Wildfires in Siberia and along the west coast of North America, devastating floods in China and Northern Europe, the steady retreat of Arctic sea ice. There’s suddenly no denying it – the climate emergency is upon us: Surely 2021 will be remembered as the year when it was no longer possible to ignore the signs; the point at which denial of the evidence was confined to eccentrics and libertarian fundamentalists.
And yet, as the UK prepares to host November’s COP26 conference, there are scant signs that Johnson’s government is taking the situation seriously. It isn’t that they don’t believe climate change is a reality – that went some time ago – it is more that they are hoping there might be some clever way to exploit the situation to their advantage – to ‘tough it out’ in effect.
They’re not stupid. They know that within the next one or two decades parts of the earth will experience temperatures that are literally unsurvivable. Rather than confronting headlines about wildfires, floods or landslides we will see reports of mass deaths. The images will resemble those from Bhopal, Halabja, Sabra, Shatila and Jonestown – only on a vastly larger scale.
Sure there’ll be hand-wringing, expressions of sympathy and so on, shortly followed by the reminder that ‘there are too many people on the planet’.
But make no mistake, there are those who will welcome these developments. The calculation, no doubt, is that a green, zero carbon economy can be made to work but only once the population has been reduced to a fraction of its present size. For the few, the rewards could be incalculable: a world with a fraction of its present population in which the wealthy thrive, tended by automata.
After all, weren’t these islands identified in a recent report as one of the five locations best placed to survive a collapse of global civilisation? I dread to think what detail the government and its backers might be inclined to put on that assessment, but we can be certain they are not planning to equip the country as a refuge for people fleeing environmental disaster. More likely, they foresee a scenario in which they barricade themselves in, serviced and protected by a docile populace until – once the great cull is complete – they will re-emerge, to inherit what remains of the earth. No doubt, they face the prospect with a degree of fear and – it has to be said – excitement. Despite the uncertainties, the thought that they and their families might thrive, hidden away on some island or mountain fortress protected by loyal bodyguards holds a certain buccaneering attraction.
Failing all of the above, there is always the ‘last days of Rome/Berlin/Saigon’ option in which the last dwindling resources are consumed in a wild, bacchanalian frenzy.
You might think I am joking.
I hadn’t got that far in my thinking but yes, that “policy” is of a piece with the “Let the virus do its worst-to the poor and disadvantaged people” and surely will just speed up the big cull of humanity, making the whole dreadful scenario only too likely.
I know you’re not joking, David.
No, you are not joking!
Dave, I really don’t see how a population increase from 7.9 billion to 10.9 billion by the end of the century (more than 4 times what it was when we were young) can be dismissed as irrelevant, seeing as many more of those people will be wanting to eat meat, drive cars and use energy consuming, high tech equipment (including more air conditioners as the planet warms) not to mention strain finite water resources.
Stabilisation or reduction of the planet’s population is not a panacea and will not solve the climate crisis on its own, but cannot be ignored as a necessary contributor. It is well documented that wealthier countries tend to have fewer children so this could be achieved by supporting poorer countries with more aid and investment, rather than cutting it.
I’m aware that this is something of a hot potato.
I wasn’t actually dismissing population as irrelevant. In fact I’m inclined to go further and say that, in relation to the broad distribution of species on the planet, humanity has all the characteristics of a plague.
All the same. I don’t believe we have any alternative but to start from where we are now and to bring all the resources we possibly can to bear on the problem.
My argument is with those people who say, in effect, that it is futile trying to address the emergency whilst the global population continues to grow.
I have no difficulty imagining that in some hypothetical, sustainable future the global population might well be smaller, hopefully through the non-catastrophic and gradual processes you refer to.
Not at all. Sounds like the only acceptable outcome! Shall we do it at yours or ours?