[MCN] Bill McKibben: Something's happening here, and it's become increasingly clear

[Lance Olsen]

Excerpt: By the end of the nineteen-seventies, the sociologist Amitai Etzioni reported to President Jimmy Carter <https://www.newyorker.com/tag/jimmy-carter> that polling showed thirty per cent of Americans were “pro-growth,” thirty-one per cent were “anti-growth,” and thirty-nine per cent were “highly uncertain.”

That uncertainty ended with the election of Ronald Reagan <https://www.newyorker.com/tag/ronald-reagan>, which brought with it the strong and defiant assertion of another set of values—the ideas that individual human liberty matters above all and that nothing should get in the way of allowing people to become as rich as possible in the short term. There is no way that the Endangered Species Act would have passed a subsequent Congress intact, and it has been under steady attack <https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-trump-administration-takes-on-the-endangered-species-act> ever since, never more so than by the current Administration. Hours after the release of the U.N. report, on Monday, the Secretary of State perfectly crystallized the essence of that world view.

Mike Pompeo <https://www.newyorker.com/tag/mike-pompeo> was at a meeting of the Arctic Council in Rovaniemi, Finland. And there, as representatives from the seven other member states and six indigenous organizations warned about the rapid melting of Arctic sea ice, Pompeo, instead, exulted. “The Arctic is at the forefront of opportunity and abundance,” he said. “It houses thirteen per cent of the world’s undiscovered oil, thirty per cent of its undiscovered gas, an abundance of uranium, rare-earth minerals, gold, diamonds, and millions of square miles of untapped resources, fisheries galore.” In fact, he said, it can’t melt fast enough. “Steady reductions in sea ice are opening new passageways and new opportunities for trade. This could potentially slash the time it takes to travel between Asia and the West by as much as twenty days.” That is to say, the fact that one of the world’s largest physical features is in chaotic flux is, in fact, good news, because we’ll soon be able to ship stuff from China three weeks faster.

I have never met an earth scientist who isn’t profoundly frightened by what is happening in the Arctic. As the fastest warming part of the planet, it offers a terrifying preview of what’s coming. Its white ice once deflected most of the sun’s incoming rays back out to space; now the blue water that’s replaced it absorbs the incoming solar radiation, amping up global warming. Meanwhile, the melting permafrost produces clouds of methane, itself a potent greenhouse gas. The newly open Arctic Ocean alters weather patterns, catching the jet stream in a way that makes for prolonged drought or flooding at lower latitudes. The rapid melting of Greenland’s great ice sheet seems to threaten the continued operation of the great ocean currents that warm northern Europe. And on and on—of all the scary spectacles on our Earth, none tops a fast-thawing north. But not to Pompeo, who looks to the Arctic and sees oil, gas, gold, and diamonds. It’s as if Gollum were Secretary of State.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-un-report-on-extinction-vs-mike-pompeo-at-the-arctic-council <https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-un-report-on-extinction-vs-mike-pompeo-at-the-arctic-council>

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“Children are particularly vulnerable to heat-related illness and death, as their bodies are less able to adapt to heat than adults, and they must rely on others to help keep them safe.”
<<https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-08/documents/print_heat-deaths-2016.pdf <https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-08/documents/print_heat-deaths-2016.pdf>>>

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