stand as one and choose a more ascetic lifestyle. We as a people are under the control of the system, but we outnumber those in charge and have real power should we choose to confront the status quo. It's not a matter of if, but when we imagine this scenario and at that time it will be too late to do anything meaningful. The hour is late now, and perhaps the best thing to do is to prepare for our demise. The worst thing to do is to continue living as if nothing is wrong.

Below is a comment I found, left on a blog which shares similar concerns as my own. The poster is a 63 year old disabled man named Joe, who I didn't even know existed until this morning, who in my opinion illustrates the proper call to action. It is written to the blogs creator.

Dear Glen,

A couple of things: first, each time I visit one of your Ecological
Internet web sites, I see (understandably) "Noting you regularly use
this site, I want to ask you in particular to please donate..." Y'know,
I'd love to, your energetic work is awesome. I live on a $700 a month
disability allowance, so don't have much to spare for donations, in fact
my single indulgence is a high-speed internet connection, otherwise I
live a subsistence existence (and have an ecological footprint close to 1).

If 'information is power' then anyone reading your work should feel
empowered. However, the opposite can happen; in my case, having an
extensive background in sociology of a kind I think allows me to see the
hidden mechanisms behind major human social trends, I more often than
not come away from my reading of your stuff with a painful sense of
futility. It is not because you relentlessly uncover the full picture of
the horror facing humanity under current practices, that is an essential
piece of understanding.

So, I have also read over your blog, which I truly appreciate for your
unflinching honesty and passion. All the while, somewhere in the back of
my mind is something like 'okay, this is how bad it really is, and how
phony and ineffectual most government and elite/entertainer initiatives
are.' In the blog you lament "Horrendous imbalances in income
distribution lead to much of the world living in miserable conditions
while the relatively few consume and pollute excessively -- this is
unacceptable. As conditions worsen and if these fundamental steps listed
here are not taken, having a child may become a privilege, not a right."
and "What is clear is there is no future for the Hollywood, super-sized
American lifestyle. These fundamental changes must be made now or being
as we know it is over." and lastly "The ecological imperative to cut
emissions is so immense, and the costs of failure so dire, that if
political and economic resistance and gridlock continues, there may be
no alternative but global political revolution -- overthrowing the whole
rotten polluting economic and political system in order to save the
climate, humanity, global ecological system and all creatures with whom
we share Gaia."

I couldn't agree with you more; the trouble is, how do we get there from
here? You seem to vacillate between the possibility of reform and the
need to overthrow the extant system. Your own relentless documentation
seems to lead to the conclusion that reform efforts are for the most
part too compromised to be of any real effect, yet except for that one
passage on overthrowing the system, your arguments seem to hinge on the
possibilities of reform, which by your own implicit admission, are
unlikely to be enough.

There have to be some preconditions for reform to happen: an informed
polity and genuine democratic governance, neither of which your country
or mine presently have. I think that most even mildly aware people are
beginning to understand that the old verities of that 'worst of all
systems but better than the alternatives' [I think a quote from
Churchill on democracy] have gone past a point of no-return (witness the
timid Democratic majority in Congress in the US, the juggernaut of a
minority government in Canada, the petty ineffectualness of the European
Community [all capitalist]). In globalism, the interests of the state
and corporatocracy are essentially fused. The enforcement of this fusion
is military, in the larger sense that includes 'security' agencies and
unaccountable treaties and bodies that govern world trade in the service
of the boundless appetites of the ruling class. Oh, oh, when you see a
phrase like 'ruling class' you may think me 'just another Marxist' --
not entirely, I am greatly informed by Marx and equally dismayed at what
has followed from his work; it is a class situation though, for sure,
and any revolt such as you suggest will be a class war, there's no
getting around it.

