Humanity really is f*****

Graph from Science of the earth’s temperatures going back 11,000 years

The Guardian's Jonathan Kaiman reports today on how China is extremely interested in the Arctic.

Climate change is opening up a new trade route to Europe and access to resources.

I doubt this is news to many, in the general if not the specific. Even the likes of Fox News aficionados are undoubtedly aware that humanity, thanks to warming in the Arctic, has the technical whizz-bang-ness to double down on its own destruction.

It really matters not whether you absorb this news in whatever country you are in or through whatever ideological perspective you filter it through or whichever state of de-Nile you exist in or whether you decide to genuflect to a 'Yellow Peril' meme as you absorb it. It just IS, the outcome is the, global, same.

The world's next superpower is joining the rest of us M'F*****s in the End Times in what the NY Times rightly calls the 21st Century 'Great Game': whoopee, let's exploit the Arctic.

The world's current superpower, despite its leader's pleading, is not going to do anything to stop the Worst Case Scenario. No surprise there then, but ...

Most lefty superstars say sweet FA about climate change. There are no - none, zip, nada - lefty superstars in the entire world who are at all preaching on climate change.

Example: What did Chavez say? Who on the left - or the right!? - writing about Chavez even bothers about what he said on climate?

'Imperialism'? 'Sulfur'? Reams of copy. Role in humanity's end through greenhouse gas production? His thoughts on same? Anyone?

The left could have changed things

The failure of the left internationally to put climate at the top of any agenda is one Very Big Reason why humanity is collectively f*****.

The left has moved all sorts of previous realities for humanity. It's proven that it can be done, that they can play a huge part in shifting humanity's direction.

Apartheid ended, women's position changed, diseases conquered, genocide criminalised ... you could criticise all this and more, its effectiveness or even its worth, but you cannot deny that humanity contains those able to effect massive change.

But climate change, apparently, is not a left-wing priority.

So, it's not just Evil Oilco who are killing us, it's that the human being left-wing has also found anything else but climate to bang on about 24/7, anything other than the thing which will end up killing the left-wing (and everyone else). Thus demonstrating that our f***dness really is collective.

Check any major left wing website and check their reporting. Check any left wing party, anywhere in the world, and what they say and do. Check how much news like today's is highlighted versus the outrage du jour.

Dollars to doughnuts I would bet that that Extremely Large group of humanity called 'the left', everywhere, all the time, is doing practically nothing and saying practically nothing -- which means we're all doomed, evil Oilco exec and angelic Bradley Manning both. It is not hard to see, it is impossible to see from where any change which could save the species will come from, given this unarguable reality.

Nothing of consequence will be said about today's news about China, and nothing of consequence will occur to force carbon pricing in the US. Nothing of consequence will continue to be done by anyone with influence to impact a global climate change chaotic future. This is not pessimism, there is no signal anywhere, no evidence, that this is wrong.

It is not a Daily Telegraph columnist who is responsible, or Shell Oil, or pipeline builders. The likes of them have been stopped before. Look at those who should be leading but do not, who focus elsewhere but on this.

Here's (sorftof) one leftie (sorftof) exception (though, sorftof, making my point). Chomsky on the, shudder, "death knell for the species" (watch, after the jump, although, yes, this old man rambles on in the same droning tone about other stuff too, and perhaps the tone similarity is my problem here ... ):