With each and every passing week of news the picture of the evidence of global warming are irrefutable, the consequences of our current trajectory are dire and gosh, it is easily to get depressed or and cynical about the future and say “eh, why bother, we’re stuffed!”.
The best way to ensure the massive consequences of the worst projections is to bury the head in the sand, point the finger at others and just carry on blissfully ignorant of the result of current lifestyles. Whilst we cannot ignore the onset of climate change/global warming, we still act as if it is something for others for fix for us and for some magical technology to solve for us. Something that can be simply bolted on to every appliance, every vehicle, every engineered piece of equipment and counter-balance everything we do in our lives. Fat chance people. The only way to do this would be to extract CO2 from the atmosphere- and I don’t see this happening through some scientific wizardry.
With all the false prophets propping up about so-called solutions, reduced impact power generation, lower-emission vehicles, carbon-offset this and that, it is as if corporations can benevolently and conveniently play with the fringes of our activities to fix it all. I even saw an advertisement for a credit card that donates money to offset programs and is squirted with green ink which obviously makes the owner feel better about their purchase when they buy that air-conditioner unit on the card then plug it into the fossil fuel grid so that they can pretend they temporarily live in a 20 degree climate at all times. Hilarious- but also sad at the simple way in which we allow ourselves to be conned into false prophets.
I despair not so much for the future and the consequences on our diverse peoples, wildlife, ecosystems and coastal communities that are going to dissapear. I despair for nothing more than the lack of the champion for the cause. I meant the real champion, not the Al Gore and a neat power point preso, not the Bono and Gedof with egos bigger than the continent of Africa. I mean we need a real hero. Someone that not only has charisma, money and power/influence, but someone that leads by example and is not afraid of ridicule and has no hidden agenda.
For me, Mr George Monbiot is the closest thing I have to a hero, he is capable of absorbing huge amounts of information and assessing them from a global perspective and writing some incredibly considered pieces. He lobbies for causes he believes are important for the future of communities, animals and the environment. He is prepared to reach out over the airwaves and the internet and through his own books to try and show people a more idealistic alternative to some of our problems. Many of the solutions run in such a way that caters for human-kinds rather selfish perspectives and also leverages our unique creativity.
It is hard to find someone that you agree with 100% and I disagree with his views on globalisation being a positive, as I feel that localisation is the only way forwards once you factor in the tyranny of distance and the carbon cost of goods and services over distance. Likewise his views on genetically modified food- if we can make crops more durable and less susceptible to disease whilst still preserving the original seeds for the future around the world, then lets move on and do it.
Heros, it is an old-fashioned concept in a world where the anti-hero runs supreme and captures the media interest and sells magazines. I firmly believe that what the world needs now is a hero to step up and take the mantle and show us that we can and will overcome our short-sighted state of excess consumption and growth. Someone analyical, charismatic, compassionate but tempered by a long-term view that no matter who we are, we NEED the planet that supports us.
Any species that destroys its own habitat… soon destroys itself. We can do better than that! 🙂
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