Former US President Barack Obama is a learned man, he accomplished a lot during his presidency. The biggest achievement is getting a country to vote for a liberal Black man twice during the war on terror era. So when he says that humans could as well be extinct in 100 years then we shouldn’t take those words lightly. Obama spoke out about his thoughts on the Ezra Klein Show.
The podcast covered a myriad of topics ranging from partisan politics, UFOs, the impacts of his presidency, and what has happened since then. They even talked about racial justice and the position of humanity in space. Cool podcast if you ask me. The biggest topic sparked when Obama was asked what he thinks we, as a society, would be judged the most harshly for in the year 2121.
This question led Obama to talk about climate. Obama said that “Well, if we don’t get a handle on climate change, then if there’s anybody around to judge us, they’ll judge us pretty harshly on it, because the data is here. We know it. And we have the tools to make real progress with it”. We couldn’t agree with him more, the situation is still controllable. If we get a hand on things, dial down on the carbon emissions, and maybe ban crypto mining (just a thought).
Obama was exaggerating for effect but the point still remains. Even the most alarming predictions for climate-related extinctions are pretty far away but that’s no excuse. Obama’s main point was to make the Earth habitable for future generations. The pandemic has shown us that investing in health and medicine isn’t such a bad idea. So if we invest in reducing carbon emissions to help the climate, we’re helping generations to come.
Investing in climate control is costly but the pandemic has opened people up to the idea that we can actually afford to do it and the benefits outweigh the costs. Sri Lanka is already suffering from a single container ship explosion. Theirs are now covered with toxic plastic pellets. An Australian climate change analysis also said that human society could collapse by 2050.
Other than that Obama also recommended some books as well. I’ll tell you guys later if they are good or not.