Given the COP26 action plan, this is hilarious. It’s also depressing, because it shows how absurd the whole climate change action plan really is. Taking baby steps when we should be single-minded in preventing this planet becoming hostile to human life.
It’s not that I don’t appreciate the billions that may be released for green initiatives every year. It’s that I don’t see anything that makes me think we are treating climate change like the life-or-death emergency it is.
Imagine you’re in a spaceship floating through space. A spaceship whose life support systems make it self-sustainable by offering its passengers all the oxygen, all the food and clean water, and the energy they need to thrive. Not survive, but thrive. An environment that, if not pushed beyond its limits, can sustain itself forever. Just as well, because this is the only spaceship you have.
Lose it, and you’re done.
But there’s an idiot tampering with the life support systems. Because it’s “profitable”. Because the idiot says, it will give everyone snazzy new devices to waste time on and make spending money easier.
And he’s not alone. There are other idiots who drive the systems harder, because it increases margins. Because it drives production efficiency. Because it allows 24-hour shipping, and bigger SUV’s, and 245 channels all beamed into your living room for your viewing pleasure. Never mind that the sweatshops where consumer products are produced have nets to catch suicidal workers. Never mind that the process poisons your water and gives you cancer and takes away your children’s right to live on this spaceship. Elsewhere in the spaceship, people are already dying.
What do you do to those idiots?
Stick them in an airlock and blast them out to space?
But we don’t. Why are we talking about plans that might have an impact by 2050, while our actions point to a different direction? Why are we talking about phasing out coal, but not doing a thing about the fossil fuel industry subsidies? Why are we not killing the companies that are responsible for climate change?
Oh, you think I’m missing the financial complexities of saving the environment? We carried out total war on a planetary scale twice in the 20th century. We split the atom. We put a man on the moon. I’m sure we can figure this out.
This is where we’re heading. This is what’s already happening. Climate refugees. Extreme weather. Agricultural failure. Now. Not in some science fiction movie.
So, please, take the idiots messing with the life support systems seriously. Stop buying from the Nestle’s of the world. Choose renewable energy. Vote for the people whose concern is the survival of the species rather than maximizing profits for the Bezos’ of the world. Then, hold them accountable.
As a person I greatly admire always says, “actions matter more than words”. Do you have full control over climate change? Of course not. Because, in the end of the day, it is a complex issue. Does that excuse you from not doing everything you can to stop the idiots messing with the life support systems?
You tell me.
EA Mylonas Author 