Climate Apocalypse

With the Kyoto Protocol coming into effect and the shock of the Tsunami, climate change has been big news over the last few months. It seems to be taking the place of the "nuclear threat" as the front line in contemporary apocalyptic thinking.

This weekend's Independent published an interesting analysis of the recent meeting of climate scientists that makes this connection:

But it was last week at the Met Office's futuristic glass headquarters, incongruously set in a dreary industrial estate on the outskirts of Exeter, that it all came together. The conference had been called by the Prime Minister to advise him on how to "avoid dangerous climate change". He needed help in persuading the world to prioritize the issue this year during Britain's presidencies of the EU and the G8 group of economic powers....

About halfway through I realized that I had been here before. In the summer of 1986 the world's leading nuclear experts gathered in Vienna for an inquest into the accident at Chernobyl. The head of the Russian delegation showed a film shot from a helicopter, and we suddenly found ourselves gazing down on the red-hot exposed reactor core.

It was all, of course, much less dramatic at Exeter. But as paper followed learned paper, once again a group of world authorities were staring at a crisis they had devoted their lives to trying to avoid.

The consensus of scientists seems even clearer than ever in spite of all the neo-con crowing about a great liberal conspiracy typified by Michael Crichton's novel State of Fear. What is interesting about the Independent article from a media analysis point of view is the dramatic list of possible catastrophies that ends the article. Each possibility is outlined in brief in a three part format:

• What could happen?
• How would this come about?
• How likely is it?

While this provides great capsule information the creation of lists like this is likely to increase both the sense of crisis and passivity in the face of the seemingly inevitable. the independent's cxatageories include:

• WATER WARS
• DISAPPEARING NATIONS
• FLOODING
• UNINHABITABLE EARTH
• RAINFOREST FIRES
• THE BIG FREEZE
• STARVATION
• ACID OCEANS
• DISEASE
• HURRICANES

These kinds of lists end up functioning as a kind of secular version of the biblical "signs of the times."

Comments

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[Robert Landbeck]

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[Robert Landbeck]

There are no shortage of people who see the world heading down a slippery slope to someplace that looks awful frightening in the not too distant future. Pulling mankind back from the edge of his own self made hell is obviously something mankind appears unable to do for itself. A little help may be at hand? Check this link: www.energon.uklinux.net

If the material at this link turns out to be genuine, and the pdf download reads very well, this could be what blows the current world view status quo strait to hell!

[fascination]

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