You have to hand it to Greta for getting under everyone's skin. Her Davos speech had all the big wigs responding, namely Steven Mnuchin who told Greta she needed to get an economics degree before telling the world to divest in oil and gas companies. The funny part is that his wife later came out on Instagram in support of Greta. I suppose Steve gave Louise a more private dressing down for contradicting him.
We all know that the so-called energy companies are contributing to climate change at an alarming rate. The US was actually making headway with initiatives in place to become more energy efficient and less reliant on fossil fuels. Since Trump took office, the government has made an about face, pulling out of the Paris Agreement, promoting fossil fuel industries and most recently gutting the clean water act.
It all seems so senseless, but Trump rode into office promoting coal-burning power stations and rolling back carbon emission standards on motor vehicles. When California rebelled, the Trump administration revoked the state's ability to set its own emission standards. He's also signed over more federal land for energy rights, resulting in a fracking boom on public lands.
Along comes little Greta to remind the US just how stupid all these actions are, not just environmentally but economically. Big Steve was having none of that. He wanted Davos to know how vital these foul-burning industries were to the economy, even if most European countries have made decisive shifts away from the fossil fuel industry and don't plan to backtrack now.
Of course, Greta was harsh on everyone. She claimed basically nothing had been done to battle climate change and the clock is ticking, reduced to 100 seconds before midnight on the doomsday clock. It's a tall order to get so many nations to agree on a means to tackle environmental Armageddon, but I'm glad our kids are reminding us that it is their lives at stake.
Most of us won't be around long enough to witness this environmental collapse, but we can see the changing weather patterns in our own backyards. Here in Lithuania, it still hasn't snowed. Not that I don't mind the mild winter but it's a bit ominous given this is what it looked like the same time last year. Winter had already been reduced to January and February, now it looks like it will be February only.
Without question we are warming up the planet. Of course, the problem goes beyond fossil fuels. The inordinate amount of farm livestock we produce is the biggest contributor to the greenhouse effect. There are nearly as many cows on the planet as there are humans, and they produce a tremendous amount of methane. Add in all the land devoted to animal husbandry, and the impact this is having on our natural biosphere, and you begin to realize just how deep our carbon footprint is. This is why many environmentalist are encouraging us to eat less meat, as it takes nearly 7 times more land to support livestock than it does to grow fruits and vegetables for human consumption.
The long term impact is beyond our control at this point. All we can do is help mitigate it somewhat by being more conscious of our actions. Coastal cities will not be able to stem the rising tide. People will have to start moving inland. More land will become barren leading to greater environmental migration, as people will no longer be able to live in some regions due to lack of arable land, access to potable water, and extreme climactic variations.
We aren't done for by any stretch of the imagination, but we will see food shortages on a much larger scale and drinking water will become a premium. We can expect feudal battles over shrinking land and water rights. We already see this happening in the Middle East. The conflict in Syria is as much about the environmental collapse in the country as it is sectarian violence. Millions of Syrians have been forced to leave their ancestral homes because the land no longer supports them. This has been a major contributing factor in the ongoing civil war.
Similar situations have arisen in other parts of the world. The danger is we could be reduced to a semi-barbaric state, similar to post-apocalyptic movies like Mad Max. I don't think this is a world anyone of us would actually like to live in.
We can continue to ignore the climactic events reshaping our planet, as Steven Mnuchin would like us to do, or do better risk management as Christine Lagarde encouraged on the last day of Davos, after Greta Thunberg had spoken.
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