Climate Suicide

It is sad to think of and harder to prevent, however suicide will be the next logical (but stupid) step in the battle between climate activists and climate changers.

With the slogan deleting myself from the climate imbalance one would be performing the ultimate altruist act. Removing oneself from a population that is changing the climate would be one small symbolic step (considering a population of eight billion) but an extreme act of civil disobedience and the ultimate personal sacrifice for the greater good.

Observing the trends amongst climate activist, it is clear that their actions are getting extremer each passing day. From gluing themselves to streets and blocking rescue vehicles (unintentionally) to gluing themselves to works of art across galleries around the global. Frustrations amongst activists must be comparably extreme.

Those frustrations grow out of the unchanging status-quo of a situation that has been with us for over fifty years. Even worse, few realise that climate change studies have been with us since the late 19th century. We have known for longer than we like to believe that our actions have been negatively affecting our environment, our life-support system.

It is unfortunate that the worlds media, instead of addressing the causes of those extreme acts prefer to discuss the symptoms - the damage caused to objects, the disruption to societal order, the number of arrests, the imprisonments. And if that doesn’t sway public opinion against the activists, then oppressive draconian rhetoric comparing climate activists to terrorists is pulled out of the hat.

Our worlds political class pays lip service to the topic. One example is Rishi Sunak (the at-the-time-of-writing prime minister of the UK) highlights this lip service by first refusing to go to the COP27 climate conference and then under public pressure, he does a backflip. That is well and good, however he could have said that he would attend but online - that is, he does not fly to Egypt, instead keep the carbon dioxide in the ground, and attends only online, using a technology fine-tuned during the Covid pandemic.

It is ironic and sad to have a climate conference occurring in-person instead of online. As an additional bonus if it were an online-only conference, we - as global citizens - could have all attended instead of merely the selected few.

I as an observer find it disappointing and dystopian to wake in the morning to news of war, destruction and pandemic only then to read of global leaders flying halfway around the world to attend a climate conference sponsored by Coca-Cola.

(Artwork is copyleft, Text is copyright)

[Part of the Taboo Tiles series.]

Postscriptum

The hidden truth of climate change is perhaps that it is already irreversible being a combination of man-made actions and Natures complex misunderstood rebalancing strategies. Undoubtedly Nature acts partly as a magnifying glass for human stupidity.

Scientists potentially know this and since they know it, the political class potentially knows. Which then means that the political class is acting, as they mostly do, in their own best interests (whereby the scientist had hoped they would act in the interest of the greater good).

We tend to forget that we are also part of Nature (no matter how often we attempt to demonstrate that we are not). And it is clear that Nature will survive any climate change, Nature is the great survivor in this mess. As Nature survives, we humans will adapt and continue on - as a species, conceivably not in a larger societally form.

Therefore potentially another hidden truth is that, similar to the Y2K bug, nothing much will happen - to 80% of the humans on the planet. Doubtless the biggest secret behind the climate change is that most people alive will continue to be alive - 80% being higher than 49%.

The irony is that what we should not be excessively scared of nature or climate change, but the destructive forces of our fellow humans as fear grows that they are on the wrong side of balance sheet - i.e. they face or belief they face certain death. The battles over precious resources will cause far more deaths and destruction than the climate change or the naturally occurring changes.

But who knows. Doubtless this a whole lot of hogwash and speculation but it remains my personal belief system much as religions are belief systems.