A Feast in Time of Plague

Last week, the media around the world has done nothing but joke and gossip light-heartedly about the life of celebrities, their way of living, sexy outfits and blatantly immoral actions. 

Are they trying to distract our attention? Or are they intentionally hiding what we can call direct threats to our existence? And I am not talking about the horror stories the environmentalists like to put out – we have official facts: on August 26 of this year the temperature in the south of the Arctic Circle reached a record high of almost 35°C. The day before, the temperature was 27°C, and on August 27, the measurements showed 32°C, confirming a trend in stable catastrophic changes in temperature and climate. 

Furthermore, official reports say that the Arctic Ocean sea ice extent has already declined by 20%, and the NOAA (U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has recorded a new temperature high in Alaska, where the air warmed up to 32.2o C, resulting in an outburst of forest fires and massive loss of salmon. And this is not all the bad news - a little earlier, the 700-year-old glacier Oküeküdl close to Iceland ceased its existence; it completely melted; while in July and August, the Greenland ice sheet lost 12.5 billion tonnes of ice. The total amount of ice that melted in two days in Greenland would have been enough to cover Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium in a five-centimeter layer of water. In total, Greenland has lost 250 billion tonnes of ice so far this year. In three years, Greenland will lose enough ice to cover the abovementioned European countries in a 15- or 20-centimeter layer of water. There is no reason to doubt the forecasted data, since the consumption policy of Homo Consumers' has led to the highest CО2 emissions in recent millennia: in April 2019, the average concentration of CO2 exceeded 415.26 ppm. This means that every cubic meter of air contains at least 415 milliliters of carbon dioxide. 

Restoring the planet to its original, "normal" environmental conditions will cost the world enormous sums of money. In addition to the need for millions of volunteers to change their minds and become Eco Sapiens willing to work to improve the state of planet Earth, each country will be required to make a major financial contribution every day. For Russia alone, restoration of forests and residential and social infrastructure in the aftermath of the Siberian fires and floods will cost more than $4 billion; while Brazil will be required to fork out about $3 billion. Global elimination of the overall consequences of the anthropogenic impact on the environment has already reached $40 billion. And these amounts will undoubtedly grow constantly. No state budget can cope with the impending environmental disaster without the help of its citizens. Therefore, I propose introducing an individual tax on environmental protection to be levied on individuals all over the world.

The situation does not bode well: I have repeatedly talked in my articles and interviews about what our planet can expect in the next 20-30 years (maybe even earlier) in these conditions, given our indifference to the environment and our tendency toward uncontrollable consumption. The rise in temperature will mean that in five years’ time the notion of seasons will no longer be relevant: in January, there will be several different temperature regimes, from minus to abrupt pluses; the same will apply to July, which is usually hot. The disappearance of seasons will lead to the complete destruction of natural agriculture, so in order to avoid hunger crematoriums and cemeteries will need to become workshops for manufacturing protein to replenish the food program.

I will remind you that when the temperature of the world's oceans rises to 21°C and that of the Arctic Ocean to 9-10°C, the overall atmospheric temperature will rise by 2-3 degrees and, as a result, there will be a massive release of the methane accumulated in the oceans and permafrost zones. The planet will burn for 50-100 thousand years, destroying all life. 

What can we do? How can we save the planet? The only solution is for a team of scientists from around the world to put their heads together in order to develop ways, methods and equipment to remove the large amounts of artificially accumulated CO2 from the atmosphere in order to reduce the impact of greenhouse gases on climate change. 

On September 28-29, the first meeting of the Hamburg Club and the International Committee for Saving the Planet will be held in Moscow: in terms of its environmental resources, Russia is the Earth's greatest buffer. The Committee includes the leading scientific minds and intellectuals of our time, as well as all those who care about the environmental state of the planet and do not wish to see the destruction of modern civilization. The Committee's task is to convey to the world's leaders the need to take urgent action by taking the initiative and political will upon itself.

We are taking applications from scientists and environmentalists from all over the world who wish to participate in the Committee meeting – please write us personal messages on our website or send letters directly to me at apotemkin25@gmail.com