Between greenwashing and collapse: listening to what the signals really say
Happy Earth Day 2026? That’s the question we need to ask ourselves.
The UN Environment Programme titled its 22 April newsletter: “Happy Earth Day! Listening to the planet’s signals.” Are we still at this point? Still marking Earth Day this way? Celebrating?
The very next lines of the same newsletter list the signals: rising temperatures, biodiversity loss, pollution, extreme heat. It’s hard to find happiness — or cause for celebration — in that list.
So, happy for what? What are we actually celebrating? The fact that the planet is still here? Or our own inaction?
The net zero scam
Kevin Anderson, a climate scientist, offers a blunt answer: our leaders have chosen to fail on climate change for thirty years. Every single metric is pointing in the wrong direction. Even countries like China, which are doing relatively well in terms of reductions, are still far from where they should be.
“If the problem gets harder every single year,” Anderson says, “I don’t call that progress. Progress is only when you deliver what you have to.” In his view, the widely touted goal of net zero by 2050 is a scam — because until we eliminate fossil fuels and significantly cut agricultural emissions, temperatures will just keep rising. And the climate will just keep changing.
50% chance of AMOC collapse
Meanwhile, in The Guardian, George Monbiot warns that a catastrophic event is already upon us — yet we’re barely hearing about it. He points to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the ocean current that delivers heat from the tropics to the North Atlantic. The first study suggesting AMOC could have an “on” and “off” state was published in 1961. For decades, a human-induced collapse was considered a “low-probability, high-impact” event — devastating, but unlikely. That has changed. Recent research now describes it as a “high-probability, high-impact” threat. Last week, Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, a leading expert on the subject, put the chances of a shutdown at over 50%, with the tipping point potentially arriving “in the middle of this century.”
If AMOC collapses, northern Europe could see a massive drop in winter temperatures, and the Amazon’s water cycles could be so disrupted that the rainforest itself might tip into cascading collapse.
Final thoughts
From a 50% chance of AMOC collapse to net zero called a scam — the gap between celebration and reality has never been wider.
Yet there we were, on Earth Day 2026, reading cheerful newsletter subject lines while scientists warned that we’re drifting toward a climate tipping point with better-than-even odds.
This is not progress. Not leadership. And certainly not the future.
Maybe it’s time to stop celebrating — and start listening to the signals the planet is actually sending.
Because there’s nothing to celebrate.