10 October

People who’ve never studied much science, which is most people, need to understand what’s at stake with climate change. The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries in the UK have done the sums. Actuaries are not ‘Greenies’ or ‘Left’ or ‘Right’. They’re experts at calculating risks, for anything. 2 degrees or more by 2050 is our trajectory. The actuaries show this will mean a greater than 25% loss in global GDP. And the death of more than a quarter of humanity, more than 2 billion people. We’re actually well on track to reaching even beyond the highest ‘Extreme’ risk rating, which is half world GDP gone and more than half the world’s population dead. At 4 degrees of warming, which is well on track, nothing survives. No economies, no people. In world wars everything humans do stops, to redirect to the war effort. This is an enormously larger risk than any we faced in the world wars. And we’re doing as good as nothing. We treat things like renewable energy and EVs as debating fodder for our kidult status battles, for dominance of our social groups.