After a little bit of warmth for a day or two, we are back to typical Finnish summer weather, where it is cool and raining. And it looks like it is going to stay this way for the next week at least, which means that pretty much half my wife's vacation, will be rainy at least. Summers can suck here when there aren't enough warm days, especially since Southern Europe is having exceptionally hot weather. The global climate is changing and whether we caused it or not, we are going to have to deal with it.
I think a lot of people underestimate the disruption that global climate change is going to cause, because most of us don't really have a good understanding of macro systems at all. The economy is easy in comparison to the environmental ecosystem, and most people have very little understanding of it - so what makes them think they can imagine a future where average temperatures change a couple of degrees?
Much like we are seeing increasing amounts of economic volatility, changes in the weather are going to push more local extremes, which will in turn drive large-scale changes in global ecosystems. Wind and water currents shift direction and intensity, cold fronts move to new locations, and heatwaves hit where previously the weather was mild. Climates good for growing can become dormant, but the new locations with the suitable climate, do not have the suitable environment to support new growth. It isn't possible to just shift location like moving city for a new job, because so many things have to align, and those things are largely immovable.
The economic volatility is going to be immense.
Because while so much money is being made from the impractical today, ultimately life comes down to reality. And when the reality is that people are starving and infrastructure is crumbling, volatility takes on a whole new form.
Will we pivot in time?
Unlikely.
Because to do so means fundamentally changing the values we have been instilling in generation after generation for a few hundred years. Where profit and power are the guiding values, rather than human growth and development. And to make the changes requires those who have the current power to relinquish control and move in directions they are not invested in, which means they are not going to do it. They might pay it lip-service from time to time, but ultimately, they don't want the direction to change, because they benefit from it staying just the way it is.
As a species, we are our own worst enemy, because while we have the power to make changes, we choose to maintain security in what we know, even if it leads to increased insecurity. We keep on the same path because it is lit for us, even though all the signs are telling us it is heading toward our destruction. Each step we take, we are getting closer to the end, and with each step, the conditions will be that much worse.
Yet, we keep on walking.
Taraz
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