N_, I feel your anger, but I don’t have structural understanding of it. I’m angry too; I’m furious with the government’s response to the pandemic.
But this pandemic is merely humanity’s trial run at handling global crisis; Arctic summer sea ice may be all gone in just fourteen years. There’s no complicated science involved; just extrapolate the graph of observed ice loss. The Arctic Ocean hasn’t been without sea ice for over 100,000 years, and when it was, sea level was at least eighteen feet higher.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_sea_ice_decline
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/arctic-summer-sea-ice-could-be-gone-by-2035
Government responses are terrifyingly similar to those for the pandemic:
– Yet some find opportunities in the crisis. Melting ice has made the region’s abundant mineral deposits and oil and gas reserves more accessible by ship. China is heavily investing in the increasingly ice-free Northern Sea Route over the top of Russia, which promises to cut shipping times between the Far East and Europe by 10 to 15 days.
– The Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago could soon yield another shortcut. And in Greenland, vanishing ice is unearthing a wealth of uranium, zinc, gold, iron and rare earth elements. In 2019, Donald Trump claimed he was considering buying Greenland from Denmark…
N_, I have no idea if would hold the outlook I do had my life been more privileged or fortunate. Richard Stallman took me to the first Bitcoin conference in London and I nearly bought £5000 worth; it would be worth about £300 million by now. Would I now be in Extinction Rebellion and still be posting on Craig’s blog? Or would I be completely distracted with personal adventures enabled by my economic freedom and power? I can’t possibly know, but the latter seems more likely. Class is just another accident of birth or circumstances, but we’re all stuck on planet Earth together, and we’ll all share her fate.