The ice melts from above, the ice melts from below, our lovely ice buffers will be gone before we know.

And then what do we get?

A lesson on heat of fusion, and what happens when the ocean can’t soak up 90% of our extra heat anymore.

After that comes death. For the oceans, for their fish, for the crops, and for us.

Maybe we could stop it and maybe we couldn’t, but we won’t come together and we won’t think critically about our own action: We won’t stop it. Life isn’t some neoliberal swill like The Ministry for the Future - just look at the failure and fraud in the carbon credit industry. Economic incentives won’t suddenly cause cooperation, they’ll just get soaked up by corrupt parties with nothing to show for it. And there is nowhere near enough anti-capitalist sentiment left on the planet for an alternative to arise.

The burnout in climate science is real. The more people learn, the more they understand the scale of the problem, and the more they understand the impossibility of saving the planet. Meanwhile they are defending attacks from both sides - naive masses who are gaslit on corporate greenwashing on one side, and the executive and investor class on the other side. (At least the naive ones think they’re doing a good thing, when they are spreading the very hopium that lulls us into deadly inaction.) When the data indicates that collapse is already here, what’s the point of obsessing over it if no one will listen to you and no one wants to fund you (at least, not to speak the truth)?

The North Atlantic is likely undergoing a regime change. When El Nino conditions end, the North Atlantic will likely not return to its baseline metrics. Meanwhile, ice extent (and therefore also albedo) recovery is dismal in the Antarctic this winter. The permafrost will continue to thaw releasing methane, glaciers will melt causing upheavals, and the boreal forests will continue to burn and release their carbon and accelerated rates. 2024 is going to be a rough year with El Nino in full swing, but the truth is that every year from here on out is going to be ‘interesting.’