The Age of Stupid

i felt very sad after watching the show on CNA, because people know about global warming and claim to be concerned about it but their actions show otherwise. In The Age of Stupid which is set in the near future, global warming has moved past the tipping point and human civilization exists only as a mere memory stored in hard disks by a lone survivor who escaped to the tip of the arctic. The main character reviews our behaviour today, showing how we could have stopped the problem but simply failed to do so, and its just depressing.

Cheap alternative sources of energy aside, people fail to recognise global warming as a critical issue because it is a long term problem where the effects are not directly felt until it is too late. Politicians and businessmen are focused more on the short term; staying in power or lining their own pockets rather than saving this world for the next generation. Furthermore, it is a global problem which requires everyone to work together, and since reducing emissions has an economic cost, no one wants to do it unless everyone else does it, so it just leads to alot of wrangling and bitching and at the end of the day nothing is done.

All it takes is 2oC to go past the tipping point, the point of no return..

At the moment, simply not enough is being done. From my sustainable dev mod, i learnt that the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme which is supposed to help the EU ratify the Kyoto Protocol has been a complete failure and only serves as a platform for countries to show that they are concerned about global warming while actually not doing anything about it. Worse still, loopholes in the system has enabled companies to make windfall profits from exploiting the system and not by reducing emissions.

Whether humanity is saved from global warming or not, the world will face upheaval in the next 60 years or so. If we fail, human civilisation is destroyed and if we succeed, the quality of life will definitely fall to say the least, not to mention inevitable conflict over resources.

One particular scene from the show that stood out showed triumphant farmers exiting a town hall in the UK after successfully lobbying against the installation of wind farms in the area. Their reason? The spinning wind turbines were distracting and would spoil the view. When asked whether she knew about global warming, one farmer said, "Of course (condescending laugh) we know about it, it concerns everyone on the planet. We are all doing our bit, looking at alternative energies.." after which she starting laughing again, presumably realising she was making a fool of herself. It made me want to build a time machine so i can go back in time and smack her in front of the camera..

Indeed, as the narrator said, if we fail to save this planet, it may be because deep down, we realise we were not worth saving..