Eine Institution des amerikanischen Geheimdienstes, die für globale strategische Fragen zuständig ist, der National Intelligence Council (NIC), hat in seinem 2025 Global Trends Report verschiedene globale Zukunftsszenarien vorgelegt. Eins der drei Szenarien nennt sich „October Surprise“ und beschreibt eine Welt, in der die politischen Entscheidungsträger es versäumt haben, den Klimawandel zu stoppen. Hier ist ein Ausschnitt aus einem fiktiven Tagebucheintrag des amerikanischen Präsidenten vom 1. Oktober 2020:
Presidential Diary Entry
October 1, 2020
The term “October Surprise” keeps recurring in my mind…I guess we had it coming,
but it was a rude shock. Some of the scenes were like the stuff from the World War II
newsreels, only this time it was not Europe but Manhattan. Those images of the US
aircraft carriers and transport ships evacuating thousands in the wake of the flooding still stick in my mind. Why does hurricane season have to coincide with the UNGA in New York? It’s bad enough that this had to happen; it was doubly embarrassing that half the leaders were here to witness it—and a fair number of them had to be specially
airlifted or spirited away for their safety.
I guess the problem was that we counted on this not happening, at least not yet. Most
scientists assumed the worst effects of climate change would occur later in the century.
Still, enough warned there was always a chance of an extreme weather event coming
sooner and, if it hit just right, one of our big urban centers could be knocked out. As I
remember, most of my advisors thought the chances were pretty low after the last briefing
we got on climate change. But we were warned that we needed to decentralize our
energy generation and improve the robustness of our infrastructure to withstand extreme
weather events. Tragically, we did not heed this advice.
We’ll survive, but Wall Street really has taken a blow and I don’t think we will get the NY Stock Exchange back up and running as quickly as we did after 9/11. There is a question whether it will continue to be the NY Stock Exchange to begin with; it might have to change its name to the “Garden State (New Jersey) Stock Exchange”—wouldn’t that be
a blow to New Yorkers’ pride!
It’s not as if this is just happening to us. Truth be told, the problem has been our whole
attitude about globalization. When I say “our,” I really mean in this context the elite or even the little knot of leaders around the world. We all have been focused on boosting or maintaining greater economic growth. We have a lot to be proud of too in that regard. We have avoided giving in to protectionist urges and managed to reenergize the trade rounds.
But we have not prepared sufficiently for the toll that irresponsible growth is having on the environment. The New York disaster may not have been preventable with any measures we could have taken 20 years ago, but what are we laying in store for future generations by ignoring the signs? We all assume technology will come to the rescue, but so far we have not found the silver bullet and carbon emissions continue to climb. […]
Foto: flickr.vom von Photochiel