What the Hell is Wrong with Humanity?

The IPCC Warning

The recent United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report warns us that unless we begin reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 at the latest – and cut them by 43 per cent by 2030 – to achieve the 1.5C limit, life will become very difficult on this planet for all living creatures. Methane also needs to be reduced by around one-third by 2030

We have a long way to go. After greenhouse gas emission dropped in 2020 due to the pandemic, they rebounded to their highest level in 2021.

Unfortunately, the IPCC report came out three days after the start of the Ukraine war and never received the attention it deserved.

So now we have humanity, facing its greatest existential crisis ever, and instead of coming together as a global community to respond to this unprecedented threat, we instead choose to launch and focus all of our attention on a war, and then use this war to justify further oil and gas drilling.

 

Climate Change and War

Sure, the war is horrific and it is something we need to focus on. We can’t allow such blatant aggression to go unheeded, but it also highlights the shortcomings of the modern worldview that tells us we are separate from our environment, each other and ourselves.

This view allows our lower, baser instincts to triumph over our higher natures that would bring us together during these dire times.

But despite the war that is making many people’s lives more difficult, climate change is still hovering over us, threatening our very existence along with the existence of countless other creatures on this beautiful planet

Now is the time to wake-up to this reality or suffer the consequences of our lower natures.

 

Humanity in the ICU

We are like the unvaccinated Covid patient lying in the ICU in very serious condition pleading for the vaccine they had so steadfastly refused right up to this point, only to be told it’s too late now to take it. Should have taken it earlier.

Now humanity is fast becoming that ICU patient. Just like the unvaccinated patient, warnings have been given to humanity about the growing climate disaster and the grim future that awaits us if we don’t start make major changes.

And like the unvaccinated patient, we have ignored these warnings that not only climate scientists, but nature itself is giving us with the increasing fires, droughts and floods that are occurring with more ferocity each year.

Yet, unless we are directly hit by these disasters, we yawn and go about our daily routines, thinking this is somebody else’s problem, not ours.

Or maybe we don’t believe these disasters that are unfolding before our eyes are that bad, thinking it must be a plot by nature and climate scientists to scare us in order to give the government more control over our lives.

But one day in the not so distant future, we as a species will be lying in humanity’s own version of the ICU in very serious condition telling, who? God? the Universe? the Powers that Be? that okay please let’s reform the economy, get off fossil fuels, in short, let’s do what is necessary to save the planet for ourselves and our children and grandchildren, only to be told by those powers that it is way too late for that.

In that case, certain climate tipping points will have been breached, meaning the earth will then be run by a whole new set of laws that are no longer conducive to life. If that happens there will be nothing any wise well-meaning human can do to stop this growing climate catastrophe.

 

Is Ignorance Bliss?

When I was teaching philosophy in the community colleges, on occasion I would hear from students the statement that “Ignorance is Bliss”.

I would always retort that was true until it wasn’t. It was true until reality reared its ugly head and put a lie to that statement.

Ignorance about Covid and the effectiveness of the vaccines was bliss until you became infected and ended up intubated in the ICU with little chance of surviving.

Likewise, “Ignorance is Bliss” that the climate crisis is a hoax until we reach that point of no return when it is too late to do anything to stave off disaster

Imagine how life could have been so much better, and could still be if we could just tame our inner selfish, egotistical demons and become the authentic human beings we are meant to be.

Unfortunately, it’s too late to make this planet and our lives on it close to the paradise it could have been. We have grievously sinned against our better natures, so there will have to be a price to pay. We should be more than willing to pay it.

 

We can Still Have a Livable Future

Our future from what we have already done to this planet and all its inhabitants will be rough, but still survivable and livable if we start making drastic changes now.

Our big shot to turn this thing around was the $3.5 Trillion budget reconciliation bill, but that failed because big Oil and Pharma bought off Senators Manchin and Sinema as they put their personal greed above a livable planet.

Now the time is running short. 2025 is only three years away. What can be done? We clearly have to make one more big push to pass meaningful climate legislation.

We need to make sure more progressive Democrats get elected to the House and Senate during the 2022 midterm elections.

If the Republicans take over even one of the two houses of Congress as is predicted by many political pundits, our future will be very precarious indeed.

 

Humanity at the Crossroads

Humanity is at an evolutionary crossroads. Will we still be run by our lowest, most base instincts or will enough of us overcome our lower impulses and rise to a higher level of consciousness where we embrace all of humanity, earth’s creatures, and the planet itself to ensure a future for our children and grandchildren and those generations that follow, or will we stay mired in our own hate and self-loathing and put an end to it all right here, right now?

The clock is ticking and humanity is on the brink. The question is, can we meet this challenge? Stay tuned.