A professor at one of the colleges where I taught mistook her CD ROM Drive for a cup holder, unaware of the common joke at the time. Her ridiculous move then is like watching global leaders now respond to climate reality. The June 19, 2024 YouTube (published July 31, 2024) “Exceeding Earth’s Safe Limits with Johan Rockström | TGS 134” is like part 2 of the Rockström Netflix film Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet featuring David Attenborough. Responding to that film, my June 11, 2021 post “We Are All in a Ford Pinto” noted, “My point is big oil companies must be forced to act by national and/or international laws for information in the documentary to matter. In simple terms, otherwise it will be like an honors student at the school bus stop pounded unconscious by an illiterate bully with no parents, caring adults, or police officers in sight.”
At 56:12 in “Exceeding Earth’s Safe Limits with Johan Rockström | TGS 134” Rockström said, “We know we need to cut global emissions by half within the next five years by 2030, and we’re not near to that. We’re still increasing emissions.” The interviewer Nate Hagens did a great job, and I would add a question based on my Jul 11, 2024 post “250 Trillion Dollars or Bust (Probably Bust),” “Johan Rockström, How exactly do you plan to fight oil companies with 250 trillion dollars in fossil fuel reserves (according to Tad DeLay) who have successfully opposed climate action for over 60 years?”
At 1:13:58 Rockström said, “We’re so close to losing it on climate that we now need at least a hundred U. S. dollars per ton of carbon dioxide price on carbon to rapidly start phasing out coal in particular.”
At 1:27:13 he said, “My ultimate definition of justice is every human being’s right to be born on a livable planet.”
At 1:29:01 he said, “I think that the number one issue is to get world leaders immediately to sit down together and recognize that we need to urgently get back into the safe space of planetary boundaries.”
Referring back to the first paragraph of this post, when it comes to real power and influence, the “honors student” Rockström is getting “pounded unconscious by [climate-] illiterate bully” Big Oil with no viable plan for change before nine out of nine planetary boundaries are crossed (instead of current six crossed), and the Arctic passes a serious tipping point.
Complementing the above challenge, one of my favorite items from the past three months is the May 1, 2024 YouTube “Technology Won’t Stop the Climate Apocalypse with Dr. Dana Fisher – 259”. Due to her climate realism, I added her as “Sociologist” to my “Updated Best Practices for Climate Crisis (July 2024).”
I also liked the film Wild Life. The film website notes, “After falling in love in mid-life, Kris [Tompkins] and the outdoorsman and entrepreneur Doug Tompkins left behind the world of the massively successful outdoor brands they’d helped pioneer — Patagonia, The North Face, and Esprit — and turned their attention to a visionary effort to create National Parks throughout Chile and Argentina. WILD LIFE chronicles the highs and lows of their journey to effect the largest private land donation in history.” I admired their determination in land preservation and rewilding of species. They had enough money to enjoy the rest of their lives doing what they wanted, and chose to leave a legacy of protected wilderness and wild animals in native habitats. A December 9, 2015 bbc.com/news article “Profile: Douglas Tompkins, billionaire-turned-conservationist” quoted Doug Tompkins, “There’s no doubt whatsoever that there’s no future in capitalism. It’s probably no more than 500 years old, and it’s demonstrating over and over again that it is destroying the world.” The article added, “He often said that he felt lucky to have escaped the shackles of the corporate class and, in his own words, do something with ‘meaning.’”
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