Inconvenient Truth, 2018 version
Combine headlines about the economy with those about climate change, and something uncomfortable emerges.
A meltdown worse than 2008 will happen in no more than two years from now
or so many experts say, at least:
- Chatting About a Looming Financial Crisis
- Ten years after Lehmans, it’s as if we’ve learned nothing from the crash
- The Next Financial Crisis Lurks Underground
- Next financial crisis “has begun and will be worse than 2008”
- Next crash will be “worse than the Great Depression”
- The Makings of a 2020 Recession and Financial Crisis
Meanwhile, climate change is…
“Dress it up however we may wish, climate change is ultimately a RATIONING issue.", says Kevin Anderson here. I agree. It is the same point I made, looking at its “digital” implications, just yesterday:
“That report says almost explicitly that, starting next Monday, an awfully big lot of people worldwide should really just sit still and smell the roses.”
Meltdown prophecies + Climate Change ones gives…
As far as I know, the warnings that an economic meltdown (much) worst than 2008 is coming in no more than two years may be all wrong or, at least in part, a self-fulfilling prophecy. The only point of this post is to observe how, if climate change means that citizens of “First World” countries must strongly reduce their consumption of physical resources as soon as possible (and yes, it does)…
then an economic crash that, in no more than 24 months, destroys for a few years the spending power of countless people, and creates a desperate needs for new kinds of jobs may do more, better and sooner, to fight climate change than any international conference or treaty.
I seriously hope that things do NOT happen in that way. I hope that we do not do the right things on time only for the wrong reason, as another “Great Depression” would surely be. It would be much better to do the right things right away, for all the reasons besides climate change expressed in this wonderful cartoon:
Who writes this, why, and how to help
I am Marco Fioretti, tech writer and aspiring polymath doing human-digital research and popularization.
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