It is worse, much worse that you think The slowness of global warming is a fairy tale Perhaps as pernicious as the one that says it isn't happening at all And it comes to us bundled with several others in an anthology of comforting delusions: That all this warming is an Arctic saga unfolding remotely That it is strictly a matter of sea level and coastline Not an enveloping crisis sparing no place and leaving no life undeformed That it is a crisis of the "natural" world Not the human one None of this is true None of this is true None of this is true That those two are distinct Natural and human That we live today somehow outside or beyond or at least defended against nature Not inescapably within and literally overwhelmed by it Not inescapably within and literally overwhelmed by it None of this is true None of this is true None of this is true That wealth can be a shield against the ravages That the burning of fossil fuel is the price of continued economic growth That growth and the technology it produces will inevitably engineer a way out of disaster A way out of disaster That there is any analogue To the scale and the scope Of this threat in the long span of human history That might give us confidence in staring it down None of this is true None of this is true None of this is true None of this is true None of this is true None of this is true None of this is true None of this is true None of this is true None of this is true None of this is true None of this is true