As a scientist, I habitually, maybe obsessively, weigh all kinds of factors and forcings for whatever interests me, from which I project likely results and consequences. So, when something’s not adding up; when I spot an anomaly, I tend to take note.
Each year, guns kill about 40,000 of us.
www.theguardian.com/...
30,000 more die prematurely via inadequate healthcare.
www.healthsystemtracker.org/…
45 million of us owe ~$33,000 apiece in student loans, with payments hovering around $400 per month.
www.nbcnews.com/…
www.federalreserve.gov/…
Though I’m sure there’ve been many, we’ve no stats on deaths hastened by student loan debt.
Yet, here and beyond our borders, global warming and climate change already impact millions, with billions more to feel its effects within this generation.
One 2014 estimate, known to be overly conservative, suggests 250,000 extra deaths per year within the 2030 to 2050 time frame, while forcing an extra 100 million people into extreme poverty by 2030.
www.livescience.com/…
A more recent study suggests that leaving CO2 emissions static at 37 gigatons per year would retard annual global GDP by 3.7%, causing ~1.5 million additional deaths a year by 2100.
www.impactlab.org/…
That’s slightly higher than the 60 year mean growth rate of 3.5%, which suggests a slightly negative global GDP of -0.2% by 2100.
ycharts.com/…
Frankly, a slightly negative GDP by 2100 hardly seems credible. I claim it’ll be far worse.
Why? Because, e.g., an IPCC projected 3 to 6 feet of sea level rise by 2100 would utterly swamp the infrastructures of New York, London and many other major cities.
Regardless, one can certainly say that climate change looms as large or larger than other national issues and will only grow. Left unchecked, my own and other projections call for in excess of 3 degs. C. of global warming by 2100.
The Antarctic was last ice free between 14 and 22 million years ago, while the global temperature anomaly ranged between +2.5 to 3.0 degs. C.
en.wikipedia.org/...
Thus, (assuming a 30 year doubling period, based on the previous 5 doublings in sea level rise rate since 1870), I expect the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps to melt by ~2350, raising sea levels by at least 230 feet. According to the UN Oceans Atlas, about 60% of our global population live within 60 miles of a coastline.
www.oceansatlas.org/...
230 feet of sea rise would place the Gulf Coast near Little Rock, Arkansas. California’s Central Valley becomes an inland sea, Philly a seaport. Delaware’s average elevation is 50 feet, the same as Singapore, followed by Florida and Louisiana at 100 feet, about the same as Denmark and the Netherlands, while most of Bangladesh lies below 33 feet.
en.wikipedia.org/…
en.wikipedia.org/...
Yet, the impacts extend far beyond sea level rise. There’s fisheries demise due to ocean acidification and oxygen depletion, a teetering Gulf Current, a destabilized jet stream inducing severely unpredictable weather, uncontrollable wildfires, mass human migration, contagion via mutation and migrating infectious disease vectors, flora/fauna extinction and eco collapse, and dozens of other contingent issues. But also geopolitical stability, up to and including nuclear warfare. E.g., two decades ago, Pakistan and India came within one army general of a nuclear exchange. What happens when neighboring Bangladesh starts pouring tens of millions of swamped refugees across the borders of India or China?
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/...
So, along comes Jay Inslee, the only true progressive with career wounds to prove it,
ballotpedia.org/...
who as an ex-four-term congressman knows how DC operates, who as Washington’s governor, presides over our nation’s most vigorously progressive economy;
www.foxbusiness.com/… (Yes, even Fox Business News admits it);
who as a climate change/renewable energy maven created the most comprehensive, doable plan to address climate change; who’s made it the central feature of his presidential campaign.
www.jayinslee.com/...
And who, lumped with the six centrist, white males least likely to make any dent in solving our real problems, is also unlikely to reach the next round of debates.
I think this calls for a round of acute consternation.
I mean Tim Ryan is a career politician; Michael Bennett ran a VC firm; John Hickenlooper is an ex-petroleum geologist who thinks fracking is benign; John Delany was a commercial banker, Tom Steyer runs a hedge fund.
Sure, despite clear qualifications, maybe it’s the lack of name recognition, or stage presence, or a high voice, or being seen as a Johnny 1-note like Andrew Yang (who’s made the next round) and his UBI. Except that UBI sounds like a nice gimme to some, rather than a dire negative to all — like climate change.
Thus, Inslee’s lack of traction is a slumping canary that, to me, shows a mind blowing, de facto ennui.
Because, though most Democrats agree that climate change is a serious, maybe even existential threat, the fading arc of Inslee’s run suggests that we also remain in deep, emotional denial about what it will take to address it successfully.