Whatever hope the US and like countries ever had for democratic
governance with capitalism has been dashed in the military metaphysic.
Here's a no-mincing of words quote from a classic sociologist, a Pole
who wasn't particularly Marxian:
from Stanislav Andreski’s _Military Organization and Society_:
"The technico-military circumstances make world hegemony fully possible.
The improvements in transport and communication and the increasing
preponderance of organized armed forces over the unarmed population . .
. render the task of keeping down the population of the world fairly
easy. . . Let us suppose that a state like the U.S.A., where liberalism
and democracy are deeply rooted in the tradition, establishes world
hegemony. Would it be likely to continue to adhere to these traditions?
It does not seem so." And so it has in fact become, with certain dire
consequences for Gaia and humanity.

So, where am I going here? I don't think all is lost, but future chances
for humanity are slim indeed. I think the place to concentrate is on
those who will suffer most grievously as a result of the accelerating
trends to doom, that is, the people born after about 1975. They are the
ones who are almost guaranteed not to have any prospect of living a
normal life span, and what life experience they have will become
increasingly grim and miserable, *but only if they drift along with the
status quo*. Somehow, it is the 'young' that need to get the message
that the game is up, they have *no* chance of living a 'normal' life
such as their parents and their only possibility is how to respond to
the situation while they have the energy, anger and personal resources
to fight it. It seems to me there are 3 possible outcomes: (1) do
nothing and die early following a short lifetime of misery, with final
days a testament to a life betrayed and wasted (2) do whatever it takes
to turn things around, though that means forfeiting short term 'normal'
life stages such as seeing through a career, having a family, etc., and
even then the results might be the same, except that one would die
knowing they put up the good fight, or (3) if in opposing the master
trends enough become inspired and work together, these people may
actually do something unprecedented and heroic in advancing the
evolution of the human species and the planet that gives them life, and
some may actually survive the ordeal and come out of the other end of it
and live both meaningful, full lives encompassing a normal span.
Admittedly the 3rd option is the most difficult and probably least
likely, but either (2) or (3) allow for a life lived with dignity and
meaning.

I think people like you need to be more clear on what is unworkable, and
by this I mean the capitalist system and the way it brings out the worst
in the repertoire of human nature. Basically, the attributes of human
nature can be classified as "atavistic" -- those that once served a
small and vulnerable species to gain a foothold on an evolving planet,
such as territoriality, predation, in-group/out-group enmity, hoarding,
impulse gratification of drives, etc.; there is a whole set of more
recently acquired attributes that I call "nascent" in that they have not
been around as long, and crucially, they depend on human knowledge and
morality for their fostering, since they are a result of the symbolic
thought processes that are not passed on through natural selection in
genes but by knowledge, such that humans have become the volitional
agents of their own selection. Yes, I know that is Lamarckian, but it is
true, just look at all the actions that humans have taken in 10,000
years to go from scattered hunter-gatherer tribes to the dominant
species so elaborated that the activities have accumulated to the point
of destruction of everything; that isn't the gradualism of all other
life forms. Humans have been unconscious agents of their continued
evolution, time they became conscious agents instead. This requires
junking capitalism or any form of the hoarding of riches, large forms of
private property, and all superstitious belief systems like religions
(save a reverent attitude towards nature). This can't be done half-way,
any more than one can be 'a little pregnant'. You, Glen, have been
implying as much. I hope you can frame your work to appeal more to the
young, tell it like it is, and what they must do not just to survive,
but survive with self-respect and as part of the long unfolding of the
species.

I'm too old too do much more than sign petitions, etc., Glen, I'm 63 and
in chronic pain. But you are 41, you have the energy and the
sensibilities, and an evolving vision -- I think what you are doing is
great, and I'd like you to consider being more explicitly oriented to
challenging the young while they still have a chance to fight back. As
soon as they realize how badly they've been 'had', that in the current
game they are slated for premature and miserable death, they will figure
out a way to fight back.

Joe

http://www.climateark.org/blog/2007/06/worse_than_worst_case_climate.asp