Greta Thunberg – “The climate and ecological crisis is beyond party politics. And our main enemy right now is not our political opponents. Our main enemy now is physics. We can’t make “deals” with physics.”
It seems we’ve arrived at a tipping point for climate change awareness. As the frequency and severity of wildfires and hurricanes become everyday experiences that we all share, it becomes harder to ignore the evidence. And we are compelled to act. We cannot legislate and regulate our way out of this climate emergency. It will take individual and collective shifts in the way we all consume energy. Relying on our governments to “fix the problem” is shortsighted and ignores the fundamental truth that our own personal behaviours are intricately linked to GHG emissions.
Some time ago, I read an excellent book called We Are the Weather by Jonathan Safran Foer. He asks the fundamental question “Will future generations distinguish between those who didn’t believe in the science of global warming, and those who said they accepted the science but failed to change their lives in response?”
The song As the World Cools Down reflects on our current dilemma from a future time when we have resolved Global Warming and live in a more stable ecosystem. Our ancestors may be puzzled by our hesitancy to act and our inability to collaborate in the face of a common threat.
Car Ride, Cheap Flights, Steak Dinners
Were written on the stones of his grandkids graves
– As the World Cools Down
“We are killing ourselves because the people committing suicide are not the first to die from it. …..Why don’t we act? Because short term pleasure is more seductive than long-term survival. Because no one wants to exercise their capacity for intentional behaviour until someone else does. Until the neighbourhood does. Until the energy and car companies do. Until the federal government does. Until China, Australia, India, Brazil, the USA – until the whole world does. Every day we say “We Must Do Something!” – as though reciting the line were enough. Then we wait for instructions that are not on the way.” We Are the Weather – p 209
