Razing Deck Chairs on the Titanic

Israel will not survive to its 100 year anniversary. No, that statement is not meant to imply that Palestine will rise up and destroy it, or that some foreign power will destroy it. The fact that Israel cannot survive has nothing to do with Palestinians or any Muslim group for that matter.

The issue at hand is climate change, and the planet’s climate has now reached a tipping point beyond which no one knows what will happen, but experts are certain it will be extremely bad. The moderate camp of climate scientists just released a paper that says (in part):

We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis. For many years, scientists, including a group of more than 15,000, have sounded the alarm… Despite these warnings, we are still moving in the wrong direction; fossil fuel emissions have increased to an all-time high… We are witnessing the grim reality of the forecasts as climate impacts escalate, bringing forth scenes of unprecedented disasters around the world and human and nonhuman suffering. We find ourselves amid an abrupt climate upheaval, a dire situation never before encountered in the annals of human existence. We have now brought the planet into climatic conditions never witnessed by us or our prehistoric relatives…

Specifically, no carbon was absorbed by land-based plants in 2023, but there are other signs that our normal climate system is “collapsing” (i.e., becoming a very alien climate system). To be fair, researchers think that if there are no droughts or wildfires releasing carbon into the atmosphere, the carbon sink could recover — but what are the odds of that? Seriously. With climate change itself creating and exacerbating both droughts and wildfires, why would we think this trend would reverse itself?

What’s more likely is that the planet will find a new equilibrium point, but at a much higher temperature and humidity. Under such circumstances, places like Israel (which is part of the area that is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world) will become uninhabitable, probably in the next 5 to 10 years. If you look at the climate change page for Israel on Wikipedia, the data is based on the moderate course outlined by the most recent meeting of the IPCC. We know now, though, that the moderate course is not what is happening; we’re getting something much more extreme.

To be fair, it is true that there are many places in the world that are technically uninhabitable, but people live there anyway. Las Vegas would be the example that readily comes to mind. However, an uninhabitable place can only continue to exist in a meaningful way if resources are sent in from somewhere else. As the planet heats up, climate change will become a global crisis to the extent that every country will be struggling to survive. Moreover, the powers that be will be forced to start deciding which places to maintain, and which places to allow to die.

Israel is currently the country that has received the most aid from the US of any country on earth. Giving them even more would be absurd, and though the baby boomer generation might go along with it, younger Americans are not as enthusiastic about sending enormous sums of money to Israel, specifically. As we in the US also deal with the crisis of climate change, my bet is that Israel is one of the many places we will decide to simply allow to die — though, putting it that way is inaccurate. What we will decide is to save other places (places that are more saveable and less controversial) and people (like our family members and neighbors).

Israel will bake. Nothing will grow. Almost everyone will leave. Those who don’t leave will die.

Given all that, let’s consider the deep absurdity of the Israel-Palestine conflict. If humanity survives at all, that conflict will be remembered as a horrifically gory fight to the death over a piece of land that ultimately holds no value. Imagine if the billions spent on fighting over that stupid little chunk of land had been spent on doing something significant about climate change. None of this is what Zionists want to hear, so they will not hear it.