Prologue

When serving in Vietnam (in the Navy,) I became the captain's phone talker and saw all the action from the bridge. The ship's communication system is vital. Talkers are issued voice-activated phones that plug into a special outlet and strap behind the neck with earphones attached. The mouthpiece has a button that, when depressed, allows the voice vibrations to generate enough current to broadcast messages to all other phones plugged into the system. All of them are active at all stations during combat and refueling. For all docking, departures, refueling and battle conditions, I relayed orders from the bridge to all stations in the ship.

My first combat experience on the bridge with the captain was memorable.

General Quarters sounded and I reported to the bridge with my phone and plugged in. We were steaming toward shore with two other ships, the USS Stoddard, another destroyer and the USS Canberra, a cruiser. Destroyers have four cannon mounts - 51, 52, (forward) 53, and 54 (aft) from prow to stern. The gun barrels are five inches across and the bullet can go five miles. That's why the number five precedes their position. Cruisers can fire eight miles. The Stoddard and we were to soften up an area near the beach to enable Marine helicopters to swoop in and drop their men to take the position. The Canberra would be firing deeper up the hills to destroy gun emplacements. We reached our positions and opened fire. Explosions of quick succession on the beach were on their mark by both ships.

As I watched the action, I became a live reporter for the rest of the ship, something that had not been done before. I would be thanked by the crew many times for this. It is not easy to be in the belly of a ship in combat without any knowledge of the goings-on topside, so I was just a roving reporter for my mates. They truly appreciated the relief from not knowing.

Suddenly, I saw flashes on the beach and reacted:

"Captain, shore batteries, shore batteries!" I roared.

The captain turned to the helmsman. In a loud voice:

"Quartermaster, what's our attitude?"

"275 North, sir!" came the reply.

"Come to starboard 10 degrees. All engines full!" the captain bellows.

The explosions were all around, both from cannons and rockets. Several were close, but we had already begun evasive maneuvers. (Artillerymen use "patterns" to target an objective in order to zero in on the exact range and adjust their guns accordingly.) A moving target three miles away is not so easy to pattern. That's the reason for fast evasive reaction.

Ten seconds later:

"Come to port ten degrees, full speed ahead!" We weaved back and forth every few seconds until we weaved our way out of range. The Stoddard was hit and lost a couple of men. The Canberra was winged, but not seriously.

When General Quarters was called off, I returned to the office and pondered the captain's words. I had never heard the word "attitude" used in the context of the captain's orders. It then dawned on me that, if we don't like what we see in our future, we can always change our attitude. That life lesson instilled itself in me permanently that day.

Another significant event happened when we stopped in Guam for refueling. We were to spend the day there and split the crew into two groups to go ashore for a break. I went in the morning to do some sightseeing and gawk at the goony birds. They are one funny avian to behold. No fear, slow motion waddle, hilarious. Returning to the ship's office for some reading, I hear the General Quarters alarm and grab my phone to head for the bridge. I got there just before the captain and noticed his florid face. He was obviously drunk. Not good.

A Russian trawler was offshore a few miles from our ship. Their only purpose at the time was surveillance and intelligence gathering. The captain issued orders to head for it. When we got there, he ordered all garbage to be taken to the fantail and made the helmsman circle the trawler at what appeared to be a too close distance. We dumped garbage all around the trawler to attempt to foul up their surveillance readings. After the garbage was depleted, he seemed to get angrier and barked:

"S..., tell the crew to prepare to ram!"

I did no such thing. I faced him and said:

"Captain, we only have half the crew on board. If something goes wrong, there may be some repercussions."

His face went from red to white. He gave orders to return to shore.

After a stop in Hawaii for a pleasant three days, we finally docked in our home port - San Diego. Not long after, a change of command procedure took place for our next deployment. This is a very ceremonial event where the entire crew forms a phalanx on board for the exiting captain and to welcome the new captain. There usually is strict adherence to protocol in the process. However, a slight change occurred as the Captain was passing by; he stopped and looked at me and said:

"Thanks, S...."

We have a drunken captain commanding our ship of state and we need to change our attitude to get back on the correct course.

Why we need each other

As the world began to ring in 2018, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for global unity to overcome growing challenges.

In his New Year message on Sunday, New Years' Eve, Guterres said the world appeared to have "gone in reverse" before adding, "On New Year's Day 2018 I am not issuing an appeal, I am issuing an alert -- a red alert for our world."

He continued: "As we begin 2018, I call for unity. ... We can settle conflicts, overcome hatred and defend shared values. But we can only do that together."

Reflecting on his January message when he assumed the secretary-general position -- in which he called for peace -- Guterres said that conflicts have deepened, global anxieties about nuclear weapons have increased, inequalities have grown and nationalism and xenophobia are on the rise.

He stressed cooperation and collaboration should be the way forward in 2018, saying: "Unity is the path. Our future depends on it."

He then urged leaders "everywhere to make this New Year's resolution: Narrow the gaps. Bridge the divides. Rebuild trust by bringing people together around common goals."

