No chance for climate salvage

On Monday, 9 June 2014, Jeffrey D Sachs wrote an article published in Today newspaper. In it, he says December 2015 will be when the world will have its "last chance for action" on climate change. Why December 2015? Because that is when the next United Nations climate change meeting will take place. But what will happen if January 2016 rolls around, and no firm action is taken on global warming? Big Business will carry on as usual. That is all.

The world will get hotter. The weather will worsen. Species will die. Coastal lands will get wiped out. Some people will die. But the profit motive will continue to prevail over all these. There are two main reasons for this. First, the meaningful horizon. Profit is seen over a horizon of months and quarters, climate change is seen over a horizon of decades and centuries. It is clear that the profit motive will prevail. The second reason is that "profit" as a more strongly held philosophy than "ecology". Why this is so is another question, but it is so.

In his opening paragraph, Professor Sachs says "scientists have pointed out that a rise in temperature of two degrees Centigrade above pre-industrial levels will put the Earth in dangerous, uncharted territory.

I query the word "dangerous". We need to know: dangerous for whom? For Earth, as the sentence suggests? Absolutely not. Planet Earth is in no danger. Planet Earth will continue to orbit its sun for millions of years after Planet Earth has become devoid of life -- of any kind. It will just become like all the other planets we know of so far. No big deal, cosmically speaking.

The big deal is that climate change is dangerous for mankind. But here we run up against Profit Motive -- and Profit Motive will win. Realisation will finally sink in only when Big Business starts to run out of slaves (because of climate induced illness and death) to produce profits for its leisure-enjoying owners. But by then it will really be too late to reverse climate change. December 2015 will have come and been long gone.

So what should helpless minions (that is, not Big Business owners) do? Enjoy the time we have left. That is all we can do. Oh, and try not to produce any grandchildren, for they shall not inherit the Earth.

Cheers.