I wrote about this not long ago, the problem with the climate crisis is there's no crisis point.
In a "proper" crisis or perhaps "ordinary" is a better term, there's a point where the leadership needs to drop all other agenda items and focus on the crisis. Whether that's bailing out the economy, starting a war, or calling a new election, there's a time when nothing else matters.
The climate crisis is a thousand individual, distributed, manageable events that happen all the time. Forest fires, floods, storms, they all happen and they're all dealt with locally. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief and moves on. Every time. Forever.
It's the frog boiling analogy. Can we handle x amount of rain? Yes. Can we handle 1.1x? Sure. How about 1.2x floods? Sure. It will be like inflation was to our generation, grandad will tell stories about how you could buy a whole meal for a dollar. Except instead of meals, it's hurricanes.
There doesn't seem to be anything in the context of what you said in your comment that would lead us to a "let's deal with it now" moment. Telling people about the 1 or 2 degrees, sure, they need to know, but it will never bring anyone to a negotiating table.
You'll experience the climate crisis as an ever increasing digital stream of catastrophes captured on cellphone camera until, one day, you're the one doing the filming.
I sincerely hope it won't be necessary, but in Kim Stanley Robinsons book Ministry for the future, there is a wet bulb heat wave that kills hundreds of thousands that serves to at least somewhat galvanize the world into action. Perhaps something like that could be a plausible thing to happen.
In a "proper" crisis or perhaps "ordinary" is a better term, there's a point where the leadership needs to drop all other agenda items and focus on the crisis. Whether that's bailing out the economy, starting a war, or calling a new election, there's a time when nothing else matters.
The climate crisis is a thousand individual, distributed, manageable events that happen all the time. Forest fires, floods, storms, they all happen and they're all dealt with locally. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief and moves on. Every time. Forever.
It's the frog boiling analogy. Can we handle x amount of rain? Yes. Can we handle 1.1x? Sure. How about 1.2x floods? Sure. It will be like inflation was to our generation, grandad will tell stories about how you could buy a whole meal for a dollar. Except instead of meals, it's hurricanes.
There doesn't seem to be anything in the context of what you said in your comment that would lead us to a "let's deal with it now" moment. Telling people about the 1 or 2 degrees, sure, they need to know, but it will never bring anyone to a negotiating table.