The Urgent Need for A Plan for Human Civilization
The most important task at present is creating a plan to maintain human civilization in the decades and centuries ahead, and fostering the global cooperation now needed to stabilize the climate and protect the human rights of all peoples.
Climate Change is Real and Impacts Will Get Worse
The dialogue on climate change has unfortunately not kept up with the urgency of the problem. Many policymakers continue to deny the reality of climate change; others accept it but do not view it as an urgent problem. Still others understand the urgency, but fail to grasp the reality of overlapping and cascading impacts caused by climate change, including climate change tipping points at or over 1.5°C of warming, that are now imminent or may have already commenced.
Confronting climate change must be the very center of a new policy framework that accepts the reality of the situation and the gravity of the impacts to come. This new policy framework must include a mitigation framework to dramatically limit warming; and an adaptation framework to help people adjust to the impacts that are now unavoidable, such as sea level rise, extreme weather, extreme heat, and destroyed ecosystems.
It is important to note that climate change is just one of several planetary threats that need to be urgently addressed. There is also a major extinction event now taking place. Environmental pollution, including plastic pollution, is another major threat now faced by the species. All of these issues are related and must be addressed together.
There is No One in Charge at the International Level
Recent global events over the last couple of years stand as a blunt truth that the international order is fraying. No one is in charge. Rules meant to protect innocent people and weaker governments from more powerful governments are not working.
The lack of meaningful global governance to maintain any kind of peace, or to foster the cooperation needed to stabilize the climate, is a terrible truth. Global institutions at present do not have the ability to make governments change their ways. The growing impacts of climate change will pose ever more systemic risks to the international order, challenging the ability of governments to maintain any kind of global stability.
In the Global North, Genuine Democratic Dialogue and the Possibility of Real Alternatives Remain Absent
One other reality that needs more discussion is that most Global North governments are not in a position today to promote genuine democratic dialogue or the possibility of real alternatives to the neo-liberal, high-energy-consumption way of life that has produced the climate crisis. There are certain assumptions about “the way the world should work” that are deeply embedded in Global North lifestyles, assumptions that may be difficult or impossible to overcome without real dialogue, debate, and discussion. Are Global North peoples entitled to ways of life that use ever-increasing amounts of energy? What changes, if any, are Global North peoples willing to make to stabilize the climate? What kind of solidarity are Global North countries willing to entertain with Global South countries with respect to climate change impacts, including on the issue of displacement and migration? These kinds of questions, and others, must be urgently debated and discussed. Today, they are absent.
“Business as Usual” Is Not a Plan
There is a political malaise at present that runs deep. Most people are hoping that positive change will happen on its own. The difficulties seem too immense, the political situation too ugly, the wrong people seem to have all the power. It is understandable and human to look away from the reality of the present. But “business as usual” is not a plan. Hope is not a plan. Unless peoples and governments radically reorient themselves to deal with planetary threats, things will only get worse, and quickly.
The World must Envision and Implement a Real Plan for Climate Stability, for International Dialogue, and for the Protection of Human Rights
The urgent task now is to envision and implement a real plan to work for climate stability, international cooperation and dialogue, and the protection of human rights and the self-determination of all peoples, including climate-vulnerable peoples, Indigenous Peoples, and peoples under occupation or whose self-determination is under threat for other reasons.
This kind of plan must work to minimize global warming and to reorient our societies to drawdown carbon dioxide and cool the planet. Biodiversity must be urgently restored. Pollution must now be cleaned up.
These kinds of measures may take decades or centuries to fully implement. The timescales are vast because the problems are vast.
The solutions to the planetary crises we face will be built by walking a different path. Countries must put their differences aside and work for climate stability. Power and resources must be shared. International law must be enforced. The right plan can provide meaningful possibilities to our descendants to let them enjoy a world with a stable climate with the rich biodiversity that marked so much of the Holocene. The right plan will help us and our descendants live differently and enjoy more freedom—the freedom that comes from stability, regeneration, abundant nature, and peace of mind; the freedom that comes from the preservation of dignity; the freedom that comes from the opportunity to explore without fear this vast consciousness that inhabits us and surrounds us, that gives us breath and which ends that same breath.
