Kudos for your polite response. Nevertheless, some of your points, I think, need to be unpacked, so that we can try and understand at least here on this board, what is at hand and take it from there.

For example:

But the climate doesn't care about geopolitics.

No argument there : ).

Yes it's already here - largely due to emissions from the industrialised western economies (lately outsourced to China and others), but what happens now decides whether we're 'only' faced with mass death and refugee movements the likes of which have never been seen, or outright go extinct taking much of the biosphere with us.

Referencing your comment about mass death and refugee movements + biosphere extinction, it is certainly on the cards. I always said so, from way back. Meanwhile, it would help if the adults in the room take charge. You don't really expect our uber neocons to lead the way, surely. So, let's assume that BRICS take charge. Do you think that they will lead us into mass death etc. sooner that 1% greedy capitalist nutters in the west? Of course not. Their science is as good as ours, if not better. They *know*. And they also know that they need to get rid of the shackles created by west first before they can act decisively. Hence the Northern route. I've not done the numbers, but suspect it is easily under the threshold of carbon emissions created by US military. We can argue etc.

How else are they going to power all those icebreakers and massive container ships steaming around the globe? At least they might be honest about it, I suppose...

... and just another sign of the sickness of the dominant culture, constantly pushing for maximum exploitation of people and planet no matter which regional entity is leading the charge at any particular moment. What

As per above this para. No. Very much disagree. It is not the subject that can be dismissed as .. 'but they are equally as bad'. Also, what is this about dominant culture .. another 'they are as bad as each other'? The sickness is in the globalist uber neocon capitalism in the west. Not South.

But I don't think BRICS will do any better, and fully expect the push for coal, fracked nat gas, 'renewables' (sic) and other calamities to come increasingly from those countries in the not-too-distant future with the decline of oil accelerating.

I like the way you packed all the crimes already committed by the west in one place and having it ready for the new entity hehe. Why will they not do better? How do you know? Perhaps it is a cynic talking to an optimist or is it vice-versa? As good as.

I think these peasants in the South just might have a solution based on hydrogen waiting in the sidelines. It will take time. Since we are all powerless politically here in the west there just may be a ray of sunshine that can get through these heavy clouds. It's over anyway, it's just question of how to manage this catastrophe in the waiting.

PS. Excuse disconnected bits, it's a long argument/diatribe and my editor is on hols : )