GENEVA – “Blindly you have ignored the signs; recklessly did you disregard our warnings. Now this world shall burn!” said Dr. Daniel Bernstein at the IPCC’s press conference in Geneva. Bernstein, a scientist who has devoted much of his career to raising awareness of humans’ impact on climate change, described the panel’s latest and most dismal report on greenhouse emissions.
“Events unfold as were foretold. Too long have your rulers ignored our counsel; too late do we realize the folly of our race,” said Bernstein, who has lobbied unsuccessfully for greater regulation on auto emissions. “There can be no victory,” he added.
The new report arrives in the midst of the climate talks in Copenhagen. Describing resistance as “pointless” and our destruction as “inevitable,” the panel’s findings paint a grim picture. Concentrations of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, referred to throughout the report as “the Destroyer of Hope,” are rapidly approaching– if not past– a tipping point. As higher temperatures melt the ice caps, darker sea water is exposed and absorbs even more solar radiation. This causes yet more melting, along with “the end of all things.”
According to the report, ice core samples and the geological record indicate this has all happened before. “Since time before time the world has burned, frozen, thawed, and burned again,” Bernstein explained. “Our entire civilization has existed in the space of a fleeting dream– a dream from which we will soon wake, and dream no more.”
Asked how ordinary people can do their part to help, Bernstein told the assembled members of the press to leave, citing the panel’s recommendation that they embrace their destruction and go die in whatever way seems best to them.
In response to allegations that scientists are exaggerating the data, Bernstein said the public is exaggerating its chances of not dying horribly in the coming climatological holocaust. When asked how much time remains, the scientist’s reply was unclear. “Burning, burning, already burning…,” Bernstein mumbled between cackles, tears flowing down his face.
– Steven Liss
