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We Are About to Destroy Everything We’ve Achieved in the Last 4000 Years
And hope is not going to save us
I wanted this Thanksgiving to be about being grateful and thankful that I and my loved ones survived 2021 more or less intact and to be hopeful for the future. I wanted to pause the onslaught of bad, nay, horrible news about climate change and our reaction to it. I had written about how COP 26 would not save us but nonetheless, I retreated into my bubble of holiday cheer and hoped. Also, to be honest, not many of my family members think I’m good company when I “discuss climate awareness” so I thought I’d give them a break.
Thanksgiving came and went and so did Glasgow. We drove 1,800 miles in 3 days to get to family and I was wise enough to pack up my laptop and use my phone only for navigation, sparing my immediate and distant community from my usual barrage of bad, sad, horrible news and articles. (For the curious, we gave up owning a car, so got a rental, 2 people, 2 dogs, 1 cat, 39 mpg — not great, but a smaller carbon footprint than a plane we hope, plus we supported local businesses along the way rather than chains. Maybe meaninglessly small gestures in light of the scope of the crisis, but they keep me somewhat sane.)
Alas, once the left-over turkey was gone, I found out that unlike the representatives of…
