Ratchet only turns one way

Bob Marshall, God bless him, is still trying to get people to "listen to the scientists."  It should be clear by now that was never going to happen and is never going to happen. The reason for that is right in front of Marshall's face He writes it out in the last sentence of this passage, in fact.  I'm still not sure he gets why it matters though.

What did you think during last couple of decades when scientists “warned” that sea level was rising more than three millimeters a year? Or when they were “alarmed” that the temperature was warming “so fast” that in 5 to 10 years your average summer heat might be 87 instead of 86? And when they said we had to quickly cut our use of fossil fuels to prevent these increases?

No big whoop, right? Three millimeters is about the width of a penny. And what AC unit can’t make that one-degree uptick in heat disappear?

So, you probably agreed with the fossil fuel industry and some politicians when they shouted scientists down and even ridiculed their findings.

“Why so much alarm about tiny changes!” they yelled. “We’re not going to disrupt our lives (and our profits) unless something B-I-G is going to happen, and happen soon!”

I don't know who is the "you" Marshall thinks he's addressing these comments to but it's a little more than condescending the way it reads.  I mean, I know I can speak for an awful lot of Louisiana residents when I say, yes, Bob, we fucking know all of this.  We've been here this whole time too. 

The problem is not now nor was it ever a matter of us plain folk understanding what's being done to us. Rather the problem was always and continues to be, what happens to us is immaterial compared to the universal imperative to maximize profits. It's insulting that we have to read this, "You didn't listen" horseshit now. We listened. We knew. It didn't matter.  These are not our sins to atone for. We're just the alienated subjects of an uncaring capitalist regime. There was nothing we could do about it. Stop blaming us.

 Anyway here's where we are now. 

And the worst news those climatologists were trying to explain you may still not have heard: Those increases will likely be permanent because of the heat baked into the system by unchecked human-produced emissions for 150 years.

There is no known way to quickly roll back those tiny changes. The only thing we can do now is reduce the rate of increases in the decades ahead by quickly transitioning off most of our fossil fuel use. Otherwise, the deadly and costly impacts we are now suffering will continue in frequency and intensity.

"You may still not have heard." Jesus Christ he's still doing it further down in the column! Anyway, since "there's no known way" to fix the problem now anyway, it appears as though the fossil fuel producers have won.  What does Bob want us to do now?  Feel guilty? Will that solve anything?  

The ratchet only turns one way here and we've already cranked it past the critical point. The challenge now is less about stopping the climate disaster than it is about protecting people from its effects.  But to do that, we'd need a politics that understands the class and wealth inequality and its effect on the power dynamic.  But instead we get misguided lectures about how "you" may not have heard the scientists. And if that's all we get then it's going to be rough time riding out the next century.