My Green Party and Extinction Rebellion colleague Professor Rupert Read has managed to get hold of a high level report from the world's largest financier of fossil fuels that warns its clients that the climate crisis threatens the very survival of humanity, and that the planet is on an unsustainable trajectory.
The report, which is dated 14th January 2020, and is co-authored by JP Morgan economists David Mackie and Jessica Murray, states:
“We cannot rule out catastrophic outcomes where human life as we know it is threatened,” and:
“Although precise predictions are not possible, it is clear that the Earth is on an unsustainable trajectory. Something will have to change at some point if the human race is going to survive.”
This is astounding stuff. JP Morgan are a business that make most of its vast profits from investing billions of dollars into the most dangerous and carbon intensive industries such as oil and gas exploration and extraction, fracking, and mining. And they are advising their own clients that what they are doing is likely to lead to the end of the human race. But they are keeping on doing it anyway. Why is this story not on the front pages of every news outlet on the planet? Why are Governments not putting all their efforts onto tackling the issue? Is the end of humanity not important enough? Clearly not, looking at today's headlines about rifts in the Royal Family and expense claims in the House of Lords. It is the biggest case of cognitive dissonance that I can imagine. We now know that our lifestyles and behavior will lead to irreversible climate change that threatens the very survival of our species. All of the scientists are saying it. All of our Governments have produced reports warning of it. But the actions that we need to take now to mitigate the worst effects of it are hard, and they threaten the comfortable and privileged lives that we lead. Our future, changed lifestyles will need to be less comfortable and will require more challenges and sacrifices, and we don't like the thought of that, so we put our collective fingers in our ears, sing 'LALALALALALA' and hope that it will go away. And the six billion humans who don't live in the privileged west and who don't live our comfortable and wasteful lives point at us and say: "But look! You have been living that life for decades by stealing our resources and perpetuating massive wealth inequality, and we don't want to accept that we can now never aspire to live such lives ourselves!" But if we don't change, we are doomed. Even the architects and enablers of that doom are now saying it. But I suspect that those at the very top; the 1%; know it too, but they know that they will be the last of humanity to give up their privilege. Sacrifice is for the poor and the downtrodden. The 1% will build walls, dig bunkers, hire security, and put up the biggest literal and metaphorical barriers that they can to protect what they have for as long as they can. But one day, when there is no-one left to produce their food or to man their barricades, they will fall too. Unless by some miracle we all, all of humanity, manage to get our act together, work together for the sake of ALL of us, and make the changes that we know that we need to. I am by nature an optimist, but at this moment I have never been so pessimistic about our future.
What evidence do I have for what I have just said? With thanks to Rupert Read, here are some screenshots of the JP Morgan reports conclusions:
I have also listed links to reports from the United Nations and from the UK Government in my earlier blog posts. The warnings are coming from the very top, and still we try to carry on as if everything will be OK.
The one positive note is that lots of us are now starting to realise that this IS serious, and even our Governments are starting to introduce small measures such as phasing out petrol vehicles. But this change is still glacially slow compared with what is required if we are achieve a limit of 1.5% warming of the planet compared to pre-industrial levels, and it is quite possible that this is not even now an achievable target. Even the financiers of the climate crisis and the Governor of the Bank of England are saying publicly that investing in oil and gas is 'a bad thing' economically (as if profit is more important than life itself) and that investors should divest from fossil fuels. It is up to ALL of us to demand that our Governments do more, more quickly. For the sake of our children and of all life on earth. And that is why I rebel. And so should you.