The Climate Wars
Morning Comrades! Thank you for excusing my absence on Monday and I hope you are ready for a shorter, but solid week of this. Whilst I was in Copenhagen over the weekend I had the idea for a new shirt, combing two graphics I made last year that I’ve never made before. The above graphic will show up on the back of a black t-shirt, whereas the front graphic will be an updated version of Hunter S. Thompson’s graphic he used when running for Sheriff’s office in Aspen back in 1970. Stay tuned for that one, as I’ll be posting images of that over on IG tomorrow and you will be getting your link here as per usual.
Now, to the title of this email - as much as I tried to tune out over the last couple of days, the news of yet another record breaking heat wave across the US and the specifically, the west coast didn’t fail to reach me.
I know I have been banging on about climate change for some time, obviously, not as loud as I could have done but the reality that we are heading to a point where large parts of this world will become inhabitable has been a constant source of terror for years. It was a few years ago, whilst on a flight to Stockholm just before Christmas when I looked out of the plane’s window and saw no snow, let alone ice- all the whilst I was reading Naomi Klein’s “This Changes Everything” - and it dawned on me just how terrifying this man-made reality was. The way I’ve understood it so far was, and yes, definitely a flawed, colonialized way of thinking I know, that the rising temperatures around the globe would make large parts of the world, not here but “there” uninhabitable, causing migration on a level previously unseen that would in turn usher a brutal, “us vs. them” scenario, played out in militarized fascism - in the same planetary way the film “Elysium” showed a few years ago. Granted, the basis of this scenario I still find plausible, but my colonized mindset got it wrong, especially in light of what we are seeing across the Pacific Coast in North America right now. In addition to the very real plausibility of the above there comes the reality that this climate crisis, making large parts of the world uninhabitable is also going to be hitting a densely populated area of the world with massive wealth disparity. Essential, and I mean truly essential basics, such as water, clean air, electricity are soon to be come a scarcity in an area known for its disgusting championship of individuality and might is right. When the pacific coast of North America runs out of these basics, you can bet your ass that rich will do what they can to protect their life and lifestyles and the so called “Climate Wars” will become a reality much faster than I had possibly imagined. There will be no solidarity in survival and if the human suffering doesn’t scare you, this should. I am not fear-mongering when I foresee genuine civic breakdown as a direct result of this. The far-reaching global consequences of this should be clear to everyone. What enrages me most is that all of this can be averted. It is a question of political will, yet, for as long as our representative governments are as morally and technically corrupt, this will not be averted through our so called democratic channels. There is no time to waste here - and whilst we are all, including myself, shell-shocked from the ongoing Covid-Pandemic, the end game is near, if not already here comrades. It’s 5 past midnight, we needs plans and we need action. Now.
And in other news, here is today’s selection of Hot Shots and The Fuckening:
I'm not sure which course of my zoology it was exactly that we learned the chemistry behind measuring carbon dioxide captured in Antarctic ice, but sometime between 2004 - 2007 I learned the method to measure carbon dioxide from ice samples. Then we were given historical data. When you understand the methods for measurement, and look at historical records, you would have to be pretty far up your own arse to deny what has been happening with global climate change.
In my final year I did marine ecology and freshwater ecology. In marine ecology, we covered a lot of info regarding ocean currents. What external factors drive thermohaline circulation and how currents influence seasonal weather patterns. And this is all a massive feedback loop. And it's changing. And scientists don't know what will happen if (or more likely when) these currents change entirely. But we also aren't that kind of curious to want to find out.
In the fresh water ecology course, there was also discussions of changing weather patterns. Populations of people living in semi-arid climate (here in SA, but also Australia and west coast USA) behave as though they live in places where water is abundant. If government doesn't constantly remind people to conserve water, people behave wastefully and then become angry when water restrictions occur. Cape Town's day zero was not terribly long ago. It was seen as a failure of government to provide, not as a climate driven problem.
In 2015, I attempted an overly-ambitious-for-a-2-week-graphic-design-final-exam to attempt an interactive infographic project to predict which regions of the world may be the first to engage in freshwater wars. This was based on the conflicts in Syria, which had seen a massive drought in the years prior leading to job loss and the beginning of people trying to leave the region before seemingly unrelated conflict started. The execution of the project was a total balls up because I spent most of the time trying to compile data that the final design was done the night before, lol.
I'm still trying to figure out a way to communicate that capitalism/the west/the church/insert-whatever-western-indoctrination is lying when they spin "everything will be ok/we'll get through this, so get back to work" type of narrative. Humans are part of the natural world and we are very much subject to it's influence, whether we like it or not.
I'm very in favor of ecocide international laws becoming a reality, but the education to back it up needs to happen. We've had too much science denial for too long. Sorry for the long rant (this is the condensed version). I'm a very tired and stressed out naturalist.