Mad Enough Yet?
Are we mad enough yet? Any of the headlines about the report by the IPCC on our damaged environment on this planet... could just have easily have read:
"CHILDREN WILL NOT SURVIVE THE FUTURE WE ARE CREATING FOR THEM"
We look first of course to our own selves and the choices we make that have negative impacts... what we eat, what we buy, how we power our lives and all the other day-to-day things of existence in our bit of the world. And yes... we need to do so much more BUT as I look to the 'choices' I am able to make, I find those choices for the most part - are a matter of choosing between the least damaging of damaging things and that the rare neutral or good-for-the-planet things, are beyond affordability for the many.
THEN... I read of the scandals about manipulated emissions tests in car/van/truck engines (making them seem a better choice than they are) and the weakness of the Regulators in finding this out or when they did, doing anything worthwhile about it... I hear fighter-jet engines overhead in exercises by UK Defence... witness the evolving frack site on the A583 in Lancashire... catch the news of nuclear-mud dumping in our waters and I truly despair; all of this impacts so much more than any one of us - yet it just carries on. YES it is our 'demand' that causes cars to be built, fuel created, farming to take over rainforests for meat etc BUT we aren't really DEMANDING this, it's roughly all there is on offer! Safe cycle lanes over vast distances, decent, affordable, non-harming public transport, affordable quality food etc. just aren't being adequately pursued.
So yes, WE need to make better 'choices' but more importantly and far more urgently - we need to make our governments change the systems that give tax breaks to polluters, that invite industry to have too much power over decisions and to STAND UP for the people by honestly facing facts and dealing with reality - this isn't about who gets to be in power for 5 years at a time - it's about our children now and in the future and the decisions today - mean hell or hope for them.
SYSTEM CHANGE is the only way - not simply Party change. We bailed out the banks when they were 'too big to fail' - we now need to redirect our money and time to the environment that is 'too essential to fail'