The poor and middle class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the very rich pay lawyers - and the ultra-rich pay politicians. This is a good joke based on truth, and it's worth repeating. The more money they accumulate, the more control billionaires gain over the political system, which then allows them even lower taxes and even more money and control. They shape our world according to their needs. One symptom of the pathological phenomenon called billionaire brain is the inability to see beyond their own short-term gain. They would calmly ravage our planet to increase their already absurdly large wealth.
Last week, the most important news of the year, and perhaps of the century, arrived. Most of us missed it, partly because billionaires own most of the media. That's how we might miss the event that begins the end of the world. The extremely important news I mentioned is that scientists have reassessed the state of a key ocean current system and that it has changed. Some believe that the probability of this system collapsing due to climate collapse that is changing the temperature and salinity of seawater has increased. This system, known as the Atlantic Meridian Overturning Current (AMOC), delivers heat from the tropics to the North Atlantic. As recent research suggests, if it were to stop, it could cause a huge drop in average winter temperatures in northern Europe and drastic changes in the water cycles of the Amazon. This could contribute to a cascading decline in the Amazon rainforest, which would cause further disasters.
A break in the Amoca would also accelerate sea level rise on the East Coast of the United States, threatening coastal cities. The event could raise Antarctic temperatures by about six degrees Celsius, releasing a huge amount of carbon from the Antarctic Ocean, further accelerating climate catastrophe.
Even taking into account all the mitigating factors of global warming, one paper says, northern Europe would experience periods of extreme cold - temperatures in London would drop to -19 degrees Celsius, in Edinburgh to -30, and in Oslo to -48. The sea would freeze as far as Lincolnshire in February. Our climate would change drastically, and extremes such as major winter storms would be far more frequent and intense. Agricultural production, which depends on rain, would become impossible in almost all parts of Great Britain.
On any humanly relevant scale, this change would be permanent. Its speed would exceed our ability to adapt. Amoca outages, caused by natural climate variability, have happened before. But not during the era of great human civilization.
The first paper suggesting that Amoec might have two states, that it could be on and off, was published in 1961. Since then, many studies have confirmed this and explored potential triggers and possible consequences. Until recently, a human-induced collapse of Amoec was classified as a “high impact, low probability” event – one that would be devastating if it happened, but would not happen. Research over the past few years has prompted a new assessment: it is more likely to be a “high impact, high probability” event. Now, Professor Stefan Rahmstorf – the world’s leading authority on the subject – says in his response to the recently published paper that the probability of a disruption is over 50%. The point of no return, according to him, could be crossed by the middle of this century.
Why isn’t this the headline news of the day? Why isn’t it a priority for governments that claim to be protecting us from ruin? Because the oligarchs are pushing a climate impact model that has little to do with reality. It is based on assumptions that contradict scientific findings, and it is on it that the official responses to the climate crisis are based. This model was promoted by economist William Nordhaus, who has been assessing the economic effects of global warming. His model suggests that the socially optimal level of warming is between 3,5 and 4 degrees Celsius. Most climate scientists believe that such a temperature increase would be catastrophic. Even six degrees Celsius, Nordhaus says, would not cause a loss of more than 8,5 percent of GDP. Climate science suggests that it would be the end of civilization.
As noted economists Nicholas Stern, Joseph Stiglitz, and Charlotte Taylor argue, the mild effects Nordhaus predicts are actually a result of flaws in his model. For example, it assumes that catastrophic risks do not exist and that climate impacts increase linearly with temperature. No climate model suggests such a development. On the contrary, climatology predicts nonlinear impacts and a significant increase in risks. Possible impacts of high levels of warming include the submergence of major cities, the disappearance of the climate niche suitable for human life in vast areas of the planet, the collapse of the global food system, and cascading regime shifts in ecosystems that would release natural carbon stores, leading to a global greenhouse effect on the planet, in which very few people would survive. GDP scores would no longer matter, because there would no longer be GDP or an economy to measure them in.
What is particularly bizarre is that Nordhaus’s model applies discount rates to future people, assuming that their lives will be worth less than ours. In other words, the method used to calculate the return on capital is applied to human beings. As the three economists point out, “it is difficult to find a moral philosophy justification for such a thing.” Climate change disproportionately affects the poor—but in this model, their lives are becoming cheaper.
Stern, Stiglitz and Taylor note that it is logical that such models are used by representatives of “special interests”, such as the fossil fuel industry, to advocate for the smallest possible response to the climate crisis. But it is not just oil companies. Bill Gates, who declaratively wants to protect our planet, gave $ 3,5 million to a company that produces ideological garbage. It is headed by Bjorn Lomborg, a man who built a career promoting the Nordhaus model and thereby contributed to the belittling of the need for measures against climate change. Nordhaus received the Nobel Prize in Economics for his disastrous nonsense and they are accepted worldwide in the decision-making process at the highest political level.
The billionaire death cult is strangling humanity, mocking the existential crisis of our biological species. The oligarchs are not only class, but also a social enemy (as they always have been). A few thousand such powerful people can destroy civilization. In this game of billions of people against billionaires, the stakes could not be higher.
(Translated by Slavica Miletic)
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