So Why Is a Warmer Earth a Big Deal?

At 3.5 degrees centigrade of warming  low-lying coastal areas are part of the ocean instead of part of the land. In some places whole islands, including a number of inhabited island nations are underwater.

And we aren't talking about sparsely inhabited places. Most of these areas have pretty dense populations, and quite a few are highly developed areas with lots of commerce and industry. So we are looking at really significant impacts to the global economy, and major centers of population with spillover effects of all sorts across the world.

A 3.5 degree rise if faced with the sort of total political disarray we have now will lead to chaotic destruction and unimaginable amounts of suffering on the part of unimaginable numbers of people. But it's not a necessary result. It's the default if the way of our world just keeps on keeping on as it is.

None of the old ways of doing things can meet and avert the present crisis. Transformation is needed. Seeds of it have been and are being planted all around us to those with eyes to see, and ears to hear. But for the most part the places of power and the engines of power are deaf and blind.

All nations of the world are affected, and right now we have a zero level of preparedness and prevention.

Climate is a system and earth's human society is a system. The two systems are colliding in a negative feedback loop. That has to change. Nature changes, but on nature's time scales, not ours. If we want something other than a total collapse of civilization, we need to be working for it, and working for it now.

The situation is far from hopeless. Transformation is really possible. The first thing we need to do is either to open the eyes and ears of the places (governments) and engines (corporations) of power, or people, (you, me, and our neighbors on the street all across the world) need to claim their own power and act locally for the kinds of changes we need.

Getting a Congress who could see, and hear, and respond in appropriate ways to the challenges of the 21st century would be really helpful. But nothing is tying our hands.