Amid all the other crap going on in our politics—all of which are important—we have two issues that are going to fundamentally change the lives of every person on the planet. The book I’m working on now touches on one of them, the book I’ll work on next (probably) takes on the other. The first is automation and the resulting end game of the low job-value economy that it’s already creating. The second, of course, is Climate change.
Of the two, I’m not sure which will actually cause us more discord, but at least now the effects of climate change are becoming so obvious that at least a few people I know who have argued that there’s nothing happening here are actually taking a step back and scratching their heads over it, pondering, perhaps, if they were wrong. These are people who have, in the past, said things like “the climate has always changed.” Apparently, a couple years of 100 year floods, and mega-hurricanes, and fires that wipe out entire cities, and bees dying out, entire glaciers melting, and record annual heats has been enough to make at least their hearts understand thoughts their minds maybe still won’t let in.
To these folks—the ones right on the edge—I want to point out an old XKCD that’s making a comeback on twitter feeds I follow.
You’re right, you see?
It’s okay.
The climate has has always changed. But it’s time to stop hearing the illusionary language of a group of people who are trying to wring the last dollars they can out of their banks of fossil fuels, and take a moment to understand exactly what it is people are talking about. It’s time to realize we’re all basically just a bunch of frogs in the stew of life, waiting for the water to boil. It’s time to realize we really do have to do something. And we have to do it now.
(Aside, I used to follow XKCD religiously, but somewhere along the way I let go by the wayside. Seeing this clip made me smile and go back…so, whether you go chase this down or not, for me, well, if nothing else I’ll boil away having caught up to this little bit of awesomeness)