Global efforts to tackle climate change are wildly off track. The UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) finds that the current pledges under the Paris Agreement put the world on track for a 2.2 to 2.9 degree Celsius temperature rise above preindustrial levels this century. That’s way above the 1.5 degrees we need to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. And right now, warming gases are accumulating faster than at any previous time in human existence.
A 2 degree rise means ice near the poles will melt and cause a sea level rise of up to 50 cm by 2100. A 3-degree rise unleashes literal hell on earth. Collapse of ice caps, uncontrollable sea level rise, widespread biodiversity loss, frequent and devastating weather events, food insecurity and the displacement of over a billion people.
Right now we’re on track for exactly that. Not for us. But for our children’s children. Our future generations. And for some reason we don’t seem to care. We’re more worried about inflation, or personal wealth creation, our forehead being wrinkled, or our butts being too wide. We are worried about a transient immediate future but disconnected from the monster that will make everything else we care about meaningless.
And yes, it’s totally about the capture of our political process and the hearts and minds of our decision makers by the fossil fuel industry. But why don’t we care about this dystopian-as-fuck future that lurks like a prehistoric mega shark beneath our flailing limbs? What is the point of ‘slip slop slap’ when it’s 60 degrees outside? Why isn’t it slip, slop, slap, stop? Stop fossil fuels. Now. Why aren’t we screaming for justice?
I write this as I head to Newcastle for the People’s Blockade, feeling emotional. I told my barista where I was going and she asked: ‘does it change anything?’. Blocking the world’s biggest coal port? Um. Immediately? No. It doesn’t. And yet yes, it does.
It sends a message to people in power. It asks people to wake up. Because it’s clear, right now, that we can’t trust decision makers to make decisions that caretake citizens, creatures and wild spaces that they will never meet. If Earth was a rental property we wouldn’t get the bond back.
Why don’t we care enough to change? Maybe it’s not just our pollies, but our brains that are letting us down. Studies show that you treat your future self like a stranger. When you think about yourself, your medial prefrontal cortex, or MPFC, powers up. This is the part of the brain that integrates information and plays essential roles in regulation of emotion, motivation and sociability. It’s responsible for decision-making and judgement.
When you think about other people it powers down. Studies have shown that the further out in time you try to imagine your own life, the less activation of the MPFC. In fact your brain treats your future self as a stranger. And generations that follow? Well your brain literally says: ‘fuck them’.
I’ve just finished reading Tim Winton’s new fiction: Juice. Set in the 3-degree climate future that our stupid brains and stupid governments have us heading towards – it’s unsettling. But this world, where people live underground for four months every year, where human activity is primarily focused on survival, where fresh water uncontaminated by rising sea is currency, this isn’t science fiction. This is the future. If not for us, for our grandchildren. And apparently we’re so okay with it, we open another coal mine.
There are communities that are facing this that are fighting back. Like First Nations leaders Uncle Pabai and Uncle Paul, Traditional Owners from the Torres Strait. They are on the frontline of the climate crisis facing the loss of their cultural homelands of thousands of years. They have taken the government to court for failing their duty of care to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees, and are awaiting what will be a landmark Australian climate case ruling.
As a climate-impacted region these conversations are very relevant to us. Uncle Pabai and Uncle Paul are on ‘The Unnatural Disasters Tour: Uniting the Torres Strait’ and are in the Northern Rivers calling for climate justice to protect communities.
Events in our region from 3 to 6 December, with a ‘Building Community Power’ event at Bangalow A&I Hall at 5.30pm on Wednesday, 4 December. All welcome.
Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox column has appeared in The Echo for almost 23 years. The personal and the political often meet here; she’s also been the Greens federal candidate since before the last federal election. The Echo’s coverage of political issues will remain as comprehensive and fair as it has ever been, outside this opinion column which, as always, contains Mandy’s personal opinions only.
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