Earth has become Fossil Fuel’s Greed-Driven Gaslighting Sh**hole
There are a couple of pictures I would like you to look at. These are taken from the website climatereanalyzer.org . One gives the global 2 meter (2m) temperature anomaly today (September 28, 2021) and the other is the same global map, only it is from exactly 40 years ago today.
Scroll back and forth between these pictures and take it in. Look at how much hotter the Arctic is than it was in 1981 (so-called Arctic amplification). Look at how much of the planet is in an “extreme” state, either hot or cold. Look at how much more red there is overall today. This is the last 40 years, and the situation is only accelerating.
This is a map of the weather on the day, not the climate. The difference is one of long-term averages versus short-term events. 40 years ago, central Greenland was hot. Today it is cold. 40 years ago Chicago was cold, today it is hot. None of that matters. Today it is hot. The future is going to be much hotter.
For a fuller explanation of these images and their importance, I am grateful to Terry J. Richard for his excellent substack post. Please view it here: A Day in the Life of Climate Change.
Of course, there is a lot more to this story than one industry with evil intent. This has been the destiny of humanity all along. Industries like Exxon & Chevron furthered one particularly fast pathway to doom, but we were going to get here one way or another. Insatiable human desire — that cause of suffering Buddha pointed at — we’ve known this future was coming for a long time.
I walk a lot. But I also drive a car, eat fast food, take hot showers and water my yard. Desire. Suffering. We are all to blame just by being humans struggling for comfort while living with the unbearable human condition of being aware of our mortality.
This post expresses one of the five phases of grief, that being anger. But behind the anger is hurt & fear. Finding a fall guy (or industry) and striking out is of very little value — it just feels good to blame someone or something for this mess.
Here we are. Look at those f**king pictures! It’s their f**king fault!
By the way, if you don’t know what “2 meter temperature anomaly” means, here is the explanation from the same website:
2m Temperature refers to air temperature at 2 meters above the surface. 2m Temperature Anomaly refers to the departure of the current day’s forecasted temperature from a long-term mean for the same day of the year. The anomalies here are based on a 1979-2000 reference climatology derived from the NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR). This 22-year baseline is used instead of the more common 1981-2010 climate normal because 1979-2000 represents conditions prior to rapid Arctic warming and sea-ice loss.
Be kind, be generous, be of service.