David King
We passed the 1.5C climate threshold. We must now explore extreme options | David King | The Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/07/climate-solutions-extreme-optionsR Hallam
https://www.facebook.com/share/1AP5yJSuWn/The former UK government’s chief scientific adviser, the foreign secretary’s special representative for climate change and the head of the University of Cambridge’s chemistry department, Sir David King states that as we have passed 1.5C "we must now explore extreme options". I could not agree more. I trust and respect science experts when they say we cannot save ourselves without geo-engineering. This goes against my culture as a former organic farmer but facts are facts and I am not an expert.
The question then is whether natural scientists like Sir David King will trust social scientists/experts like myself who have been saying for the last decade that only through mass civil disobedience and resistance will the policies insisted upon by him and others be implemented. This is not because I like creating disruption any more than scientists like the risks of geo-engineering. It is simply a matter of rationally looking at reality.
We are in an existential emergency; without drastic action the deaths of billions of people will be locked in in the next decade, not to mention the prospect of human extinction. It is time to do what is necessary - what is most likely to work.
As I wrote recently on the news that JSO has been prevented from continuing its actions due to the mass imprisonment of its organisers, the reason for our failure is the refusal of key members of the elites to "defect," as is the word in the literature. This means they lead the marches, get arrested, and receive prison sentences.
I would bet my life that if 50 individuals of Sir David's social standing decided to act to save our country to the point of being imprisoned then policy change would happen in the UK. And the same would happen in other Western states. The reason nothing is happening is that civil society leaders refuse to act on their sacred duty and honour to protect the people of our country. They are violating their values through their cowardice, and they know it.
As Sir David says, we don't want to leave it too late. "The longer we delay, the fewer options remain on the table and the more likely that deployment will happen without the proper due diligence at a point of desperation." In social scientific terms what he means is that if we don't act now because it is only poor black people (over there) that will die, by the time we are forced to engage in civil resistance because "nice" white people in the home counties are dying, it will be way too late for us too. Won't it.
⚰️ Why The Human Race is Going Extinct this Centuryhttps://rogerhallam.com/blog-extinct/