So horrific it seems nigh unbelievable, that we could go from a couple of sporadic heatwaves lasting around 46 days in 1960, to now a single supermassive heatstorm that covers 85% of the globe, lasting for over a year - 367 days.

60 years of climate change, and the heat is rising exponentially.

You will live to see the destruction of our way of life. You will live to see massive famine, and disease, wiping out huge swaths of our 8 billion population. The next mass extinction event is here, and it’s going to last the remainder of your lifetime.

“The Inner Light,” is one of my favorite Star Trek episodes. It is about Picard experiencing life on a planet, dying from increased heat. I never thought I would see such catastrophe in my life. The people in the episode, that downplayed the danger, that ignored warnings, that kept developing despite disaster on their doorstep. I thought “how silly, surely the people in charge would recognize what was happening, surely they would put a plan in place to combat it. They wouldn’t just slowly and doggedly march towards their own destruction.”

Now I see how foolish I was, and how foolish my people are. If humanity survives, it will do so as a ghost of itself. A hobbled, pockmarked homunculus. Will we be forced to live underground? Will there be birds, once all the insects are gone? I weep for our children.

What a sobering read, and yet Nero fiddles as Rome burns. *

• Yes I know, I’m using as an allegory

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