Moves and (climate) changes

[GliderGuider]

I live in Ottawa, exactly halfway between the equator and the North Pole. Here we are strongly affected by the polar jet stream - a jet stream that is going ever more berserk as the polar-equatorial thermal gradient flattens out due to polar amplification.

I expect to live until 2040 or so. If I am so blessed I will experience the average temperature at this latitude climbing by over another degree. Possibly it will rise even more, since the projections I ran this morning obviously can't include the effects of accelerating methane feedback that is just beginning.

My heart breaks for the world, and especially for the new-born children.

I will not be moving away from here, in some desperate attempt to beat the odds and find a place that might better nurture my personal survival. There are people everywhere. All of us will need help, compassion and understanding as events unfold. Those who live around me, right here, will need as much help as those anywhere else. This is my choice.

As our awareness grows, those of us who are in the vanguard may find ourselves cast in the unanticipated role of Bodhisattvas to a world plunging deeper into physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual suffering. May my awareness be in the service of all who are in need.

[Autumn]

1. I don't think there is any beating the odds on this.

I think it's over.

[Binkie The Clown]

2. Barring rescue by benevolent aliens, the human race is toast.

In other words, the human race is toast.

[mackdaddy]

3. I think their future curves are way too flat.

Even the scientist do not seem to understand "exponential".

[Boomer]

4. I'll probably have checked out by 2035

That would be the most optimistic expectation, if "optimism" is even an appropriate term under the circumstances.

I'll live just long enough to see the unraveling begin, I may even be touched by it to some degree. Worst case scenario... that's an increasing possibility, too, but I'm not going to uproot my entire life to eke out an additional few years living off the grid. Those are resources better spent on a young person than on me. As a web developer my "life skills" will be useless once the infrastructure falls apart.

[GliderGuider]

5. Middle class white male privilege and suicide

Suicide is always an ethical option, one that will be chosen by many in the coming years. I might choose it myself, I don't know yet.

I often think about the degree to which my attitudes and choices are shaped by my circumstances. As an educated North American middle class white male I am among the most privileged people on the planet. That privilege is what allows me to think of myself as a Bodhisattva to the privileged, and to contemplate suicide if the shit gets too deep.

I have largely forgiven myself for who I am, and I've accepted that I can only act out of the circumstances I am in and the person I am. I have no way of knowing if I will follow one of those two paths (one toward transcendence and the other leading to self-annihilation) or if changing circumstances will send me in some other direction entirely. If they do, I hope that my practice of accepting change, no matter how large or negative, will stand me in good stead.