I think this piece really speaks to a fundamental internal conflict playing out across the challenges of our time: when issues critical to the future of humanity are ignored by the people in power, the political systems in place refuse to regulate those in power, and your average citizen is too concerned about their day-to-day struggles to enact the systematic changes required to hold politicians and plutocrats accountable, what are we to do?
I’d imagine if you truly personally believe in those projections strongly enough, then you personally need to dedicate your life to addressing the underlying causes in an effective way. By you doing something positive and concrete.
Think global, act locally. But personal action here would be you actually doing something. Something positive, if you want to be taken seriously. Not suggesting others do, but you personally. When you’ve dedicated enough time (years) to that personal action, then you develop the moral authority to ask others, who have day-to-day struggles, to dedicate their limited resources to help to broaden your (now successful) action.
Think Jimmy Carter. You do something direct and positive (build homes for the needy, actually hammering nails), and when that something is good, others follow. It’s a core cultural value of engineers to champion this sort of concrete strategy. I think the readers of HN lean towards the engineering side of things. Jimmy Carter was an engineer.
> Researchers who conducted an analysis of the conditions experienced during our Black Summer concluded “under a scenario where emissions continue to grow, such a year would be average by 2040 and exceptionally cool by 2060.”
> It’s the type of statement that should jolt our nation’s leaders out of their delusional complacency. Soon we will be facing 50C summer temperatures in our southern capital cities, longer and hotter bushfire seasons, and more punishing droughts. We will be increasingly forced to shelter in our homes as dangerous heat and oppressive smoke become regular features of the Australian summer. Looking back from this future, the coronavirus lockdown of 2020 will feel like a luxury holiday.
4 comments
[ 0.34 ms ] story [ 19.2 ms ] threadThink global, act locally. But personal action here would be you actually doing something. Something positive, if you want to be taken seriously. Not suggesting others do, but you personally. When you’ve dedicated enough time (years) to that personal action, then you develop the moral authority to ask others, who have day-to-day struggles, to dedicate their limited resources to help to broaden your (now successful) action.
Think Jimmy Carter. You do something direct and positive (build homes for the needy, actually hammering nails), and when that something is good, others follow. It’s a core cultural value of engineers to champion this sort of concrete strategy. I think the readers of HN lean towards the engineering side of things. Jimmy Carter was an engineer.
> It’s the type of statement that should jolt our nation’s leaders out of their delusional complacency. Soon we will be facing 50C summer temperatures in our southern capital cities, longer and hotter bushfire seasons, and more punishing droughts. We will be increasingly forced to shelter in our homes as dangerous heat and oppressive smoke become regular features of the Australian summer. Looking back from this future, the coronavirus lockdown of 2020 will feel like a luxury holiday.
For my fellow Americans, 50 C = 122 F.