The Pursuit of Endless Growth Will Only End in Destruction

"Let me start by putting things bluntly: Don't bother to tell Donald Trump, but with his distinct help, we're doing nothing less than cooking ourselves. Thanks to the continued use of fossil fuels in a staggering fashion and the growth of greenhouse-gas emissions, almost half of the world's population now suffers through 30 additional days of extreme heat annually. Heat waves roll in thicker and faster every year."

"On average, according to the medical journal The Lancet, 84 percent of the extremely hot days we've faced over the past five years would not have occurred without human-induced climate change that the American president seems intent on making so much worse. Heat-related deaths are already 63 percent more frequent than in the 1990s. That Lancet article also reported that heat- and drought-related hunger, as well as deaths from wildfire smoke and industrial air pollution, are breaking records globally almost yearly."

"The number of environmental disasters and their destructiveness are only ratcheting up in step with increases in global greenhouse-gas emissions, ever more extraction of key minerals, the ever-greater exploitation of biological resources, and outbreaks of resource wars (most recently with the US assault on Venezuela). All of that is linked to one crucial phenomenon: the single-minded pursuit of economic growth by the owning and investing classes."

Human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions from continued fossil-fuel use have increased extreme heat, producing roughly 30 extra days of extreme heat annually for nearly half the global population. Recent analyses attribute 84 percent of extremely hot days in the past five years to anthropogenic climate change. Heat-related deaths have risen 63 percent compared with the 1990s, and heat-, drought-, wildfire-smoke-, and industrial-pollution-related hunger and fatalities are reaching record levels. Environmental disasters and their severity grow alongside rising emissions, accelerating resource extraction, intensified biological exploitation, and resource conflicts. Global economic expansion has doubled resource extraction every two decades and produced more human-made mass than Earth's biomass.

Read at The Nation