GoT is an American fantasy drama and, in its simplest form, can be explained as seven noble families fighting for control of the mythical land of Westeros. There is also a power struggle between East and West (funny that). In their deadly battles for money, power and control they remain oblivious to a secondary distant threat, from the frozen north land, that has the potential to destroy their world.
 
Back to reality - Global superpowers are engaged in wars for control of our rapidly depleting reserves of oil and natural gas. The oil wars raged yesterday in Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Angola and Afghanistan. Nations were destroyed and millions were killed or displaced. Today these same oil wars are raging in Yemen, Syria, Israel, Venezuela, Libya and now the South China Sea. Once again, for control of oil and natural gas, with a total disregard for the consequences to humanity or the planet.
 
Just like in Westeros, in the real world now, there is an impending threat capable of destroying the natural world and civilization as we know it. If we burn all the oil and natural gas, that the superpowers are fighting over, the scientific evidence suggests we could reach a ‘tipping point’ for global heating and enter an era of devastating sea level rise from ice melt and the thawing of our own frozen lands.
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In "GOT", the threat to the entire kingdom is from the Night King and the ice walkers growing “army of the dead” flooding down from the frozen north and building walls has not stopped them. In the real world, the threat to humanity is global ice melt from the heating of our own frozen lands with impending sea level rise and, “the army of the brain-dead“.

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People with myopia, loss aversion and confirmation bias, or people who have been brain-washed by the fossil fuel lobby, simply don’t get the looming threat of catastrophic climate change so, for our self-serving politicians, try to stay focused for more than 3 seconds and, let me explain: Greenhouse gasses, from burning fossil fuel, are like a blanket. The more we add the thicker the blanket and the hotter the earth becomes. At the beginning of the industrial revolution Co2 was 278 parts per million. By February 2021, it has reached a new record high of 419 ppm with the entire world 1.1°C warmer and Australia 1.44°C hotter and rising. (Google it)
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Across the entire planet, it's a massive amount of additional heat. Heat equates to energy and the more energy, in the atmosphere, the more extreme our weather events. The geologic record tells us that sea level fluctuation is more than 130 meters depending on the volume of the global ice reservoir and that relates directly to air and sea temperature. From ice core samples, the last time Co2 levels were this high was in the late Pliocene era when sea levels were 25 meters higher, than today, and global temperature was 3°C hotter. That's our future if we don't stop burning fossil fuel and even a child understands the science.

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There is potential, on planet Earth, for a 50 meter sea level rise from ocean thermal expansion and melting of the global ice reservoir. The Sydney harbour bridge is 49 meters above sea level. At high tide you will be able to paddle your canoe across the bridge and catch a ferry to the front steps of the NSW Art Gallery, for the next Picasso exhibition or to marvel at 500 year old paintings, provided there is no category 7 cyclone raging off the coast pumping 80 feet waves all the way to Parramatta.

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We can keep fighting, like a bunch of morons, or we can snap out of the comer, return from the holiday house on Jupiter, or orbiting Alpha Centauri, or the tropical beaches of Hawaii and look at the advancing threat looming on the horizon. Then we can do what any progressive democratic society would do. We can purge the self-serving and the brain-dead, at the next election, and vote for politicians prepared to fight for our future.

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Go to the next article: Signs of the Apocalypse - The Gods are Angry

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