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‘We are damned fools’: scientist who sounded climate alarm in 80s warns of worse to come
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
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You know voters don't get to choose who, or what, is on the ballot, right?
This is a problem of structural power, not individual responsibility.
I'm talking about group responsibility, not hoping for structural power to solve issues it was never designed to.
In the States, if you're a voter who waits until the last step of the process to vote, then yes-- you get that limited menu of selection. As we've seen, this is a pretty great way to fail to address the real-world problems of unsustainability.
Yeah, you're right. It's everyone else's fault, for not being as committed as you are. Too busy keeping a roof over their heads and food on the table or some such trivial nonsense.
Power is the problem. If all you can do is scold people for not being activist enough, all you will ever do is fuck people off.
Hah. Like I'm personally any kind of avatar on this stuff.
No, I'm not scolding anyone-- I'm pointing out how we could have responded effectively to the issue in the past tense, as it now appears we're ruddy-well borked, and pretty much missed ~95% of our biggest opportunities to make effective change. And in case you're wondering, these are hardly my unique thoughts, and in fact are attributable to much smarter, more aware people than I, across a range of science-based and sociological-based platforms & orgs. I'm merely a little canary who happened to be in the room, TBC.
Sure, any individual can say 'well I had my own life, job, interests, etc to pursue and couldn't be bothered with this shite,' but we're talking about the body of people across 40+ years. If they can't understand the forest is on fire or the mountain is about to landslide, then despite whoever their leadership is, in the end it's on them.
Indeed, we still have an absurdly high number of people in the States who don't even understand what ACC actually is, and of course are deeply resentful of the idea that humans had anything to do with it(!)
So blame whatever specific components you like if it makes you feel better, but in the end, it's a fundamental failing of our high-tech, freemarket-capitalism civilisation to address these crises in a reasonably prompt manner.
EDIT: I will of course say this-- if you're late to the game, and if you're late in absorbing and understanding this stuff, then yes... it's indeed a heavy pill to swallow, and I completely understand not feeling like you're personally responsible. And indeed, people in our relative class are barely responsible, compared to the reprehensible wealthy and exploitative corporations, especially those who promote real disinformation, such as the Koch Bros, right-wing extremists, bogus 'think tanks' and so forth.
Patronising, naive, self-righteous bullshit. I've been in this game a lot longer than you have and wagging your fingers at people will get you absolutely nowhere. The problem is power and you need to work on challenging it, not just whining because other people aren't doing enough to challenge it.
Well, matey, you're certainly a bundle of fun, yourself... with deep respect to the power of projection.
In closing, may I ask what "game" you're thinking of, and especially-- does it involve understanding what the body of worldwide science orgs have been saying for many decades now..?