滅劫始也終及朗眼

Eight years ago, I recorded a piece of music titled 滅劫始也終及朗眼, which roughly translates as “finally achieving clear vision, just when the era/kalpa of destruction is beginning”. Its underlying idea is a juxtaposition of despair, sadness, and resignation due to a realization of very dark times ahead with elation due to a sudden discovery or great insight (which, given the circumstances, will probably be entirely useless). It switches back and forth between these two moods (but not very often as the piece is very slow).

I was reminded of this piece of music while reading Bill McKibben’s recent book, Here Comes the Sun.¹ In that book, McKibben argues convincingly that the technological development of wind and solar energy in the last decade or so has already made these cheaper than most other energy sources (and certainly cheaper than burning fossil fuels or nuclear energy), and will continue to make them even cheaper in the near future. Furthermore, resource limitations appear to be far less problematic than many pessimists – me included – feared. Hence, a complete transition to “green”, renewable energy is now technologically and economically possible. That’s the reason for elation. That’s why McKibben’s book has the subtitle “a last chance for the climate and a fresh chance for civilization”.

What he mostly ignores in his book, however, is that not all CO₂ emissions are energy-related. There are also significant industrial and agricultural emissions, for example, and wind and solar will do nothing to curb those. In 2024, I estimated residual emissions – that is, carbon emissions that we cannot reasonably avoid at the current state of technology (or at least not while maintaining something like current life styles) – at roughly 36% of total emissions. Technology advances, of course, and this percentage is likely to go down. In another article posted last year, I mentioned a lower percentage based on a new calculation of residual emissions assuming “moderate science fiction technology”, which I defined there as “things that might become possible this century”. However, “even when I was very optimistic about technological progress and the adoption rates of new technology (probably ridiculously optimistic even), I could not get residual emissions below 22%”.² In that article I made some other extremely “optimistic” assumptions about the adoption and spread of “green” technology – much like what McKibben hopes for – leading to the conclusion that this would result in average global warming of 4°C by the end of the century, even before various tipping points kick in.

I’m getting rather tired of describing the effects of levels of warming that high. Human civilization is unlikely to survive. Human’s might survive, but in extremely hostile conditions, and if we warm up the planet that much the total human population by the end of the current century is likely to be closer to one billion or even less than to current global population. But at levels of warming that high, we’ll cross several tipping points that may push Earth into a new equilibrium climate so hostile that it will result in human extinction. In any case, at 4°C, much of the planet would (will?) be uninhabitable, and even the somewhat inhabitable parts will be continuously battered by natural disasters and a violent struggle for survival.³

We could be even more “optimistic”, of course. In principle it is possible to switch to “green” energy even faster, to somehow (magically?) reduce residual emissions even faster, to develop and adopt new technology even faster. Maybe, then, we can limit average global warming to a mere 3°C or even a few tenth of degrees less than that. That is what Mckibben is aiming for. And that is what all of us should be aiming for! As at the current state of things, that is the only thing we can do if we want our children to inherit a somewhat inhabitable world.

But this brings us to the real problem – and that is a problem McKibben is very much aware of (so, this article should not be interpreted as a critique of his book). Even though wind and solar are becoming cheaper and cheaper, they will never be as profitable as fossil fuels, and the reason for that is that in case of wind and solar, the “fuel” is free. The main profits related to fossil fuels aren’t made in selling us the things that burn that fuel, but in selling us the fuel to burn. In case of wind and solar, the only money to be made is in selling wind mills and solar panels. Financially, that’s not very interesting, however. There just isn’t enough money to be made there in the eyes of the financial industry and the fossil fuel industry (which are closely allied). And those decide what will be done. The fossil fuel industry bought the current US presidency, and dictates government policy in many other countries a well. And the financial industry is even more powerful.⁴ The financial industry, the fossil fuel industry, and the parasite class that controls and profits from these industries will do everything they can to obstruct the spread of “green” technology that threatens their fossil-fuel-based profits.

The piece of music I mentioned in the first paragraph of this article ends in a kind of quiet resignation, but that is not the appropriate ending here. Quiet resignation only helps the parasite class, as it will allow them to continue to profit from destroying the world.⁵ The only appropriate response is rage.⁶ Violent rage. McKibben is right that there still is “a last chance for the climate and a fresh chance for civilization” (i.e., his subtitle), but the only way to grasp that chance is to bring down the parasite class in a haze of bullets first. Only when the costs of greed-driven destruction of Earth and its future becomes greater than the profits gained from that destruction, will the destruction stop. If we want our planet and our children to have a fighting chance of survival, we (or some of us, at least) will have to fight indeed. We’re at war, but we’re not fighting, and without fighting we lose. Without fighting, we don’t just lose this war – we’ll lose everything.

But I’m not a fighter. I’m a reader, a thinker, a teacher, and many other things, … and a coward. And so are many of us. Too many. And realizing that turns the rage I should feel into quiet despair. Not resignation – as in the piece of music above – but despair. And so the parasite class (still) wins.

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1. Bill McKibben (2025), Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization (W.W. Norton).
2. On “Pessimism” and “Optimism” about Climate Change; and on SRM as a “Cheap Fix”.
3. For more about the effects of 4°C, see On “Pessimism” and “Optimism” about Climate Change; and on SRM as a “Cheap Fix”.
4. About this topic, see a.o. Enemies of Our Children; Cost-Benefit Analysis, Climate Policy, and the Parasite Class; and The War Against Humanity.
5. This is the main argument against so-called “doomism”.
6. See also: Fictionalism – or: Vaihinger, Scheffler, and Kübler-Ross at the End of the World; and Facing the Anthropocene – Attitudes towards Climate Change.