2023: the warmest in 174 years

All main culprits in climate change saga have continued with their business as usual

The above is not an opinion. It is a cold hard fact. Here is another hard fact: next year would perhaps break the warming record of this one, and it would go until humanity does something about stopping the use of fossil fuel or we all perish on a cooked planet.

The Israeli war in Gaza has killed many innocent people including so many children. But there is another criminal aspect of this brutal war: the discussion about climate change has slowed down and any pledges made by the most polluting nations such as China and much of the western world have been comfortably out of the mainstream discussion.

All the main culprits in the climate change saga have continued with their business as usual, adding ever more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. One of those sneaky culprits is none other than the President of the free world. Joseph R Biden had made the fight against climate change as one of his central campaign messages. Like much of his other promises, this one would be going down the drain as well.

There is a project that the United States is seriously considering called CP2. The plan is to send vast amounts of liquefied natural gas to Europe for their consumption. The United States has vast storage of such natural gas. The proponents of the project tout the financial benefits for the US as well as giving America more leverage over Europe because providing them with this gas would help in reducing or completely ending European reliance on Russian gas. The proponents also say that natural gas sends less carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

That is a typical propagandistic argument because while it should send fewer carbon emissions it would send more methane into the atmosphere. Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. It stays for about 3 decades into the atmosphere as opposed to carbon dioxide, which stays for a lot longer. However, methane does about twice the damage that carbon dioxide does in the same amount of time. And after about 3 decades, the damage would be on a scale that it wouldn’t matter if it left the atmosphere by then. And given the scientific predictions about how warm our planet would have become in three decades with the same fossil fuel consumption, methane in the atmosphere would be the least of our troubles. A cooked-up world would have created enormous and insurmountable challenges. Climate change is a threat multiplier.

American people (human beings) have free speech rights. But there are other forms of human beings in America too. They are called corporations. They have been given that status by the twisted interpretation of the fourteenth amendment to the US constitution. Originally, that amendment was meant to give equal rights to freed slaves at the time but gradually it started to mean the rights of corporations as human entities. And regular human beings with flesh and blood have free speech rights as their words are spoken or written, these corporations have their free speech rights as their cash, which could be used in election campaigns and other situations. If there is a free speech contest between an average American citizen and Exxon or McDonald’s, for example, you can predict very well whose speech would have more resonance and impact on the politicians and policymakers. It is the same impact that convinces them to speak and act in favour of Israel more than in favor of their own citizens.

While Biden and future American presidents might have to choose the right course of action and choose between the proponents of natural gas sale and an increased oil drilling led by some of the richest countries and super rich corporations on one side and the environmental groups on the other side. The latter have noise and scientific research to fight the fight while the former have limitless cash to fight their fight. Guess who will win?

 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 31^st, 2023.

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