An update on how we’re handling the climate crisis

Human overpopulation is a problem, but it’s not the biggest problem. The biggest problems are:

1. Serious inequity in terms of the emissions generated by the most wealthy people on ‘our’ planet.
2. Serious incompetence and corruption on the part of governmental institutions – most of which are in thrall to those in (1).

Percentage of CO₂ emissions by world population
(click to embiggen)

Honest Government Ad | Net Zero by 2050

thejuicemedia: Hello. I’m from the government with an update on how we’re handling the climate crisis.

We know you’re all counting on us to solve this problem so humanity can keep enjoying its favorite pastime: continuing to live on this planet. But you see, we’ve realized that we are the problem. And so, how should we put this? We’re actually going to get us all killed.

Look at this graph shaped like a penis because it shows how fucked we are. This is where we are now. And as we can see, it’s already pretty fucked, with massive fires, floods, heatwaves, locusts, bullshit.

This is what scientists call the ‘Stop Here Or We’re Fucked’ point, and this is where we’re currently headed, or, as scientists call it, ‘Net Fucked by 2050’. The good news is we’ve promised to reduce our emissions, and if you take all our promises and add them together, that puts us on track for ‘Still Very Much Fucked by 2050’. And that’s if we keep our promises; a big if since some of our biggest promises are being coke-blocked by corporate coal-shill, while others are nothing more than “blah, blah, blah”, or a plan printed on a pamphlet. Planphlet.

Our promises and planphlets are also based on the hope that we’ll offset our emissions with technologies which don’t work or even fucking exist, or with technologies that do work and exist like: trees. Except trees need time to grow, which we don’t have and space: which we also don’t have. Plus, trees can burn, which seems to happen a lot these days, due to climate change, and when they do, they release all that carbon they captured, which means the only way we can keep our promises is to stop emitting carbon. Are we doing that? God, no. We’ve been subsidizing it at a rate of $11 million per minute, which discourages investment in renewables by distorting the market.

And that’s why there’s a huge gap between our promises and where we need to be. We don’t talk about that gap because that would entail a complex process called ‘Being Honest’. ‘Being Honest’ would mean admitting that we’re failing; and we can’t do that ’cause then we’d have to stop failing. That would mean ending fossil fuel subsidies and banning all new gas, coal and oil projects. And to anyone suggesting harming our precious children like that, we say, “How dare you?” So ‘Being Honest’ isn’t an option for us, which is why we’ve come up with the next best alternative: ‘Net Zero by 2050’.

‘Net Zero by 2050’ means that instead of being honest this decade, by taking this path, we leave the being honest part to the last minute by taking that path instead. As you can see, both lead to net zero in 2050, but they’re very different journeys because this path adds this many emissions to the atmosphere, and that one adds three times as much. And since emissions are what’s causing the planet to warm, that means crossing the ‘Stop Here Or We’re Fucked’ point, which risks setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond our control.

That’s the exciting part of running an experiment with the only planet we know that supports life in the whole fucking universe, just so we can make a few billionaires even richer.

‘Net Zero by 2050‘.

Anyhoo, feel free to take over from us at any time because as you can see, we’re captured by the fossil fuel industry, compromised by our moral failings and lack of vision and probably going to get us all killed.

This has been a message from your local government franchise. Goodbye.

Greta Thunberg: Authorized by the Department for Blah Blah Blah.

The transcript above was made with the help of Sonix, which did most of the donkey work for a tiny fee (I did have to spend some time tidying it up). Note that I do not have the copyright owner’s permission to publish this transcript here. I’ve investigated the copyright rules regarding transcriptions (more about that here), and one thing I’ve learned is that it’s no defence to make a disclaimer like “these aren’t my words, no copyright infringement intended.” However, I offer the transcription here as a service to society (especially the deaf community). I do hope the copyright owner won’t object. And I hope that you find this video as interesting as I did.