What’s it going to take to wake people up to what’s happening to the planet? We all seem to be genetically programmed not to notice, let alone care. Most of us either do not understand what people talk about when they talk about climate change, or they don’t they can do anything about it, or they don’t want to do anything about it, or they figure it’s too late to turn back now. That’s only half of the country, mind you. The other half has been fooled by partisan politics – on the left and the right – to see it as a partisan issue. Now it’s become a “liberal thing” which translates to “jobs being taken away” and “a hoax.” Human beings are stupid to our core. Do not let anyone ever try to convince you otherwise. What other species would be gifted with such a large capacity brain for doing all sorts of groovy tricks from learning different languages to figuring out how to fly into space? Yet, here we are: the dumbest of all, destroying the most perfect habitat we will ever know.
I’ve been studying climate change and extinction for a while now (don’t ask, or you can if you want) and I can give it to you plainly. Although you might want to read this very short, very brilliant book by Roy Scranton called Learning to Die in the Anthropocene. Though ultimately bleak, probably, it does do what most people can’t or won’t tell you: the problem is … the problem is us.
What is climate change? Humans have populated the planet as the single most destructive invasive species that ever walked the earth. That means we went everywhere, could live anywhere, could eat almost anything, and altered the climate doing so. We actually altered it roughly 5,000 years ago when we began farming. We staved off an ice age and thrust the earth’s climate into perpetual warmth, and climate stability. But right around the 1800s we began mining coal and fossil fuels to build our empires. Though we’ve been building empires that rise and fall in most of our existence as smart homosapiens, the fossil fuels actually accelerated the warming past the point of stability and threatens to kick our atmosphere and climate into a runaway greenhouse effect.
So why should you care? You can do what most humans do – only think about the fate of humans. Probably we’ll find a way to adapt. We’re the monsters who never die, after all. The monsters who kill everything to forward our own species. We torture animals to live long and eat bacon bowls at fast food convenient stores on highways all over the country. We throw away half of what we eat. We’re kind of gross, when you think about it, and above all, we’re cruel. So you should care if for no other reason to help undo the harm we’re all about to unleash on the natural world – the animals that will go extinct, and starve or overheat because they can’t migrate because we’ve taken over every part of the world.
From a human centric viewpoint, we’re headed for a perfect storm – population reaching 11 billion, potentially, not enough land to grow food nor meat. A warming climate which will render areas of the earth uninhabitable, that means more refugees, more people who need to be cared for. And then there is the anti-biotic resistance meeting the adaptation of super bugs or viruses. Microbes will probably mean the end, one day, of humans. But that’s a different topic.
Why people like Leonardo DiCaprio are freaking out right now: because we are at the point where it’s already almost too late. We need drastic change, but we can’t get it because it’s become a partisan issue. We’re at the point where in the next 100 years there will be no more glacial ice anywhere on the planet. That means sea level rise and the eradication of coastal cities, for starters. It means ocean acidification, which will lead to the death of coral reefs, among other catastrophes. We’re probably going to kick the climate into a condition not seen for millions of years and none of us – not the scientists – knows how bad it will get. Nobody really knows. Instead of preparing for the worst, many are saying “well, since we don’t know, why worry?”
Why worry – because humans can help stop what they’ve put in motion if they can come together and face some hard truths. And those are: stop eating or lessen your eating of red meat and pork. And dairy. We have to stop our dependence on animals in factory farms. That’s probably the single most important thing you, as a citizen, can do. Reducing to once or twice a week even would help. The market will react to consumer needs. Just look at how gluten free has taken over. If people care about the climate, the corporations will too.
But as Roy Scranton points out, everything we do warms the climate. Every Tweet, every facebook update. Every time we use our phones. Every time we use our computers — DiCaprio making Before the Flood warms the planet. My writing this story warms the planet. We depend on energy to take us places and create this global network of communication that we’re not letting go of any time soon.
The ugly truth of it is that nature must stop a species from itself. It always does. If there is no more grass, the deer die off. Humans will eventually be stopped. Wouldn’t it be great if we could somehow find a way to stop ourselves?
Watch Before the Flood when it airs on October 30. Tell everyone you know to watch it. Shout it from the roof tops. Be afraid. Be hysterical. I can promise you, nothing is more important than this.
Proud to announce that #BeforetheFlood will be available to stream for free on October 30th! Watch for details. pic.twitter.com/eYIv9MZKlc
— Leonardo DiCaprio (@LeoDiCaprio) October 24, 2016
