Cav's Place

This year’s Earth Overshoot Day was calculated to be July 30, indicating that humanity’s footprint is 73% higher than what the planet can support, and that may look like an improvement when you see that it was July 24 last year, but it’s not, the actual impact being the worst ever recorded and the improvement coming entirely from some adjustments in the calculations, most of all an increase in the amount of carbon that oceans are assumed to be able to absorb… Which strikes me as highly questionable, considering the state of the oceans.
But the date is little more than a gimmick, a way to get some attention by setting a moment for the news to hit when otherwise it’d be ignored, as permanent, incremental or otherwise long-term issues tend to be. Yet what stands out this year is the report that was also released, analyzing policies from various countries, generally taking multiple scenarios into account, and listing how much they recognize and how well they aim to respond to the problem, the conclusions being as grim as could be expected… And perhaps even more so in some cases, that of the EU most of all, seeing as it ranks among the worst overall, and close to the very bottom in terms of response. And the fact that China’s strategy is by far the best overall, despite remaining very far from what’d be necessary in real terms, should be even more of an embarrassment. Admittedly, one of the scenarios taken into account for France scores much better, and by far the best overall, in terms of response, but far more poorly in terms of recognition, and other French scenarios are far worse, one of them actually being among the very worst.
There is the fact that the authors used AI to analyze the data, and while they used multiple models and state that the results were closely aligned, they readily admit the limitations of the approach and that it’s just a starting point, a proof of concept. But it’s not like the results show anything that’s not painfully obvious for anyone capable and willing to observe what’s happening, and what’s been happening for many decades, and think at least a little. And, after all, this report analyzes what should be in each country’s self-interest to deal with appropriately, not a matter of ethics or even environmentalism, remaining entirely anthropocentric. But, while humans as a whole continue to see themselves as the world’s masters, entitled to exploit and destroy at will, instead of its stewards, responsible for protecting and caring for it, and therefore human interests keep being placed above other species, the environment, or the planet as a whole, decisions are primarily made for money and power, and for the rich and powerful, before even the interests of people in general are taken into account. That’s how it always was and this is how it is… And I don’t see it changing until Earth, and possibly also the Moon or even Mars, will be utterly devastated and the uploaded consciousness of the last of the ultra-rich will waste away, stuck in a computer from a dilapidated bunker, or probably a space station, after the last cyborg body that could be put together broke down.