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This by way of advertising a post to come, prompted by a piece in NYRB (reference 1) and by starting to read reference 2.

The rather threatening bottom line seems to go as follows.

The continued economic health of the world has become strongly correlated with ever continuing economic growth. The treadmill of (mainly) capitalist growth.

Economic growth is strongly correlated with the consumption of fossil fuels.

Consumption of fossil fuels is strongly correlated with the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

In the near term, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is strongly correlated with increasing average temperatures. Perhaps as much as 5°C.

In the long term, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is strongly correlated with increasing sea levels. Perhaps as much at 100 feet. And if you doubt, just remember that the rolling downs of Surrey and the white cliffs of Dover were all under water at one point.

Somewhere between near term and long term, catastrophe. Of which the modest flows north of migrants from central America, from sub-Saharan Africa and from the Middle East are an early warning. Which we fail to heed at our peril - or at least at the peril of our grandchildren.

Along the way, Wallace-Wells points to the huge amount of electricity which goes into the production of Bitcoins, enough to power a middle sized country. A particularly egregious example of the wasteful ways of humans.

A more considered bottom line will follow.

Reference 1: Burning Down the House – Alan Weisman – 2019. Issue of NYRB of August 15, 2019.

Reference 2: The uninhabitable earth: a story of the future – David Wallace-Wells – 2019.

Reference 3: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/07/more-city-walls.html. The homeostasis people talked of in this post know all about the narrow environmental limits within which life thrives. The Goldilocks zone. A zone which we are on course to leave.