Kaboom.
John Schwenkler January 19th, 2009
Ryan Avent worries about what will happen if the Obama administration fails to pass significant climate change legislation:
I don’t think warming will mean the end of humanity, but it will be serious enough that major geo-political change will take place, leading to all manner of unpredictable, and often catastrophic, outcomes. And as we approach critical thresholds, I think you’ll begin to see some scientists and activists grow radicalized by our inaction. When people see that the political leaders aren’t going to take the necessary steps, they’re going to start blowing up coal plants. I’m not kidding.
And how much carbon would that emit?
Filed under: energy, environment
For what it’s worth, a year ago one of my professors (an economic anthropologist) predicted that climate change would bring about a global societal restructuring (as in: some sort of supra-national organization of global politics) in order to deal with ensuing crises. For a moment, he seemed upset in a vaguely intellectual way that he didn’t envision being around to see it (his field of study is more or less what causes sudden change in developmental organization); then seemed a little relieved and wished us well in not screwing it all up. So yeah. That, and I’ve got snippets of “The Second Coming” stuck in my head today.
But my anti-spam word: “chill”. Maybe we don’t have so much to worry about?