To think that as long as nation states continue to exist, we will never tackle climate change?

[WallyWallyWally]

I have just been reading about the ongoing international disasterof massive fires in the Amazon. The science is pretty clear that the rainforests have a huge role to play in maintaining a liveable environment for us all... yet the various countries that «own» the rainforest can pretty much do what they want with it, even if that includes exploiting it to the point of destruction.

How can we expect competing nations, each with their own petty little agendas, to protect global resources? Environmental systems don’t respect our borders, so maybe we need a level of governance which also transcends these borders and can go above the squabbling, short-termism of nation states.

Hmm... wish there was an edit feature here: my title and post don’t really match.

I guess I’m saying that if nation states continue to exist as the top level of authority in the world, we won’t be able to tackle global climate issues.

You may have a point but i don’t see a world government any time soon, not least because it wouldn’t stop at environmental authoritarianism. Also, it’s mostly in the West that people disdain ethno-nationalism. In China, for example, it is seen as natural and obvious. Other countries have no separation of religion and politics. And so on.

Yes, DH and I often talk about this, we call it the Star Trek federation solution.
In the future habitable land will have to be protected and shared, the alternative is untenable, as it would involve letting whole populations die out or be killed in resource wars. It's obviously better if this happens in an organised rather than chaotic way.
The problem is doing it in an acceptable way because it would be almost impossible within current democratic + capitalist systems, but people ( myself included) are not keen on autocracy or change.
DH has read a lot of sci -fi, where all current and future issues have been discussed for years, he reckons everyone should read William Gibson!

Unlikely to happen, people generally don’t agree on much, throw in some of the more evil religions and you really won’t achieve anything. Add in massive human populations and you have probable future wars - see Kashmir currently/Syria/Yemen etc

It wouldn’t take the end of nation states to address climate change. If we (enough nations) threatened to bomb the fuck out of the worst offenders (China etc) until they packed it in it would stop. But the most powerful nation is currently being run by climate change deniers

Threatening to bomb a nuclear power is really going to end well for the environment, isn’t it?

Think France has the right idea - we aren’t going to trade with you if you fuck them up. There does need to be some help towards global resources though.

China has nuclear weapons so firing one at them isn’t a great idea apart from the other reasons not to fire one at them.

The reality is people will not stop aspiring to a consumer lifestyle. And it’s not as though even a world government will have a temperature dial in its hand even if it could control everything from birth rates to migration to consumption of carbon.

The only answer will be adaptation. In some cases this will mean technology enabling us to survive warmer temperatures and in other cases it will mean war over scarce resources (which is already happening, always have and always will)

the alternative is untenable, as it would involve letting whole populations die out or be killed in resource wars

Unfortunately I don't think this is untenable: if anything, it's the logical consequence of individual nations taking action to protect their own individual right to develop / consume / produce exploit as best it suits them, or their ruling elite, at any point in time.

I know it will never happen. Humans are tribal, and the nationalistic stories / belief systems that we adhere to so strongly at present are unlikely to be displaced by any "global tribe" narrative any time soon. The real pressure to change this might come when climate change renders large parts of the world uninhabitable and people start to move - in numbers that will make the current "immigrant crisis" in Europe seem like very small potatoes in deed. Maybe that will overwhelm the nationalistic story?