Epictetus, Greek philosopher and former slave, formulated what today is known as the Serenity Prayer. Climate was once considered one of the things that you cannot change, now we know that it can be achieved. It’s just that it will require a billion or so climate activists to get Big Oil (they like to call themselves supermajors because that word sounds friendlier).
Catastrophic Climate Collapse (CCC) is inevitable if fossil-fuel behemoths are not curbed rapidly. Fudging the numbers is as effective as touching up a cancer victim’s x-rays.
On October 29, an enormously unhelpful opinion piece in the Washington Post — by their Editorial Board — posited that we need to kick back (my words) and stop worrying, that incremental measures just might happen in the upcoming Sharm El Sheikh Climate Summit. Well, it just might happen that some time in the next ten years I just might win a billion dollars in a lottery. These guys are not climate scientists, but they are speaking in a tone that I would expect to read in the New York Post. Their byline reads Democracy Dies in Darkness. Yes, it does. But faffing climate realities around in circles tells me that there are mushrooms gathering on their basement floors.
Yesterday, I reblogged my article about Wynn Bruce. I am highlighting one of its paragraphs today:
By 1973, the fossil-fuel industry had already known that catastrophic climate change was a scientifically proven fact in the face of inaction; however, the scientists working from within the fossil-fuel juggernauts were silenced before this information could be made available. Positions of power among corporations leading the Fortune 10 would lose profits if truths were told. In 1973, a gradual change could have allowed all involved parties to move carefully and deliberately over several decades to prevent what is now imminent. The 11th hour has passed. History will not judge us kindly for our inaction, each of us needs to accept the responsibility for setting the Earth on fire. Bruce Wynn knew this, you should too. Self-immolators are prophets.
Time is not our friend. Don’t hope for a Hail Mary pass to an end zone because this better approximates a chess match, and we are in the endgame.
Returning to Katja:
I have already taken too much time rearranging the proverbial deck chairs. So please consider becoming a climate activist. And please still remember 1973 for another reason. It is the year of an earlier 9/11: the assassination of Salvador Allende. Meanwhile, Henry Kissinger — the influencer who directed that “intervention” — becomes a centenarian on May 27, 2023.
Thanks for reading.
Addendum: We are now only 6 days away from the US Mid Term Elections (November 8, 2022). Your largest source of unbiased information is on Urban View, a Black-owned independent radio channel. Unfortunately, it is only widely available on Sirius-XM Channel 126. But please also follow them on Twitter: Sirius-XM Urban View
Thanks for reading this too.
billziegler1947 
Bill, we are indeed in the endgame of humanity’s glory days on Planet Earth. Over the past three months, I have been featuring my monthly reflections on Professor Jem Bendell’s “E-S-C-A-P-E Ideology outlined in the book, Deep Adaptation: Navigating the Realities of Climate Chaos (UK/USA 2021). My next post on “C” for “Control” is scheduled for November 6th. You can check out my last post at https://rosalienebacchus.blog/2022/10/02/reflections-on-surety-or-certainty/ which provides links to earlier posts.
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Thank you so much for the link to your climate remarks, Rosaliene. Setting up synergies with all of us who recognize the fragility of the ice we tread upon. I look forward to responding to E and S. C is just two days away from the Midterm Elections. Climate is nowhere near enough an issue on the ballots, but I’m as daunted as any of us who witness the gaping pit that Trumpism offers. A cool head is difficult to hold. My son was born on the evening of 8 November 1978, another off-year election — also a foreboding season.
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