GaiaPermaculture

The headline today in Australia was “Family First senator Steve Fielding has made up his mind on global warming - there’s not enough evidence that it’s real.”

My die hard activist friend was sitting in my office today bemoaning Senator Fielding and calling him an out and out idiot. How could he deny that the science was real? I let her finish spewing about how he was doing a disservice to the country and then I said some things that shocked her. In the end I am not sure she, or others, will listen but it is genuinely important that these things are said.

1. Climate change / global warming and all that they entail, real science versus bunk science, and the polarised views on both sides, are doing nothing more than distorting the reality of the situation we face. The reality is much more grim than many can possibly imagine. Surf the Internet yourself to find the statistics of the number of species that are going extinct annually, find out for yourself the number of strip mines that cover the earth. And don’t fool yourself for a minute that every time you are clicking and sending a virtual plant via some online application like facebook’s Green Patch that you are actually doing anything to save the rain forest.

2. Activism has forced the issue of climate change / global warming but that very same activism is doing nothing more than a disservice to greater environmental issues. By focusing solely on one environmental issue / cause celebre we are neglecting the rape and pillage of our planet’s resources by greedy corporations to feed sedentary dullards that watch tv on average of 6+ hours a day! The truth is that managing our carbon emissions is a stupid goal that people think we can attain. It is the equivalent of sticking our finger in a leaking dike and hoping for the best.

3. Middle class activism is polarising the issue along class lines because the tactics they use are alienating the very groups they are trying to “help”. I am particularly tired of hearing my bourgeosie / middle class friends whinge about climate change and how they need to get the government to spend money on solving the problem. First of all there are the emerging economies - they like and want a Western lifestyle in all it’s vainglorious unsustainable corpulent excess. Secondly, if it really mattered that much they would stop driving to stupid meetings on global warming with their drum circles and chanting and actually do something about it like plant a garden, grow their own food, get out of their cars en masse and demand real change to government policy instead of the tokenism demonstrated by most governments to pacify the electorate. They would also stop and think about the real economic impact that their lifestyle creates because they are so resolutely comfortable in their lifestyle they have forgotten that there are the poor who do not have the time to try in vain to “stop climate change” because they are simply trying to survive. Middle class consumption is one of the primary reasons why we are in this mess in the first place!

4. For decades a “Western” life, with all that entails - consumerism, materialism, greed, and poor management of resources has been held up as the ideal for all other “emerging economies” and “developing nations”. These very same Western industrialised nations have subjugated the poorer nations and raped them of their resources. Now these emerging economies want a piece of the proverbial pie. Even if Western nations shift the mindset of their overly consuming population the ideal of consumerism and materialism has filtered down to the “emerging economies” a.k.a. 3rd world nations. They will not easily revert back to their old way of life after having been fed the mantra that “Greed is Good” for so long from industrialised nations. Industrialised Western nations have subjugated those lesser fortunate by tagging them with names such as “emerging economy” and “developing nation” in a condescending fashion that belies the true ulterior motive of those nations - to feed their masses at the expense of the poorer nations, to give comfort to the fat cat corporations and the denizens of their goods and services, and to continue to subjugate the nations that have the resources but not the ability to self-manage because they have been hoodwinked.

Here is the truth about climate change / global warming that only a very few smart people realise… We are not the perpetrators of climate change or global warming or whatever other name you want to call it. We are responsible for the wholesale destruction of our planet. Regardless of whether or not you believe the science that climate change is happening and it is man made there are naturally occurring mechanisms in the planetary cycle that we do not understand. Solar activity, the earth’s magnetic field, and so much more are all inputs into the system, not just carbon emissions. So many things have an influence on our climate it would be nearly incalculable to identify them all. Look at it this way - we cannot even understand how our own bodies work. We don’t understand disease or cancer with absolute totality. How can we possibly begin to comprehend the complex organism that is the Earth we call home?!

The bottom line is thus… our waterways are polluted with toxic non-biodegradable chemicals, there is a garbage dump of floating plastic in the Pacific Ocean approximately the size of Texas. There are more species going extinct everyday. The clock is no longer 10 to midnight, it is 1 to midnight. Middle class activism has polarised the issue of climate change / global warming to the point that government’s feel compelled to act. But at the cost of everything else.

If you want to “Save the Planet” as we are told by our goody goody greenie friends then I suggest you get off your computer and go plant some food. We are NOT going to really remedy the ecological holocaust and widespread devastation of our planet until we actually recognise the real problem. Stop believing the lies you are being told that we can save the planet by lowering carbon emissions. We can’t. Why? Because that’s not the problem!