Stephen Barlow Profile picture
Dec 14 22 tweets 6 min read Read on X
I've been around a fair bit, coming up to my 65th year, and I started to become aware of the global situation before I was even 10, it was still in the 1960s. Becoming fully environmentally aware by time I was 10. I was born only 15 years after WW2.
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My only point here is that I've seen much of the post-WW2 world happen, first hand, and was aware of the bit before me, by people who had lived through it. WW2 veterans were younger than I am now, and WW1 veterans just a bit older, or even the same age.
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Much of the world as we know it now, only really formed in this post-war period, even if some of it had roots, a bit earlier. My great-grandmother who was alive until I was 14, was born less than 10 years after the American Civil War ended.
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Most of the progress, people take for granted, and the higher standards of living for the working class, only really happened in the post-war period. The late great Harry Leslie Smith, documented working class poverty, pre-WW2.

4/theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
In other words, most of what people take for granted now, has only existed in the lifetime of people, who are still alive now. Both my parents, still alive now, were born in the first half of the 1930s.#
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We face losing all that progress, indeed much of humanity, and our civilization, due to the failure of our leadership, to address the climate and ecological emergency, which has been well known, for over half a century.

6/un.org/en/conferences…
So it's not like our leadership wasn't warned. In fact, all our governments committed to major action to address the climate crisis, to greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to create sustainable societies in 1992.

7/un.org/en/conferences…
Unfortunately, our leadership, our governments did precisely nothing, and we are now on course to an unliveable world.

Our leadership, still does nothing, they promise action, and then do nothing.

8/france24.com/en/video/20220…
Even the UN Secretary General calls our leadership, liars, and the last 32 years "Litany of broken climate promises".

Our leaders could have acted, but didn't. For decades, people voted for governments promising climate action, but got no action.
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It's not just a climate disaster, but a general social disaster in the making. This decade upon decade improvement of social standards, living standards in the rich developed nations, has ground to a halt, or reversed.
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The only positive social trend, rapidly increasing, is the wealth of the very rich, the billionaires, which is increasing exponentially. As they say, if you want to know what is happening and why, then follow the money trail.

11/oxfam.org.uk/media/press-re…
If you want to know why our governments have failed to address the climate and ecological crisis, why social progress has ground to a halt, and why the living standards of ordinary people, are declining, look to the top 1%, really the top 0.1%.

12/theguardian.com/environment/20…
It's not immigrants, or the poorest people. The top 1% produce more carbon emissions, than the bottom 66%. It's the billionaires who have sucked most of the prosperity and progress out of our societies.

13/oxfam.org.uk/media/press-re…
The reason ordinary people seek scapegoats like immigrants, is the oligarchs own the media, and so they use that power, to pump out propaganda to mislead ordinary people to mistakenly think that it's immigrants stealing their wealth.

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They billionaires and the other very rich, bankroll and promote extreme right wing politics, climate change denial, anti-immigrant sentiment, as a distraction, and because right wing politicians offer to cut taxes to the very rich.
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The very rich are opposed to climate action, because of their massive personal emissions.

"It says a 60% tax on the incomes of the wealthiest 1% would raise $6.4tn a year and could cut emissions by 695m tonnes"

16/theguardian.com/environment/20…
In other words, both the causes of this rot of our societies, why were are heading towards the collapse of our civilization, and the way to reverse this are clear.

The obstacle to addressing this crisis is the incredible wealth and power of a few.

17/pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…
The exponential growth of the wealth of billionaires, is essentially a malignancy, in our societies, an out of control cancer, because they refuse to regulate their behaviour.

18/visualcapitalist.com/when-could-bil…
No one could spend a billion, yet a trillion in their lifetime. So why are already stupendously rich people, taking the existence of our societies and civilization, to the very brink, to get even richer? It's not rational.
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If the richest people in our society, were thinking clearly and had a functioning moral compass, they'd say, my addiction has gone too far. There'd be a billionaires anonymous, and Jeff, Elon et al, would be putting their hand up, and saying, I'm an addict.
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These people need tough love from the vast majority, to get them off their addiction, and stop their anti-social behaviour.

