Raphael ThysPositioning for Post 2030
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7 min read
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Nov 9
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What do we do if we get to 2030?
Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash
The game is changing by the month. We can do very little to limit the combined effects of the climate disaster for several decades. But what we can do, and even the effort to do it, will significantly affect our lives.
This is not about giving up on our planet and the hope of halting the disaster but preparing to play the game we are left with to our maximum benefit. We must accept the challenge.
After years of working to understand the reality of the changes we have created and failing to make the decisions required to prevent the consequences of those changes, the best we can do still needs to be discovered. What is known is that the disasters we were told could happen by 2050 are beginning now and will transform our reality by 2030.
We will be in a very different place depending on the actions and conditions I have discussed in Getting to 2030. That place will be much worse than we imagine now. If we have begun to limit capitalist growth and avoided the descent into fascism or other forms of feudalism, we must redesign our planetary civilization.
How will we need to position ourselves to maximize the lives of everyone still around in seven years? I don’t have the answers to everything we need, but we can begin preparing for the process and resulting problems.
We must build our situational awareness with no illusions to maximize our potential. Climate scientists are much more frightened than people realize. This is where we start.
According to the renowned climate scientist Bill McGuire, emeritus professor of geophysical and climate hazards, University College London: “I know a lot of people working in climate science who say one thing in public but a very different thing in private. In confidence, they are all much more scared about the future we face, but they won’t admit that in public. I call this climate appeasement and I believe it only makes things worse. The world needs to know how bad things are going to get before we can hope to start to tackle the crisis.” (Source: ‘Soon the World Will be Unrecognizable’: Is it Still Possible to Prevent Total Climate Meltdown? The Guardian, July 30, 2022)