It is too late to save the planet
I want to say it now. It’s 2023, we have until the end of the decade to save the planet, anyone who tells you until 2050 is a liar and hates both you and the planet. Sorry to be blunt. Scientists and politicians have known about the climate crisis since the mid 1990’s fast forward a quarter of a century and their efforts, all our efforts have amounted to… Not enough. And not just not enough, wildly no where near enough. My phone has been though more countries than it ever will with me, I plan to take 3 holidays this year (more than I have ever in my life) my very green beans on my table come from Kenya. Why do I need Kenyan green beans? Why not Wiltshire green beans? My salad comes from Spain and North Africa and by the way these are foods we eat every single day! There’s droughts in South Africa, Ethopia Spain and probably another dozen countries whose news doesn’t reach my ears. If you think my phone has travelled well then you’ll be amazed by my car. The chemicals that clean my house come from Israel (bromides) Everything in my house has travelled precisely “too far” to get here.” its unnatural. Hell yes to cleaning your house with vinegar and honey and lemon (even lemons don’t belong in the UK) Hell yes to sweeping with a wooden broom rather than a vacuum, hell yes to subsistence farming. Believe it or not its the only way of saving the planet. We’re actually lucky, future generations won’t judge us harshly because we’ve made sure there will be no future generations.
We’re all going to die. Facts, but due to climate change, some of us will die in some of the most horrible ways possible. Imagine drowning in flashfloods in New Zealand? Or starvation in Sudan? Or a being caught up in a forest fire in California? 3 very different deaths, but all the same cause. Climate change. But we’re waiting for Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerburg and Bill Gates to personally die of something horrendously climate change based from the damage that they have personally done to the planet. Or led. But there is often no justice in the world, so all those looking for karma to directly strike the perpetrators down better pray against it. Newsflash, we are the perpetrators.
But what is worse is it isn’t an active “let’s set fire to the planet because that’s what we believe is best” at least half of consumption is needs based. Regular people trying to keep their standard of living, and maybe even on occasion, live a little nicer. People who are economic migrants trying to re-unite families or feel connected to home. People doing regular, non extravegant things. But the thing is under capitalism, consumption is king. Ever expanding bottom lines, when we know that whilst there is a vastness to the world, it is still finite. Really, Sainsbury’s how far do you really think you’ll grow? Do you think that without population expansion and real terms wealth growth, that you’ll get any bigger? There’s a finite amount of carrots that I can and will buy.
We’ve decided, as the top 1% (and yes that includes me) that Capitalism is the way to go, and screw the climate crisis, screw inequality, screw the fact that we over-produce food globally, but yet hundreds of millions are starving. Screw all that, and screw the fact that we’re all about to die in the next 50 years when food production really starts to get unreliable and all that bad karma we’ve been sowing the past 200 years really starts to rub. But the truth is we’ve slept walked into it. If you had the choice between no more capitalism and us all not dying either of starvation, water shortage, or some other horrendous climate related death, or wishing it on someone else, I’m hoping you would make the right active decision. But the truth is we’re not making any active decisions. Politicians are kicking climate targets down the can, having been pursaded by lobbyists and interest groups, praying that “the other party” will be in power when the consequences of those actions come. The rich are obsessed with maintaining and growing wealth, even though they can’t comprehend it. Elon Musk lost 200 billion dollars once. Did it affect his ability to feed his family? Did you know that’s almost the UK budget for health for a year, in the UK its £220 Billion. But some of that is Covid, so the actual money he lost equates to the UK health budget, which employs over 1 million people, doctors, nurses, surgeons, porters, administrators, handimen, Government ministers. But he lost that, and he is still here, he lost that and there was no global crash. He lost that and he still is the cockiest man alive, despite being the last person you should take any sort of advice from. His loss is the biggest single loss of wealth in human history. Yet here we all stand, still looking up to him for thought leadership. Capitalism isn’t real. But the planet is, so why don’t we just “not screw up catestrophically”
Grace and Courage
Annetta Mother Smith