Nothing I say, is ideological. It's all about sustainability, the survival of humanity, and the survival of much life on Earth.

21/theguardian.com/environment/20…
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More from @SteB777

Dec 15
A few more points about the 1%. As I've said, it's not something you're in, or you're not in.

The actual web of key individuals, who can make decisions, which affect millions or even billions, are all in the top 1%. But most in the top 1% don't have anywhere near that power.
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Nevertheless, it would be rare, to non-existent, to find a key decision maker, who's decisions can affect the lives of many, who is not in the top 1%.

In other words, it narrows down the search for where to look. If someone is not in the top 1%, it's unlikely they are key.
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I'm not meaning to imply that all those in the top 1%, are engaged in some sort of conspiracy against us. However, as they have far more money, have the most to lose from a high top rate tax, they will be far more sympathetic to tax cuts for the rich, and those pushing them.
3/
Read 19 tweets
Dec 15
I find myself variously accused of scapegoating the rich, envy, of being a left wing ideologue etc.

All this is false, everything I say is about sustainability, the long term survival of humanity, and our societies. I'm trying to clarify thinking.

1/threadreaderapp.com/thread/1868193…
I do not claim to have all the answers. However, there are certain core aspects of the problem, which must be addressed, if we are to address the climate and ecological crisis, and to avoid the collapse of our civilization.

2/pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…
I have spent over 50 years, thinking about this in enormous depth. Not thinking I knew the answers, just to understand the overall situation, what was the right thinking, and what was mistaken.
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Read 17 tweets
Dec 15
Just some notes about my use of the top 1% of the richest people in the world, being both responsible for the climate and ecological crisis, and in obstructing attempts to address it, to maintain their lifestyles.

1/🧵threadreaderapp.com/thread/1867722…
I always get similar responses, falsely claiming that most people in the developed world, are in the global richest top 1%. Simple arithmetic proves that this is a false claim. The US population alone is 4.23% of the global population.

2/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demograph…
The population of the richest countries, in total, is much bigger than the population of the US. You can't give an exact figure, because of the problem of defining it. But it must be in excess of 10% of the global population, probably by some way.
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Read 24 tweets
Dec 15
@JillBelch Just a few notes on climate change, carrying capacity, at different levels of warming/ecological damage. I've been thinking about this very deeply, for over 50 years, since I was about 10. At first the ecological crisis, later climate.

I'm puzzled at conventional thinking.
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@JillBelch Firstly, what I find odd and very worrying, is the complete failure for anyone to study, the stability of our civilization in relation to unfolding ecological and climate impacts. I mean, quite literally no one is studying it. See here.

2/pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…
@JillBelch If you say, the carrying capacity of the Earth is 1 billion, at 4C, what does this actually mean?

Pre-industrial revolution, the global population was well under a billion, and had taken about 1000 years to double.

3/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimates…
Read 21 tweets
Dec 14
All the people who seem to be either climate change deniers, or climate crisis deniers (I will explain the difference), are by no coincidence, also believers in the continuing use of high levels of fossil fuels.
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I class someone who is a climate change denier, as someone who disputes at least some part of the science, showing that climate change is primarily due to anthropogenic carbon emissions. Such as claiming that climate change is natural, or the climate is constantly changing.
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Whereas I class a climate crisis denier as someone who appears to accept the science, but who fails to acknowledge, that we must greatly reduce carbon emissions, to avert climate catastrophe.
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Read 21 tweets
Dec 11
We are starting to see a consistent pattern across the globe:

"Arctic tundra is now emitting more carbon than it absorbs, US agency says"

1/🧵theguardian.com/world/2024/dec…
"Amazon rainforest now emitting more CO2 than it absorbs"

All the worlds great natural carbon sinks, are shifting from absorbing, and storing, carbon, to emitting it.

2/theguardian.com/environment/20…
I explained the other day, how peatlands, one of the world's greatest carbon sinks, are shifting, from absorbing and storing carbon, to being net emitters of carbon.

3/threadreaderapp.com/thread/1865603…
Read 19 tweets

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