Farewell "Same Old, Same Old." You'll Be Missed.



"Same old, same old" used to convey monotony, something dull, repetitive and boring.

Our same old, same old world is no longer. We may wish it wasn't.

Our world is changing in ways that would alarm our ancestors. Their world was blessed by the moderation of the Holocene, a gentle, stable climate epoch where disasters were exceptions, not the rule.

What were once exceptions are becoming the rule today. Lytton, B.C. is the poster child. Three all time heat records set on three consecutive days until, on day 4, the place burned to the ground. For the past two decades, most years have gone into the record books as the hottest ever until bested by the next year.

For generations wildfire season in North America began in mid-summer and ended with the rains and snow of November. Now it can be year round. Now wildfires, like other climate impacts, are of increasing frequency, intensity and duration. Ditto for severe storm events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts and flooding - frequency, intensity and duration. One, two, three.

Too Little, Too Late.

The global effort to avert catastrophic climate change has always had two elements - mitigation and adaptation. At Kyoto, Japan, in December, 1997, the community of nations vowed to fight climate change through mitigation, i.e. slashing greenhouse gas emissions. The idea back then was that cutting emissions could arrest global warming to "a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system."

The idea back then was to prevent triggering natural feedback loops that could release massive volumes of greenhouse gases, mainly CO2 and methane, that were safely sequestered underground and on sea and lake beds. We had to curb warming to ensure the tundra remained intact shielding the GHG-rich permafrost beneath while also keeping those frozen seabed clathrates from melting sending streams of pure CO2 bubbling to the surface and then into the atmosphere.

That horse has left the barn. Now wildfires extend far inside the Arctic Circle. Temperatures exceeding 47 Celsius have been recorded.  The Siberian Arctic town Verkhoyansk registered a surface temperature of 118 Fahrenheit.


If the Kyoto accord objective was to not awaken the sleeping giant of natural GHG emissions, we've lost that battle. The Genie is out of the bottle. Until we figure out how to remove a substantial percentage of atmospheric GHG we're in for a very rough ride.

Now our focus has to shift from mitigation to adaptation. This focal shift will be more challenging and far more costly than the mitigation option. It's an economy wrecker.

We've accepted that the only feasible response to sea level rise is to retreat from the sea where  necessary.  Some low-lying coastal areas, those particularly vulnerable to sea level rise, seasonal tides and storm surges will not be habitable. The Dutch have proactively designated areas to be surrendered to the sea. Others will have to follow suit.

Areas plagued with extreme heat waves, wildfires and drought may likewise become unviable. North Americans are especially big consumers of fresh water for drinking, cooking, sanitation, agriculture, manufacturing, ornamentation and recreation. The megadrought underway in the US southwest and elsewhere imperils this activity. All of these impacts carry a significant economic cost.

Our supposed leaders rejected mitigation. One of their favourite excuses was that it might hurt the economy. These fools sold us down the river. The economy is very much at risk, more vulnerable to inaction than we had been given to believe by our leaders.

It's obscene to the point of perverse that our prime minister and his petro-premier pals have thrown 23 billion dollars into pipeline construction and supports in recent years while allocating a comparatively small amount to climate change adaptation.  With a small Canadian town logging Death Valley temperatures, this pipeline fetish is neglect bordering on dereliction.

A recent Angus Reid survey found that the Trudeau Liberals may not be able to ride to electoral glory on the government's spotty pandemic record.  The public focus is changing.  We're less preoccupied with Covid-19. The climate emergency is foremost on our minds. Here the prime minister has delivered only vague and unconvincing promises. The Liberals deserve whatever they have coming. 

I know, I know. The other guy would be worse. That's probably true but that doesn't justify another four years of the "same old, same old."

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