ALTHOUGH THE MEDIA and political leaders want to pretend that what came out of the Paris climate talks is a huge advance, those with more understanding of the actual realities of the environmental crisis facing the human race realize that those steps seem visionary only in comparison with what has been deemed realistic in the past, but not when compared with what actually must be done to prevent global catastrophe by 2070 or 2080. This point is argued well by Steven E. Koonin, director of the Center for Urban Science at New York University and former Department of Energy undersecretary for science during Obama’s first term. Sadly, Koonin and others also argue for learning to adapt to this reality rather than heading it off, offering only scant acknowledgment of the human disaster they appear willing to accept. This adaption may mean climate wars, military measures to keep tens of millions of displaced climate refugees from coming to the United States, and widespread misery elsewhere. No doubt, we will see the rise of fascistic military- and police-state tactics in the United States, implemented to protect the gated communities of the rich from the outrage of the suffering masses.
How to Read the Rest of This Article
The text above was just an excerpt. The web versions of our print articles are now hosted by Duke University Press, Tikkun‘s publisher. Click here to read an HTML version of the article. Click here to read a PDF version of the full article.
(To return to the Spring 2016 Table of Contents, click here.)