The End of the World is Nigh
When the end of the world is nigh
They will tell us nothing, but let us
Go on, for what is the point of panic?
Hence we hear only a faintest whisper,
From those who have little time left
And no fear of living the chaos
Impending, no impact by outside rock;
But we have passed the point of no return:
Internal combustion causing climate
Change equal to our own destruction,
Plastic pollution disintegrating
Micro-particles integrating until
Clogging molecular mechanisms
As much as albatross digestive tracts,
With equal effect on our own baby.
Making the same silence met when
They found out and failed to raise
A finger, much less act, resound now,
For what worth screaming as we fall?
I know it’s been pretty depressing reading that.
But think about it.
The most recent IPCC report basically says we’re fucked if we don’t move like yesterday.
It is clear that action is the only option. It’s so much cheaper to stop the train than pick up the pieces after it crashes, unless you’re selling sandwiches on board…
The Vineyards of Spain are already seeing that climate change threatens the future of their brands.
Yet ecologists are still bickering about how to convince governments to do something – some think we need to show how much money the natural world gives to us for free or they won’t listen. Which is depressing – It won’t matter much if the environment breaks down. They’ll be convinced of it’s worth when it’s gone, like so many songs say.
Of course, we can have robot bees… (fuckwit idea right there just shows what we’re up against.)
Since the 70s, we’ve been warned, worried and have yet to act to do anything about Global Climate change.
Well, I say yet to act in any meaningful necessary way. I certainly try to use less energy than I could. I do all the right things in terms of waste and buying less, – I’ve even taken fewer flights and cut down on meat. But the big boys, they’ve done fuck all. The ones who could make a difference. The decision makers, as W used to call himself.
I remember the line in The War of the Worlds, where the parson’s wife says, “No, Nathanial no. There must be more to life. There has to be a way that we can restore to life, the love that we have known. And if one man can stand tall, there must be some hope for us all, somewhere in the spirit of man…”
Is there hope?
The world is being fucked by the 0.0001 % of the population. 700 out of more than 7000.0000,000 have the vast majority of the wealth. More money than they can ever use, even in their extravagance. And yet they don’t use it for good. A few do a couple of nice things, but really, what do they do except hide their money from us and the slim taxes they might have to pay?
As a meme asked the other day. “What happened when we all found out they were scamming us in the panama papers?
Nothing.
A much higher percentage of their money is spent paying lobbyists than on philanthropy. And if one of them decided to spend money getting the governments to go the other way (yes, I am assuming that they’re corrupt and influenced by these lobbyists. Let’s be real here.) perhaps it would save us.
Yet, even the good ones piss around playing with rockets.
Are they afraid to go directly up against the rich ones around them? Is there some code, some club or what?
Just countering the oil and coal men might do a great deal. Of course, perhaps that’s just a waste of money – the oilmen would counter with more of their own money.
So is there a solution?
I don’t know.
Part of me is convinced there isn’t. The time to act was back in the 70s and 80, or even the 90s, when there was something approaching a global vision of our planet. Now, we seem to be going backwards, to nationalism, xenophobia, intolerance and zero-sum game one-upmanship, even as the climate crisis forces millions to migrate – just a fraction of the number who will be dispossessed in a few decades if we don’t stop the train.
If there is a solution to the emergency, to me it is beginning to look a lot like revolution. It’s hard to boycott hedge funds and Wal-Mart. They have their fingers in so many holes.
I remember once when I was a kid, watching an interview with John Lennon, talking about his song and revolution.
He said we’d need the institutions that are usually broken in revolutions. People break infrastructure and burn down post offices and all that. Which were useful things people would need after the revolution, so it was stupid to destroy them.
And yet, the premise is becoming less and less robust as we progress. If we were to destroy the whole of New York City, wipe out the stock exchanges, the banks and government buildings of the major cities of the planet, it would still be better than allowing business as usual, given the scale of the damage these intuitions are doing to us.
It’s gotten that bad.
Which is why I’m writing this.
Of course, they won’t tell us that.
They don’t want us to panic.
God knows what we’d do if we were to panic…
We’d certainly clog up the roads and perhaps over run their golf courses.
David JM O'Brien 