This is taking place in many parts of the global south.
Social coercion and the rule of law will disintegrate. Feedback loops will see one environmental catastrophe worsen another environmental catastrophe. The acidification of the oceans that extinguishes sea life, the food source for billions of people. The melting of the polar ice caps and glaciers resulting in sea level rise. The ruling class for decades denied the reality of the climate crisis or acknowledged the crisis and did nothing.
We are approaching a tipping point of 2 degrees Celsius when the biosphere will become so degraded nothing can save us.
The average global temperature has risen by about 1.1 Celsius (1.9 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1880. The earth is becoming inhospitable to most life. Global temperatures, even in the most optimistic of scenarios, will rise for at least another century. Even if we stop carbon emissions today – we have already reached 419 parts per million – carbon dioxide concentrations will continue to climb to as high as 550 ppm because of heat trapped in the oceans. The arctic ice is vanishing at rates that were unforeseen. Sea levels are rising three times faster than predicted. The Anthropocene Age – the age of humans, which has caused extinctions of plant and animal species and the pollution of the soil, air and oceans – is accelerating. “Collective action or collective suicide.” Yet we continue to feed our fossil fuel addiction.” “Half of humanity is in the danger zone, from floods, droughts, extreme storms and wildfires,” U.N Secretary General António Guterres told ministers from 40 countries meeting to discuss the climate crisis on July 18. Once the power outages begin, as in India, the heat waves will exact a grim toll. Joe Biden has approved more new oil drilling permits than Donald Trump. The desperate response is to burn more coal, especially with the soaring cost of natural gas and oil, and extend the life of nuclear power plants to sustain the economy and produce cool air. The result will be mass death with victims dwarfing the murderous rampages of fascism, Stalinism and Mao Zedong’s China combined. It is not as if we could not see the steady ecological degeneration and species extinction. It is not as if we lacked scientific evidence. Thousands of people had to flee from a fast-moving brush fire near Yosemite National Park on Saturday and 2,000 homes and businesses lost power. More than 73 percent of New Mexico is suffering from an “extreme” or “severe” drought. Wildfires have destroyed thousands of acres in California. More than 100 million people in the United States are under heat alerts in more than two dozen states from temperatures in the mid-to-upper 90s and low 100s. Droughts, which have destroyed crops, killed livestock and forced many to flee their homes, are creating a potential famine in the Horn of Africa. Economic losses run into the billions of yuan. In China, more than a dozen cities issued the “highest possible heat warning” this weekend with over 900 million people in China enduring a scorching heat wave along with severe flooding and landslides across large swathes of southern China. saw its hottest day on record of 104.54 Fahrenheit. London’s fire brigade experienced its busiest day since World War II. Wildfires have ripped through Spain, Portugal and France. The past week has seen record-breaking heat waves across Europe.