And today’s reason we are an endangered species is: money. The Lydians brought the concept upon humanity around the 7th century BC, and although they have long been extinct, this custom of theirs stuck around. Let’s not be modest; they also had other traditions: once a Lydian girl reached maturity, she would ply the trade of prostitute until she had earned a sufficient dowry, upon which she would publicize her availability for marriage. I just can’t believe a people who come up with such creative ideas for earning a living would perish— shocking. Then again, isn’t that what we do all day? We prostitute our minds, our physical powers, our creative geniuses to earn a buck. In short, not much has changed. Except we globalized the trade and along with it, the trade-offs: a German car produced in Hungary has materials shipped in from China and Africa, and then the car is shipped to be sold in America, so a single product has the ability to destroy the environment multiple times before it even gets put to use. But the golden age of working for a living is coming to an end. For a while, we’ll be living to work, as many people in the world already are doing that in underpaid jobs, mass-producing shit nobody actually needs, only wants. Then, once climate change perishes crops and destroys shipping routes and floods the mines, we’ll go back to the very old days of hunting and gathering, and that will really be for things we need, not so much for things we want.

According to a study published in Forbes, the global economy faces a 50% GDP loss without climate change action. If I were to go into details about what this meant, it would be like a software license agreement you scroll through without reading and then clicking “I agree”, so let me just cut to the chase: we are fucked. And that’s the sugarcoated version.