by Bruce Dunlavy
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As I write this, it is July 2023 and this has been the hottest month ever recorded, and probably the hottest in hundreds of thousands of years.

  • Phoenix has recorded over 30 consecutive days with a high temperature above 110 degrees, and daily low temperatures in the 90s.
  • Canadian wildfires have made the air in the northeastern USA rather crunchy and have shaded the skies as far south as the Carolinas.
  • Europe – especially its south – is also ravaged by wildfires forcing evacuations.
  • The instability of the weather in Florida has made many insurance companies stop providing homeowner’s and renter’s policies anywhere in the State.
  • In south Florida the ocean temperatures have been five to fifteen degrees above the maximum at which coral reefs can survive. This imperils the sea life dependent on these reefs. It also threatens the safety of the mainland because coral reefs provide mitigation of hurricanes.
  • Large ice masses in Antarctica are in danger of falling into the ocean, exacerbating the already serious increase in sea levels.
  • The State of Georgia lost 95 percent of its peach crop this year because the winter was not cold enough to ensure the formation of fruit.

These and other ongoing effects of climate change are coming at us with increasing speed and severity. It cannot be denied or explained away as a temporary aberration.

There are over 130 members of the United States Congress who have – until recently -been climate-change deniers. As recently as 2017, there were 53 Senators in that camp. The number has dropped noticeably within the last two or three years, and will no doubt continue to decline.

I’m not a mind reader, so I cannot say how many of them have been public climate-change deniers while privately acknowledging the truth of human-caused climate change. Some members of Congress appear to be detached from reality, nitwits, or both, and there is no telling what obvious falsehoods they believe. I suspect, though, that the deniers-in-public-but-believers-in-private constitute the majority of the 130.

Currently, those who abandoning their public stance that “climate change is a hoax” are not rushing to propose ways to mitigate climate change before disastrous damage is done. They have instead switched to a stance maintaining that climate change is real and serious, and that it must be dealt with – but not now. Their tactic is one of delay.

Climate change, they aver, must be addressed in a manner which will not upset our traditional way of doing things. That is, climate change must be addressed (dare I say it?) “with all deliberate speed.” Our economy and lifestyle cannot take rapid changes, they tell us. In the words of Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, “I don’t want to be lectured about what we need to do to destroy our economy in the name of climate change.”

After all, they say, if the USA stops burning cheap coal, oil, and gas, China and India and other polluters will not and thus produce cheaper products for world markets. In other words, “If the other kids won’t stop crapping in the sandbox, I won’t either.”

I understand their point. It is that we won’t make as much money if we have to do the right thing, so we won’t do it. It is the interests of money that are behind this delaying tactic. Readers of my posts know that I do not take the side of the interests of money ahead of the interests of humanity.

Let us peer behind the curtain and see what this portends. The interests of money are now openly acknowledging that climate change is real and that it is a looming catastrophe. What they are not acknowledging is that we must do something about it. What might they be considering instead?

As sea levels rise, as tropical climates begin to broil and turn into deserts, as temperate climates begin to turn tropical, and polar climates begin to turn temperate, the mass displacement of people around the globe will get worse and worse. I discussed the effects of climate change on global demographics in a post eight years ago. Very little has changed since, and the current delaying response of former deniers is ensuring that very little will change any time soon.

Image credit: metoffice.gov.uk

The coastal areas of the world, where most people live, will be increasingly threatened by sea level rise. The temperate continental zones will suffer increasing warming incompatible with the continued agricultural production of grains and grain-fed animals. There will be not only less land mass worldwide, but less of it will be habitable. What will the interests of money do?

It should be clear by now that they will not spend their billions on solutions. To say, “Well, the problem is so serious now that they must realize the consequences of eschewing mitigation” is naive. If they have not figured it out from what has gone on for the last 30 years, current conditions will not persuade them.

My guess is that the interests of money will do what is necessary to maintain their hegemony. Instead of trying to maintain or increase the habitable and arable portion of the world, they will instead create competition for the remaining livable places. Such competition, of course, will not be among all people. It will be among the paladins of the interests of money.

Land that is livable and agriculturally viable will become more and more expensive. The current opposition to migration of vulnerable and displaced populations will become harsher and harsher. Wars over territory will have much more meaning and become ever more cutthroat.

It is as if, instead of working to making the entire world a better place for living, the most strenuous efforts will be put into creating more exclusivity in those places still suitable. At least for the wealthy. Until they are dead, anyway.