COPOUT 26: THE LATEST IN A VERY LONG LINE

COP26 is the latest pretence that the policies to protect the planet’s environment and stave off climate change, that should have been put in place fifty and more years ago, will be enacted now at the very last possible moment.

When governments call on ever more economic growth and need the taxes and employment that come from that growth to build the infrastructure and other requirements of their populations to keep getting elected, where is the incentive to tell people to consume less, spend less, recycle, refurbish and repair rather than endlessly buy new?

This is why we hear of endless, largely meaningless and toothless projects that have come to little or nothing so far in the so-called determination of governments to make fundamental changes to protect the planet from catastrophic climate change.

Politicians are good at this sort of thing. They create formulations of words that will sound convincing but are next-door neighbours to outright lies and simply kick the issue of climate change further down the road for their successors to kick further in their turn. They do this for every other issue under the sun that requires some heat being taken by them or the risk of a downturn in their poll ratings and chances of reelection, so why not this issue too?

Asking people to do the most appropriate thing at this critical juncture is potential political suicide. Even hinting that people would be well advised to buy less stuff, make do with what they already have, repair and recycle and in general enjoy the simple things that give pleasure but don’t cost the earth.

Voluntary Simplicity is a thing. You may not have heard of it and certainly not living a Low Maintenance Lifestyle and most probably not the phrase ‘Live Simply So Others May Simply Live.

The book ‘To Have or to Be’, written by Erich Fromm, humanist philosopher and democratic socialist and published in 1976 was my introduction to the concepts above. He would I believe be quite amazed at how we have all been seduced into the ever more seductive world of materialist marketing since his death in 1980 and equally amazed at the naivety of many that politicians are sincere in wishing to reduce our addiction to the products seducing us.

Many have taken to wearing environmental blinkers, not least those who are unsurprisingly devoted to elevating their bottom line profits to the exclusion of all else. And who can blame them? If you were struggling to compete with those trying to grind you into the ground as a perceived enemy would your first thought be to increase your costs by going green? Or, if you had reached the pinnacle of success would your thoughts turn to seeking ways to go green rather than using those massive profits to expand even further? Okay, YOU might not, but how many business-heads do you think mirror your thoughts and conscience?

John Kerry, the so-called U.S. Envoy for Climate recently said that dealing with the effects of climate change need not require Americans to change their lifestyles. Doesn’t this remark show exactly how little will there is to change anything that might hurt any American politician’s chances at the ballot box? No doubt he has been swung on the notion that the problem of deriving near endless energy from nuclear fusion will be solved sometime soon. Unless he is banking on something like this I can’t imagine how he comes to the conclusion that the ultra-materialist waste-mongers of the USA can keep binging from here to infinity without any consequences being felt. Perhaps there is something in the theory that he is in fact some form of space lizard thinly disguised as a human being after all.

We are in a world of troubles. U.S. elites are at war with the other primary nation that has the expertise and manpower to turn climate change around in combination with themselves, China. Other national conflicts and disputes abound and this is even before resource psychosis hits where everyone and his dog demands that universal luxury goods as advertised so seductively be made available worldwide. Don’t think the mega-merchandisers aren’t working on that, be assured they certainly are. Dissatisfaction with the way you are and what you have is built into the selling model with every psychological button from kiddie power to your man or womanhood is being worked on round the clock.

Governments want to be popular. The politicians within those governments want to be re-elected. They need to provide the goodies their populations demand. Better infrastructure. Better services and facilities. More and better. All the time. These governments need to create jobs which means businesses must expand. The more they expand the more taxes governments get and the more goodies they can supply to get them re-elected. And so it goes round and round and round.

And we are meant to believe they are serious about passing laws that limit or reduce any of that? Really?

Greta Thunberg is spot on in calling what politicians do all the time of this subject as ‘smoke and mirrors’, so much ‘Blah, blah, blah’. She is 100% correct and most of her audience know it. But will anything change?

Would turkeys vote for Christmas?

COPOUT 26: THE LATEST IN A VERY LONG LINE