Various representatives and world leaders are in Copenhagen squabbling over how to deal with global warming. No one seems to be expecting much of this meeting, just like no one’s expected much of most of the past climate meetings. Which is a serious problem– if you go into something with low expectations, they’re likely to be met, but the kind of drastic change that’s needed to protect the planet (and those of us who live on it) won’t happen.
The BBC has a rather unsettling slideshow up on their website, with predictions of how the temperatures on earth will change if we don’t curb greenhouse gas emissions (and how it will look if we do). Neither scenario is exactly rosy, but one is infinitely preferable. As you click through the decades, you can see the orange fading into red fading into darker red. You start thinking about how your house or apartment feels at 70 degrees Fahrenheit (comfortable, maybe a little cool) and how it feels at 77 degrees (warm, probably unpleasantly so). That’s the difference that they’re talking about. And sure, the change is over many decades, but it’s still drastic. It’s still going to change the way that the planet looks, the way we live. Who lives.
But no one’s expecting much. There’ll be vague promises and distant benchmarks, but too many people are invested in the status quo to want anything to really change. And so it probably won’t, until it’s too late.
Maybe I’ll be wrong. Hopefully I will be.
