Another day, another climate change warning.

I know I wrote about this theme only a few posts ago, but it seems to weigh heavy on my mind: I see no evidence that us humans are doing enough to meaningfully combat climate change. And I doubt we're capable of it in the first place: the worldwide culture of energy-waste is just too strong.

"[U]nless the world makes some drastic and immediate changes to combat the damage already done, hundreds of millions of people may be irreversibly imperiled by drought, flooding, extreme heat and increased poverty in the decades to come."https://t.co/3Wy2le4SMI

— Jeffrey Nordstrom (@jeffnords) January 8, 2019

In this article from the Smithsonian Magazine, the byline says enough to make my heart sink: "if we maintain carbon-emission status quo" is essentially doom-in-a-clause, since the status quo is absolutely unlikely to change. That's how the status quo works. And on a worldwide level, we're going to keep on maintaining that carbon-pumping status quo.

For the last few summers, us Pacific Northwest folks had to deal with wildfire smoke. At the beginning, I remember it feeling kind-of magical to see the dusty hues in photographs and whatnot. But this summer, the wildfire smoke lasted for weeks. And, sadly, it started to feel normal.

I'm not trying to be defeatist, but I don't want to psyche myself up to thinking we can turn something around when humanity's never acted as such a unified front before, particularly for a process that, if we do it right, will likely take decades to complete. We need to do what we can, but we also need to understand that as long as there are profits to be made, as long as there's oil to extract, as long as there are forests to burn, our climate will keep changing. No magic or technology will reverse the process without worldwide determination for centuries. 

And I have trouble believing we can do anything to curb that trend.