When it comes to assessing and preventing threats, we humans often act against our best interests. A lot of people avoid going to the doctor because they don’t want to get ‘bad news’—even if that means not catching something serious sooner.
In six weeks I will turn 53. During most of that time on this planet I’ve been hearing about the dangers of global warming —later relabelled as ‘climate change’, supposedly because it is more scientifically accurate, although I suspect because it was less alarmist. In the 1980s barely anyone cared about this problem, because (a) it was either considered a myth concocted by environmental groups to scare people—a smear campaign that was funded for decades by Big Oil—or (b) because it was something considered too far off into our future, when they were other more pressing matters to focus on; like trying to get undeveloped nations out of poverty—the same smear campaigns bankrolled by the oil industry, warned about how switching to alternative energies would hurt the poorer nations the most; painting coal and oil as the ‘great equalizers’ of wealth.
We are in 2026, and most people still refuse to talk about climate change; not because they still don’t believe it is real—not even the American Republicans can continue pretending that—but because deep down everybody knows it is too late now to solve anything: we squandered half a century in pointless debates, and meanwhile only a handful of underdeveloped nations managed to benefit from the unrestricted burning of fossil fuels (China, South Korea, and Singapur did uplift its population; while most of Africa, Asia and Latin America are still malnourished and uneducated). And while those same pre-industrialized nations will feel the brunt of a warmer climate and rising sea levels sooner, the fires running wild every year in North Europe and North America are a stark reminder that no country will be able to continue pretending climate change is not the biggest issue threatening our civilization.
I wish there was a bigger comfort in being able to say “I told you so!” to all those Doubting Thomases who kept making fun of me for bringing up the issue at parties and family gatherings, decade after decade. Perhaps what’s funnier is that many of those people still don’t perceive global warming as directly threatening their personal lives—and yet they keep complaining how their sons and daughters refuse to get married and have any children!
The younger generations know fully well what’s coming. That’s why they don’t bother making such long-term commitments.
