[Disclaimer: I've said before and repeat here: Predicting when a major event like a collapse will happen is for mugs. One can look at current trends and extrapolate, but one cannot know how humans will respond to changing circumstances. That said, one can make educated guesses.]

We face ‘converging catastrophes,’ driven by pollution and resource depletion, and made worse by overpopulation. The two most visible and clearly dangerous are climate change and peak oil.

The Climate Change Social Tipping Point

At current rates of sea-level rise, tens of millions of people will be displaced within 25 years. If you think all those people, and the countries they live in, are going to go quietly into the night…well, would you?

Current projections suggest a sea level rise of at least one metre this century is now likely. A one-metre rise will displace at least 56 million people, and possibly double that.

From Bangladesh to the Maldives, from Vietnam to Pakistan to Alexandria to Venice, millions upon millions of people will be driven from their homes and livelihoods. And where are they to go? Into ever-more crowded areas of their own – and neighbouring – countries. Rising sea levels will produce a tide of climate refugees that will make the chaos in Darfur look mild.

Many of those refugees, and the people whose lands they attempt to crowd into, are going to be angry. Combine that with nothing left to lose, and we have a recipe for human-caused Armageddon . Continue reading →

Ever since I woke up to the danger of climate change, I have been trying to bring people together to do something about it. I thought it would be relatively easy; approach various groups and show them how ‘their’ issue would be mooted by climate change, and they would make fighting climate change the lead plank in their battle.

It didn’t work out that way. While many of them admit intellectually that climate change is a big problem, nobody wants to give up their piece of the pie. I slagged these groups elsewhere for this reason; egos and fear of losing their donations are making them insular. However, divided we are falling. Continue reading →

It is all of these. For the developing countries:

Copenhagen is like finally admitting to yourself that someone you thought was a good friend has been stealing from you. For years. Lying to your face the whole time. And with no intention of going honest any time soon.

Copenhagen is like finally admitting to yourself that this person is not your friend, probably never was, and doesn’t really even know what it means to be a friend.

Copenhagen is the realisation that leadership will not come from the rich countries. Canada and the United States will not do the right and honourable thing. We will not even do what is sensible to save ourselves.

Copenhagen means you must defend yourselves from us. We’ll still be dumping greenhouse gases while you are struggling with millions of climate refugees, with flooded cities and ruined farmland, with economic and social disaster. Not our problem.

These are the harsh truths of Copenhagen: You must lead and you must protect yourselves from us. We are not your friend.

You should go after Rex Tillerson and Stephen Harper for crimes against humanity. Tillerson because his company has funded climate denial for years, and Harper because he stabbed you in the back at Copenhagen and Bali; their actions will cost you dearly.

Will these schemes enrich a connected few and leave the planet worse off? Like many other things about climate change, yes, no, and it’s complicated.

These things have to be very transparent, or there is enormous potential for gaming the system or fraud. Given that enormous potential, you can bet that certain groups have been exerting pressure since the idea of carbon credits and offsets was first floated seriously. And they ain’t pushing for openness and fairness.

This is what set the European Union cap-and-trade system back years; the polluters wangled for so many carbon credits to be issued that their value plummeted. They then ceased to be much of an incentive to stop dumping carbon into the atmosphere. Continue reading →