In a desperate attempt to keep economic growth going, the US Base rates have plunged to 0.25% and UK base rates are at a similar level of 0.5%. The central banks have both decided to keep these unchanged and possibly reduce them further. The doubling time at 0.25% is 277 years and at 0.5% it is 138 years. At these rates, young people will never be able to save up for a pension.
As well as not being able to save for their pensions, young people will have to pay for the pensions for those that have just retired. Unfortunately, they will realise that this will be the least of their problems.
CO2 has already exceeded 400ppm. Its rate of increase is increasing and will soon pass 450ppm. The heating it causes is already collapsing the ice caps. Our young people will have to spend all their future building flood defences, rather than saving for their pensions and paying for existing pensioners.
They won’t have enough food to do this because the global population is continuing to grow at 1.13%. At this growth rate, the population will double in 60 years. As many people will be born in this time as has ever been born up to today. To feed them, the same amount of food will have to be grown in the next 60 years as has ever been grown. This must be done while crops are being simultaneously scorched through climate change driven heat waves or flooded through sea level rises.
Expenditure on the world’s military is at its highest level ever and increasing. It is also being used - especially against the poorest. In theory, we should be adding the reconstruction costs to the global economy, but we won’t as we will never rebuild what is being destroyed today. The scale is too great and the resources are already too few. So as we move towards the crisis of climate change, we have already collectively set the process in motion of pulling down much of our critical infrastructure before nature gets chance to do its worse.
This year, 23 million people will be on the move in high-carbon luxury cruise liners across the planet trying to escape the stresses of a high technology society. Meanwhile, 1 million displaced people who are trying to escape the destruction that high technology and climate change can bring are moving through Europe and destroying its ideals of integration and fueling nationalism. The number of displaced people will soon be in the billions unless they are killed by war and starvation first.
Even though sea levels are rising, nearly 400 nuclear reactors remain operational at sea level. Today, Japan is still unable to clean up one flooded nuclear site and the UK is getting into bed with China to build more, despite China’s record of violating international law and policy of implementing global ecocide.
An extra 8 million tonnes of plastic are accumulating in the ocean every year. As this breaks down, a plastic soup is forming and poisoning the entire ocean food chain. The ocean dead zones are joining together to make dead oceans. Soon the only living thing in them will be the crews of nuclear submarines. New fleets of nuclear missile submarines are being planned by all the nuclear weapons states. The only exception is Pakistan, which is fortunately too bankrupt to afford them.
Despite this, governments and political parties still claim that they can deliver economic growth and prosperity and people still vote for those that offer the best hope of achieving this.
Now is the time for your tears. Now is the time to offer your shoulder to your loved ones to cry on.
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