Global Warming (and/or Warning)

Even if greenhouse emissions stopped overnight the concentrations already in the atmosphere would still mean a global rise of between 0.5 and 1C. A shift of a single degree is barely perceptible to human skin, but it's not human skin we're talking about. It's the planet; and an average increase of one degree across its entire surface means huge changes in climatic extremes.

Six thousand years ago, when the world was one degree warmer than it is now, the American agricultural heartland around Nebraska was desert. It suffered a short reprise during the dust- bowl years of the 1930s, when the topsoil blew away and hundreds of thousands of refugees trailed through the dust to an uncertain welcome further west. The effect of one-degree warming, therefore, requires no great feat of imagination.

While tropical lands teeter on the brink, the Arctic already may have passed the point of no return. Warming near the pole is much faster than the global average, with the result that Arctic icecaps and glaciers have lost 400 cubic kilometers of ice in 40 years. Permafrost - ground that has lain frozen for thousands of years - is dissolving into mud and lakes, destabilizing whole areas as the ground collapses beneath buildings, roads and pipelines. As polar bears and Inuit are being pushed off the top of the planet, previous predictions are starting to look optimistic. Earlier snowmelt means more summer heat goes into the air and ground rather than into melting snow, raising temperatures in a positive feedback effect. More dark shrubs and forest on formerly bleak tundra means still more heat is absorbed by vegetation.

Chance of avoiding one degree of global warming: zero.

BETWEEN ONE AND TWO DEGREES OF WARMING

At this level, expected within 40 years, the hot European summer of 2003 will be the annual norm. Anything that could be called a heat wave thereafter will be of Saharan intensity. Even in average years, people will die of heat stress.

Once body temperature reaches 41C (104F) its thermoregulatory system begins to break down. Sweating ceases and breathing becomes shallow and rapid. The pulse quickens, and the victim may lapse into a coma. Unless drastic measures are taken to reduce the body's core temperature, the brain is starved of oxygen and vital organs begin to fail. Death will be only minutes away unless the emergency services can quickly get the victim into intensive care.

BETWEEN TWO AND THREE DEGREES OF WARMING

Up to this point, assuming that governments have planned carefully and farmers have converted to more appropriate crops, not too many people outside subtropical Africa need have starved. Beyond two degrees, however, preventing mass starvation will be as easy as halting the cycles of the moon. First millions, then billions, of people will face an increasingly tough battle to survive.

The end of humanity (along with most organic life) is nigh. A three-degree increase in global temperature - possible as early as 2050 - would throw the carbon cycle into reverse. Instead of absorbing carbon dioxide, vegetation and soils start to release it. So much carbon pours into the atmosphere that it pumps up atmospheric concentrations by 250 parts per million by 2100, boosting global warming by another 1.5C. In other words, the Hadley team had discovered that carbon-cycle feedbacks could tip the planet into runaway global warming by the middle of this century - much earlier than anyone had expected.

In the US and Australia, people will curse the climate-denying governments of Trump and Howard. No matter what later administrations may do, it will not be enough to keep the mercury down. With new "super-hurricanes" growing from the warming sea, Houston could be destroyed by 2045, and Australia will be a death trap. "Farming and food production will tip into irreversible decline. Salt water will creep up the stricken rivers, poisoning ground water. Higher temperatures mean greater evaporation, further drying out vegetation and soils, and causing huge losses from reservoirs. In state capitals, heat every year is likely to kill between 8,000 and 15,000 mainly elderly people.

BETWEEN THREE AND FOUR DEGREES OF WARMING

The stream of refugees will now include those fleeing from coasts to safer interiors - millions at a time when storms hit. Where they persist, coastal cities will become fortified islands. The world economy, too, will be threadbare. As direct losses, social instability and insurance payouts cascade through the system, the funds to support displaced people will be increasingly scarce. Sea levels will be rampaging upwards - in this temperature range, both poles are certain to melt, causing an eventual rise of 50 meters. "I am not suggesting it would be instantaneous. In fact it would take centuries, and probably millennia, to melt all of the Antarctic's ice. But it could yield sea-level rises of a meter or so every 20 years - far beyond our capacity to adapt. Oxford would sit on one of many coastlines in a UK reduced to an archipelago of tiny islands.

BETWEEN FOUR AND FIVE DEGREES OF WARMING

We are looking now at an entirely different planet. Ice sheets have vanished from both poles; rainforests have burnt up and turned to desert; the dry and lifeless Alps resemble the High Atlas; rising seas are scouring deep into continental interiors. One temptation may be to shift populations from dry areas to the newly thawed regions of the far north, in Canada and Siberia. Even here, though, summers may be too hot for crops to be grown away from the coasts; and there is no guarantee that northern governments will admit southern refugees. Lynas recalls James Lovelock's suspicion that Siberia and Canada would be invaded by China and the US, each hammering another nail into humanity's coffin. Any armed conflict, particularly involving nuclear weapons, would of course further increase the planetary surface area uninhabitable for humans.

If people continue to resist truth for the purpose of money, future generations will disappear. Whether or not Mother Earth will recover from the folly of humans is yet to be determined. The race for sanity is up to each and every one of us.