x-ranted
We’re Not Going to Make it to 2050 | by umair haque | Jul, 2022 | Eudaimonia and Cohttps://eand.co/were-not-going-to-make-it-to-2050-5398cf97b805Extinction — the Event we’re now entering — is going to be the single greatest occurrence in human history. We have never experienced anything remotely like it in the 300,000 years we’ve existed, because the last time it happened was 65 million years ago. Extinction will cleave time, shape politics, and define culture forevermore, after us. Our progeny will regard us the way we regard Stone Age people, or maybe medieval sorts — why didn’t they do anything, they’ll wonder? Why did they sit there glued to dumb Marvel Movies and debating pronouns and letting demagogues scapegoat and hate…while their planet died?
What we are doing is inadequate. You don’t have to think too hard about it. Our civilization’s attempts to combat Extinction so far have resulted in…this. This dystopia we currently live in, where Europe’s on fire, inflation’s spiking, Covid never goes away, and all the rest of it. Our efforts are self-evidently inadequate. Things are this bad right now. Go ahead, and think about 2025. And shudder. Most of us can’t even imagine the world in 2030, or 2040. Will there even be one? What will be left of this thing we once called civilization?
Vague goals to hit “net zero” by 2050 are like standing in the basement of a burning house, and agreeing to call the fire department in the morning.