I’m feeling so uneasy with everything I’ve been seeing. I keep thinking about what we will be this time next year, and if shit hits the fan, what is your plan? I’m queer and was politically active in 2020, so I would potentially be considered a political enemy.
The only blueprint I can think of is what you do in an active shooter situation; Flee, Hide, Fight.
I know there’s that romantic notion of “don’t be a coward, get out and protest”, but I remember the brutality of the 2020 protests firsthand, and even then I thought “thank god I’m going toe to toe with the CPD and not the CCP”. Next time is going to be different. The president now has authority to send drone strikes. Protests and riots don’t stand a chance agains missiles and live rounds.
Flee- I have an Uncle in Montreal who my family could potentially use as a way to at least temporarily escape the chaos. The hope I’d have is that Canada and other countries would accept American refugees, however that’s not a guarantee.
Hide- If borders are closed, lay low and move away from major cities if possible. If civil war breaks out, try to get away from the violence even if you think your side will win. Todays losers may be tomorrows victors.
Fight- If cellular data/ social media algorithms can keep track of you, and surveillance can make sure there’s no movement, this would be the last resort of desperation. I guess if possible try to either find a group for safety in numbers, or conversely go guerrilla as groups of resistance would make easy targets.
Sorry my mind is running and I’m getting scared.
As someone who might be targeted and killed as this drags on, I’m not really worrying about it much. Control whatever you can, be aware obviously, but what more could you possibly do? Monday’s ruling is already in the past - I mean to say that we’ve already made our choices, long ago (some people have seen this coming for nearly a decade now), and all that is left is to live (or whatever) with them. It “helps” that climate change awaits to kill us all regardless of who wins the next election. To be clear, no I do not say that lightly.
Hypothetical illustration: let’s say that you are a deer caught in the headlights of a car. Do you jump forward? Backwards? Remain still? Duck? Jump straight up vertically into the air as high as you can? Once in this position, no matter what you do there are risks, and your choices are limited, with the outcome of your decisions mostly not up to you. Side-note: you could maybe not have jumped out straight in front of a speeding car… but that choice is behind you now, and you can only deal with what is, not what you wish had been.
So don’t panic unduly - that isn’t helpful - just focus on doing the next correct thing, and the rest… well, isn’t up to you.
Not trying to rain on your parade (pun) but you may have been getting your climate change info only from the headlines of for-profit publications which rely on advertising for income. No reputable scientific consensus report indicates we’re all going to die or anything close.
Disasters will cause more damage and food will be more expensive. That’s the effects which Americans will experience for as far as the predictions can go.
I’ll link to IPCC in a sec.
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_SummaryForPolicymakers.pdf
Depends who you are. Middle-class american living not too close to a coast? Yea you’re probably fine, you’ll get hotter summers and colder winters but you’ll survive.
Poor and living nearby to coast or such that can get more easily affected by climate change? You could be pretty fucked by mother nature by chance.
Okay I brought that on myself there by adding
First, we are blowing waaay past all earlier expectations, e.g. those made a decade ago. Second, as the other commenter said, we aren’t all going to make it (though you are correct, neither are we “all” going to die - I was being hyperbolic, but then later came and added the aforementioned sentence that did not mesh well into my comment). Third, the randomness of it all is mind-boggling, e.g. remember that one day that the temperature went up by a full 70 degrees F? Imagine it being 100 degrees already, as so many places already (almost) are in the USA, and then such a spike occurs making it 170 for that day - yeah, some people are going to survive it, but what about the plants, the animals, i.e. the crops, the wildlife, the entire ecosystem that exists outside of a cushy building that has A/C?
Anyway, thank you for the correction. I should have said that we aren’t all going to make it.
Wait, scratch that - “many” rather than “all”!:-P
All of that aside, it does seem a pretty huge deal, more so than these political matters even.