“Maybe it is the name that is the problem. Climate change. It doesn’t sound that bad. The word ‘change’ resonates quite pleasantly in our restless world. No matter how fortunate we are, there is always room for the appealing possibility of improvement. Then there is the ‘climate’ part. Again, it does not sound so bad. … A changing world. A warming planet. What’s not to like?

Perhaps that is partly why so many people still think of climate change as a slow, linear and even rather harmless process. But the climate is not just changing. It is destabilising. It is breaking down. … There are … points of no return. And we do not know exactly when we might cross them. What we do know, however, is that they are getting awfully close, even the really big ones. …

The German oceanographer and climatologist Stefan Rahmstorf writes: ‘We have enough ice on Earth to raise sea levels by 65 metres … and, at the end of the last ice age, sea levels rose by 120 metres as a result of about 5C of warming.’ Taken together, these figures give us a perspective on the powers we are dealing with. Sea-level rise will not remain a question of centimetres for very long. …”

aus: Greta Thunberg: We’ve been greenwashed out of our senses. It’s time to stand our ground, The Guardian online, 8.10.22, im Internet

Abb.: Banksy.

10/22