A PEOPLE’S REBELLION is the only way to fight CLIMATE BREAKDOWN! This week two articles are featured. Both are well worth reading for their point of view; neither is long, so read them both. George Monbiot’s, which contributed the title of this piece is here and Geoffrey Holland’s, titled The Way Forward is here.
From Monbiot’s article: “It is hard to believe today, but the prevailing ethos among the educated elite was once public service.” Now “We expect those who govern us to grab what they can, permitting predatory banks and corporations to fleece the public realm, then collect their reward in the form of lucrative directorships” And “Nowhere is the gulf between public and private interests more obvious than in governments’ response to the climate crisis.” Are things different here? “None of it makes sense, until you remember the intimate relationship between the fossil fuel industry, the City (where Perry made her fortune) and the Tory party, oiled by the political donations flowing from both sectors into the party’s coffers. These people are not serving the nation. They are serving each other.”
Actions can be taken: “On 31 October, I will speak at the launch of Extinction Rebellion in Parliament Square. This is a movement devoted to disruptive, nonviolent disobedience in protest against ecological collapse.” Hopefully the actions being committed to will make a difference: “This preparedness for sacrifice, a long history of political and religious revolt suggests, is essential to motivate and mobilise people to join an existential struggle. It is among such people that you find the public and civic sense now lacking in government. That we have to take such drastic action to defend the common realm shows how badly we have been abandoned.”
Holland is at least as blunt as Monbiot: “We are supposed to be intelligent beings. We are not behaving that way.” And “How much worse it gets depends on the decisions we make as a global human culture right now. Every moment we delay equates to more suffering, not just for future human generations, but for people alive right now.”
The reasons are plain, according to Holland, “Everywhere we turn, we find public policy that is shaped to serve private interests over the public good.” And, “Why have we been unable to effectively respond to the unprecedented, planetary scale challenges before us? Here is the one-word answer: corruption” More, “As long as we the people accept control by people, whose only interest is self-interest; as long as so many of our fellow human beings remain unaware or indifferent to that fact, life on Earth will remain on a dangerous course.”
Holland goes on with more, and makes a few suggestions specific to the USA.
Read Monbiot in Resilience here and Holland in MAHB here.
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