The energy equation

World military spending by user Zenhaus from Wiki Commons using Stockholm International Peace Research Institute data.

Military spending in the world continues to increase as states and the elites who run them intend to keep things the way they are until nature decides the status quo no longer applies. Estimated expiration date for the status quo, 2040-50 if the climate change trajectory continues to rise as it has for the past 100+ years.

Immense amounts of attention have been paid over the past thirty years to the proven fact that the fossil fuel industry long fought tooth and nail to deny the reality of climate change.

Their denial has been a thorn in the side of anyone pursuing meaningful climate action, to be sure.

But far more decisive is the simple fact that the powerful people who dominate most of the world’s countries have never wanted substantial change either.

And despite all the hollow pledges at COP26, they still don’t.

The reason? Fossil fuels remain the lodestone of geopolitical power.

An energy-dense, liquid fuel source is a prerequisite for conducting modern military operations. Planet Earth has been carved up into territories run by armed gangs whose ability to maintain their power over the long run is inextricably tied to their capacity for violence.

By looking at the chart above, one sees the US as a prime driver in its ability to apply violence in ways defying the imagination.

End game ...

Understanding that it is the State that is most responsible for creating the climate crisis and blocking most of the systems shifts need to fight it is the first essential step to actually beating the climate crisis.

The main reason climate change is accelerating with little meaningful global action taking place to stop it is that the world’s States are all more concerned about what taking real climate action might do to their power than they are protecting people.

In essence, you gotta have a catastrophe before real change happens. For yours truly, a web bulb moment in Pakistan/India comes to mind as the temps there hit 121.1 degrees on May 4th. 

To be continued.