Apocalypse now?

There is an ongoing discussion around the world — and I listen in to at least four language broadcasts outside of the USA — about whether mankind is about to terminate all life on this planet — sooner or later. Some of the arguments follow a well-beaten path, like the BBC’s headline: “The seemingly insatiable human tendency to consume is changing our planet and the life on it, but can we change our behavior?” Others, like the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, wonder if the poor science being extrapolated regarding feeding the world’s hungry will lead to increased oil dependence on fertilizers over natural, organic, farming, which cannot currently feed enough of the planet.

The Russian radio services have carried reminders of their Russian Academy of Sciences report — which Ted Turner brought back to the U.S. in the early ‘80s — which predicted that within 50 years life as we know it will be changed irreversibly for the worse. That same report predicted a sea level rise of 2 meters over this century, irreversible change once we hit the mid 2030s at the current rate of pollution and CO2 emissions. Gone would be towns, cities, transportation and ports linked to coastal areas, affecting 65% of all the world’s populations. Think COVID was bad? COVID is like a cold compared to that possible devastation.

Oh, and Ted gave that Russian report to our National Academy of Sciences. They studied it, ran the data through NCAR in Boulder and predicted that the exponential growth of CO2 emissions proved the Russian 50-year prediction wrong. It could be as little as 35 years unless we did something to fix the problem. Was that finding ever publicly reported? At his deserved Sasakawa Award Ceremony in ’97 Ted crudely assured me that the White House would always prevent that. “They can’t stop sucking at the oil teat.”

Meanwhile some African broadcasters are continually beating a warning drum: Pestilence (like this year’s Kenya’s locust invasion, which ate 40% of that nation’s food in just weeks), famine returning to sub-Sahara nations and, always, new (small and as yet contained) Ebola outbreaks in West African countries.

In the end, all of these messages carry doom and gloom that our media here want to avoid. Gloom and doom don’t sell pop soda, happy new cars or “new and improved” breakfast cereal. As I said to GM Chairman Mr. Smith in ’88 when he had proudly pushed back on cars’ emission standards with WH help, “Long term, if we’re all dead, who will you be selling cars to?” He brushed me off as radical. Which I was trying to be, to be honest.

Here’s an interesting simple fact: If the USA, currently responsible for 17% of the worldwide CO2 emissions, switched to sustainable energy (solar, wind, tidal and, yes, nuclear) away from gas and oil, which would also mean all cars, trucks, trains and planes became carbon-neutral (electrification and swap-for-trees policies), then we’d drop our CO2 emissions by 85%. If we lead the way, much as China is doing with electric cars (65% of all new cars sold in China are now electric), then the world would have to follow. We could fix this problem, create new industries right here and now. Not $12/hour jobs, either.

However, to get started, people have to listen to science, heed people across the planet doing real evaluation on the dangers we all face. Let’s start with winning the hearts and minds of all the folks who live near a costal region and show them animations of what’s coming if we don’t reform. Let’s put doom and gloom images of starving families in Asia and Africa and South America and Central America back leading the news — not to depress us, but to make us wake up to start fixing the problem.

The strange thing about all this is that uniquely the USA is best placed, strong enough, resilient enough, smart enough, talented enough to solve this problem. Like our entry into WWII, all was lost until we came to the battle. Now is the time for a similar effort. Yes, it is in our own interest, but also because — here’s the message — there is ONLY ONE EARTH. Where else you gonna go?

Writer Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, now resides in New Mexico.