Looking for Climate Perps

By Thomas Neuburger

With all that’s gone wrong in the world, it’s easy to forget that climate’s gone wrong as well. (If you’re one of our readers who’s not sure the climate’s at risk, this piece may not be for you. But stay tuned: We’ll return to our other subjects soon.)

For readers who’ve been following closely, you probably know there’s an overarching theme in all of the recent mess.

That theme: We’re not in charge. 

We’re Not in Charge

We’re not in charge of our wars, not us and not Congress, whose members we think we elect. The government now bombs who it pleases, and Congress, with both its parties, bends to executive will.

We’re not in charge of the thugs, official or not, deputized or not, who roam our streets looking to fill immigrant jails with anyone brown. The government now grabs who it pleases.

"ICE agents" in Chicago

We’re not in charge of the laws. The bill that just passed is a massive wealth transfer from, ahem, Trump voters to Trump donors. Unlikely his voters decided to make that happen.

We’re not in charge of our courts, especially the highest, a court that’s been captured for decades, a court that installed its own choice of president and seems certain to rule all of us from a partisan bench.

Amy Comey Barrett, Notre Dame's latest gift to the nation

And we’re not in charge of anything like climate policy, or even climate-related information. This includes the National Weather Service, which, according to Project 2025, needed to be downsized because it and NOAA are part of the “climate change alarm industry.”

How’s that working out? Those killed by floods in Texas weren’t in charge when the NWS was downsized thanks to deep government cuts.

I hope you get the point. We’re not in charge.

The Oven Is Heating Up Faster

As I said above, we’re not in charge of climate change policy. We’re not in charge of slowing fossil fuel exploration, exploitation, production or use. We’re not in charge of curtailing oil and gas subsidies. We’re not in charge of a government that cuts support for renewables, even as a choice. We’re not in charge of billionaire-owned media outlets that hide climate change data from an otherwise distracted public.

As a result, this is happening (h/t Ben See for the chart):

Remember the simple formula:

Energy in (black) – Energy out (red) = Energy retained

These are measurements, not models. Energy retained is increasing. The oven is heating faster. (Heard this in the billionaire press? I haven’t either.)

As a result, we see charts like this more and more often (h/t Eliot Jacobson):

Again, these are measurements, not models.

The chart is in standard deviations. Here’s what a “six standard deviation” or “six sigma” event actually means (emphasis added): “For example, a 6σ event corresponds to a chance of about two parts per billion. … [I]f events are taken to occur daily, this would correspond to an event expected every 1.4 million years” — in other words, so far at the edge of a bell-shaped curve as to be nearly impossible.

The Perp

I promised a perp at the start of this piece. There are many, from recent to distant, from near to far away. But if you take the broadest view, it’s a class of people. You may have guessed who they are. It’s the same group of people responsible for this sad truth:

Here’s what that looks like with respect to climate (h/t Jason Hinkel). Rich nations lopsidedly caused the mess we’re in, including the climate mess. (Note: This is cumulative emissions, not recent emissions.)

 And guess who will suffer most from exposure to extreme heat:

So yes, the Global South will pay with their lives for the Global North’s pathway to wealth. (Interesting that the Global South also suffers our wars.)

But these are effects by nation. Let’s look at more granular suffering.

Click to enlarge (source)

Plenty of publications now say +3°C could be as near as 2050, since estimates of earth’s climate sensitivity keep going up. James Hansen, for example, says that climate sensitivity is 50% greater than the IPCC says it is.

With that in mind, look again at the U.S. in the middle part of the graph. I don’t like what’s going to happen along our East Coast, nor to our Midwest food-growing regions. The risk to life from a heat-humidity combination is going to go up. (For more on heat endurance, see “How Hot Is Too Hot?” here.)

Climate War Is Class War

Yes, rich nations are the perp. But even more, the global wealthy are to blame, wherever they live. Note this stunning chart:

And there you have it. Those who control your lives — those who are in charge — are the beneficiaries, for a while, of the accelerating climate crisis. They’re also the cause.

As Noam Chomsky said:

“I don't know what word in the English language — I can't find one — applies to people who are willing to sacrifice the literal existence of organized human life so they can put a few more dollars into highly stuffed pockets. The word 'evil' doesn't even begin to approach it.”