The Fate of Humanity

Karoline Leavitt called the catastrophic flooding in Texas “an act of God.” President Trump told reporters, “Nobody expected it. Nobody saw it.” Yet, the New York Times said Kerr County was “a part of Texas known as Flash Flood Alley.” Residents of flood alley witnessed devastating deluges in 1987, 1998, and 2015. The Times said there were “at least three occasions between 2017 and 2024 when local officials [in Kerr County] sought funding for a flood warning system but were rebuffed by the state.”

The state response matched the federal response. Politico wrote, “President Donald Trump’s latest climate rollback makes it all but official: The United States is giving up on trying to stop the planet’s warming.” The climate rollback was Trump’s lavish gift to oil and gas companies.

The administration’s targeted attack against any public safety net to combat climate chaos showed in Texas. CNN wrote, “[Homeland Security Secretary Kristi] Noem didn’t authorize FEMA’s deployment of Urban Search and Rescue teams until Monday, more than 72 hours after the flooding began.”

The US government has abandoned the country. Meanwhile, catastrophic floods and apocalyptic heat intensify and increase. NBC News said, “In less than a week, there were at least four 1-in-1,000-year rainfall events across the United States.” The Associated Press reported, “Human-caused climate change is responsible for killing about 1,500 people in last week’s European heat wave.” The total death toll of the heatwave “could be up to tens of thousands of people.”

It’s a fact that humans burning fossil fuels is the root cause of global warming, full stop. That’s the conclusion of NASA, the EPA, and 97% of climate scientists. The Global Tipping Point Conference concluded that global warming was “placing humanity in the danger zone where multiple climate tipping points pose catastrophic risks to billions of people.”

By 2050, the Institute for Economics and Peace estimated “that 1.2 billion people could be displaced globally,” because of climate chaos. The Deloitte Center for Sustainable Progress wrote, “climate change could cost the global economy US$178 trillion over the next 50 years.” The Australian Antarctic Research Conference stated, “Runaway ice loss causing rapid and catastrophic sea level rise is possible within our lifetimes.”

Yet, the Forbes top fifty largest corporations in the world included seven corporations that burn fossil fuels for profit. These oil and gas companies raked in over $219.33 billion last year, despite the predictable consequences. The Lancet wrote, “pollution remains responsible for approximately 9 million deaths per year.” In Texas, the Times said, “The disaster ranks as one of the deadliest for children in the United States.”

The fate of humanity rides on the decisions we make today about global warming. We must choose between corporate profits, or a future for our children and grandchildren. Our corporate owners (the ruling class) chose greed. ‘We the people’ must educate and organize. Otherwise, the future will be the one described by Israeli climatologist Baruch Rinkevich. “Our children will have to adapt or become extinct.”

Anton Porcari

Print this entry