• 0 Posts
  • 4 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 12th, 2023

help-circle

  • Before anyone can answer the question: “Are we doomed?,” we must determine who “we” is, and what “doomed” means. If we take it to mean the near-term extinction of our species, there’s no reason to believe that will happen, even if the worst of the projected climate scenarios occurs between now and the end of the century. That being said, some people are doomed. Even under the most optimistic climate scenarios, sea levels will continue to rise, heat waves will become more severe and more frequent, as will wild fires, floods, droughts, etc. Some people will die as a result of these natural disasters. Which people? It’s more likely to be people who live in relatively poor, unstable countries, and less likely to be people who live in relatively wealthy, stable countries.

    The long and short of it is: some people are doomed, but many, if not most people, will probably be just fine.


  • The solution requires a new ideological paradigm, but transitioning into the right paradigm would be extremely difficult and it would likely take a very long time.

    I think the US is already in the process of transitioning to a new paradigm, away from neoliberalism, which was the dominant paradigm over the past half century or so, to something else. However, I’m not sure we are transitioning into the “right” paradigm. I think the paradigm we are transitioning into is more protectionist than neoliberalism. We are moving away from globalization and towards something more like the cold war era, where the world was divided along ideological lines into a “first world” and a “second world.” I expect the new paradigm we are shifting into to be more antagonistic toward “unfriendly” nations. I wouldn’t be surprised if this were to lead to some kind of major conflict.