This week's news stories highlight that the real data is worse than we thought. China's greenhouse gas emissions grew faster than projected. This means the IPCC report was based on data that looked better than the real data. This morning, the story is about glaciers melting faster than expected, which may destabilize India, where the rivers are largely melt water.
I can't remember a major global warming story that showed data which was better than expected. My fear this morning is that if we get far enough behind the global warming curve (if we aren't already - except to quote a popular politician, hope is a good thing), poverty and economic damage will make it worse - the desperate don't care about being green. That's a Maslow's hierarchy thing. I can recycle and buy green products and slowly change my lifestyle (today's puzzle is what to do with end of life battery backup for the desktop computer), but the hungry and sick will have more imperative worries.
The household eleven year old came home and got us all playing a subsistence farming game last week. My game family all slowly died, except the ones I sent away who might have gotten menial jobs, or might have gotten sold into slavery.
Much of the world is waking up to the danger, but there are clear signs of boredom here in America. Climate change should be a top issue in this election, but instead our economy is the top issue. It's not even the war. It's gas being almost half the price of gas in Europe. Which underscores my point above about poverty and economic damage.
Maybe if the data keeps getting worse, climate change will rise to the top after the election.