[MCN] Murderous

[Lance Olsen]

“Now, as the Times reported Monday, the Trump Administration is trying to restrict agencies from looking at impacts past 2040 and from considering the high emissions scenarios that Trump’s policies are making more likely.

“By restricting analysis to 2040 and to rosy scenarios that do not reflect reality, the Trump administration is adopting an Orwellian approach that sets a dangerous precedent for other federal agencies. All of this will put our children’s futures at risk.”

https://thinkprogress.org/trumps-orwellian-environmental-plan-hurts-children-27b40ff2de3f/ <https://thinkprogress.org/trumps-orwellian-environmental-plan-hurts-children-27b40ff2de3f/>

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Missoulian, Missoula, Montana May 21, 2019

Runaway heat has consequences for teens and toddlers
Lance Olsen

https://missoulian.com/opinion/columnists/runaway-heat-has-consequences-for-teens-and-toddlers/article_fa821992-56e1-54bb-9f94-db12c435661c.html <https://missoulian.com/opinion/columnists/runaway-heat-has-consequences-for-teens-and-toddlers/article_fa821992-56e1-54bb-9f94-db12c435661c.html>

We may be past the point of keeping a civilized world or, in the lifetimes of the young, even an inhabitable one. As Bill McKibben said in a recent interview with The New Yorker, “The consensus, at least for the moment, is that we’ve got a narrow and closing window, but that if we move with everything we have ….”

Everything we have? What’s involved in moving with everything we have?

A recent IPCC analysis found that even halting the heat short of 1.5 C above the fossil fuel era would necessitate, "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes.” A recent PNAS article on a Hothouse Earth pointed to risk of heat rising by 5C, and need for, among other things “behavioral changes” and “transformed social values.”  

In her invited speech to the European Parliament, the uncannily sophisticated teen Greta Thunberg said, “Everyone and everything must change,” added that we only waste time when arguing about what has to change first, and stressed again that “Everyone and everything must change.”

The stakes are high, and change isn’t easy. Failure could take the world into heat at 4C above pre-industrial times, possibly as soon as 2050-2070. At that point, climate scientist Kevin Anderson thinks it could kill all but half a billion people. That puts many a teen and toddler at risk of being swept along in a human dieoff greater than any in our history.

“We should worry,” says teen climate expert Greta Thunberg. “We should panic. And by panic I don’t mean running around screaming. I mean stepping out of our comfort zone.” The rub is that if we somehow can’t step out of our comfort zones to reduce the risk of runaway heat, hundreds of millions of today’s teens will be forced out in their lifetimes, only to be followed by hundreds of millions of today’s toddlers.

Writing for The Age, one of Australia’s leading newspapers, Caitlin Fitzsimmons tells her readers, “Let’s not pretend that children and teenagers can’t understand what’s going on.” She reports that 86 per cent of Australia’s surveyed teens view climate change as a threat to their safety, “with 73 per cent saying it affects the world ‘a lot’ now and 84 per cent saying it will affect the world ‘a lot’ in the future.”

Teens and toddlers have evidence from decades of science on their side. Writing for the distinguished journal, Science, 3,000 scientists flatly stated that, “Without bold and focused action, their future is in critical danger.” Adding further endorsement, 23,000 scientists expressed support of the kids by establishing Scientists for Future (S4F).

The kids also have the law on their side, at least in terms of reporting that risk to their future actually does exist. While many understand the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) as a barrier to human wellbeing, it actually requires disclosure of how government action affects “the human environment.” 

Runaway heat is a major threat to the human environment.

We live in a strange world,” Greta Thunberg quietly told a packed hall of German celebrities who had given her their Goldene Kamera Award for climate activism. “Where all the united science tells us that we are about 11 years away from setting off an irreversible chain reaction way beyond human control that will probably be the end of our civilization as we know it.”

“We live in a strange world,” she continued a little later, “But that is the world my generation has been handed. It’s the only world we’ve got.”

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We're All the 1 Percent – Foreign Policy
https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/02/27/were-all-the-1-percent/ <https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/02/27/were-all-the-1-percent/> <https://www.google.com/search?q=%2434%2C000+1%25&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS737US737&oq=%2434%2C000+1%25&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.27159j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#> <https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:yapyloaVjVoJ:https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/02/27/were-all-the-1-percent/+&cd=10&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us>
Feb 27, 2012 - But the global average is about a fifth of that. So by global standards, America's middle class is also really, really rich. To make it into the richest 1 percent globally, all you need is an income of around $34,000, according to World Bank economist Branko Milanovic.
Half the world's richest 1% live in the United States - Jan. 4, 2012
https://money.cnn.com/2012/01/04/news/economy/world_richest/index.htm <https://money.cnn.com/2012/01/04/news/economy/world_richest/index.htm> <https://www.google.com/search?q=%2434%2C000+1%25&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS737US737&oq=%2434%2C000+1%25&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.27159j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#> <https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hBEabNzxQO8J:https://money.cnn.com/2012/01/04/news/economy/world_richest/index.htm+&cd=11&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us>
Jan 4, 2012 - The United States holds a disproportionate amount of the world's rich people. It only takes $34,000 a year, after taxes, to be among the richest 1% in the world. ... The rest are mainly scattered throughout Europe, Latin America and a few Asian countries.

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