In 2008, Royal Dutch Shell developed two sophisticated climate-risk scenarios called Blueprints and Scramble. The first modeled a greener future while the latter predicted–due to government inaction–a future of droughts, floods, heat waves and super storms. By 2012, Shell executives confided : ”We’ve gone to Scramble. This is a Scramble kind of world. This is what we’re doing.”
Another Shell official opined, “I will be one of those persons cheering for an endless summer in Alaska.”
“Why is it that the people who have so much power over us are also people who are intent on killing not just us, but themselves?”
Keynes famously said, years ago, that “In the long run we are all dead.” For members of the “Scramble” crowd, however, only the short-run exists; for them, historical time—including a long run—has no meaning. The intellectual world that they live in—insofar as it warrants the label “intellectual”!—is one that differs substantially from the intellectual world that most of us live in. This difference would not be a problem if such people lacked influence. As it is, however, they are helping put not only themselves (unwittingly, one would like to believe), but our entire species, in danger of extinction.
More and more we are seeing articles on the internet on global warming—the most recent ones spurred by the recent IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report. Such articles are valuable for educating those who read them, but few of those who read them (apparently) are decision-makers having the power to move societies in a different direction. For that reason, what’s needed is not more articles of this nature but actions that will bring to a halt those activities which are posing a threat to our continued existence as a species.
What must occur, of course, is for positive actions—in moving away from fossil fuels—to take place while the negative activities are being halted. The science and technology exist that would enable renewable sources like sun and wind to provide all of the energy humanity needs. It would, however, take political will for that to occur.
The author of the article (which can be read in full here) from which the above is taken calls for legal action to make those causing climate change criminally responsible and held to account by the courts. Sadly, the analysis forgets that the State is the executive committee of the ruling class as Marx famously propounded. What is required is political revolution to remove those culpable from power and decision making.
Another Shell official opined, “I will be one of those persons cheering for an endless summer in Alaska.”
“Why is it that the people who have so much power over us are also people who are intent on killing not just us, but themselves?”
Keynes famously said, years ago, that “In the long run we are all dead.” For members of the “Scramble” crowd, however, only the short-run exists; for them, historical time—including a long run—has no meaning. The intellectual world that they live in—insofar as it warrants the label “intellectual”!—is one that differs substantially from the intellectual world that most of us live in. This difference would not be a problem if such people lacked influence. As it is, however, they are helping put not only themselves (unwittingly, one would like to believe), but our entire species, in danger of extinction.
More and more we are seeing articles on the internet on global warming—the most recent ones spurred by the recent IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report. Such articles are valuable for educating those who read them, but few of those who read them (apparently) are decision-makers having the power to move societies in a different direction. For that reason, what’s needed is not more articles of this nature but actions that will bring to a halt those activities which are posing a threat to our continued existence as a species.
What must occur, of course, is for positive actions—in moving away from fossil fuels—to take place while the negative activities are being halted. The science and technology exist that would enable renewable sources like sun and wind to provide all of the energy humanity needs. It would, however, take political will for that to occur.
The author of the article (which can be read in full here) from which the above is taken calls for legal action to make those causing climate change criminally responsible and held to account by the courts. Sadly, the analysis forgets that the State is the executive committee of the ruling class as Marx famously propounded. What is required is political revolution to remove those culpable from power and decision making.
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