- May 19, 2011
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In case its necessary, the long version of what I'm asking in the threat title: Judging by the general global response to covid, ie. enough people evidently not taking sufficient responsibility (personal responsibility, and collective responsibility from those who should be leading: companies, countries, whatever), I fairly firmly believe that humanity will get proper-fucked by climate change.
Admittedly the two crises are very different, but both require a global response that's fairly consistent. AFAIK climate change could be countered mostly with morally-minded leadership (including political bipartisanship) to persue tough commitments to ensure that for example manufacturing processes are optimised for environmental concerns at the expense of short-term capitalism. Whereas the global covid response requires a commitment from pretty much everyone on the planet and powerful messaging to convince various degrees of covidiots to do their part (which isn't insignificant).
However, factoring our political reality into account, the two crises are more similar: Conservatives (the GOP and the UK conservative party at the very least) would rather downplay the problems and/or pretend they don't exist, and think that capitalism is a greater concern than public health (even though the former depends on the latter). The GOP are still in denial about covid and climate change, and the UK conservatives are treating covid like a PR threat and acting like fracking is a good long-term solution. When the political powers are not singing from the same hymn sheet in response to a global issue, then neither is the populace. When enough of the populace is not taking the crisis sufficiently seriously, then the political powers are happy to concern themselves with other issues like trying to make the capitalism spice flow in the short term.
We've got enough people claiming that covid doesn't even exist (or isn't a serious issue) when the death toll has reached the millions and hospitals have filled to the point that critically ill people cannot be cared for to normal standards; the issue is right in front of them and still they act like this. What chance does humanity have against countering climate change when the symptoms are a lot more easily deniable (attributable to other causes)? We've got lunatics who are happy to say people who died of covid actually died from something else though it was a direct result of a covid infection. My parents (conservatives of course) honestly believed that when the local council asks us to separate waste for recycling that they all throw it into the landfill anyway.
Even though I've written a whole load of very fatalistic viewpoints about covid and climate change, I'm not going to let my guard down for a second and think that any personal effort is pointless anyway because it might still help in some small way, but I do think the writing is on the wall for humanity. I'd be surprised if either crisis resulted in the complete end of humanity, but IMO the outcome of either will not be to the betterment of humanity, ie. we confronted a problem and pulled together heroically to achieve the best possible solution as quickly as we could and we've learnt something in the process. We may pull through but not without great loss and without having achieved something that stands us in better stead for the next crisis.
I'm personally at a point where yesterday I was considering the likely scenario that the region I live in will enter lockdown again that instead of doing nothing I might volunteer at a local hospital in a lower-risk capacity (whatever donkey work needs doing). It's crazy that I live in a developed country that will likely need that kind of help because its populace has enough uncivilised people in it, but that is the sad reality we are living in.
Thoughts?
Admittedly the two crises are very different, but both require a global response that's fairly consistent. AFAIK climate change could be countered mostly with morally-minded leadership (including political bipartisanship) to persue tough commitments to ensure that for example manufacturing processes are optimised for environmental concerns at the expense of short-term capitalism. Whereas the global covid response requires a commitment from pretty much everyone on the planet and powerful messaging to convince various degrees of covidiots to do their part (which isn't insignificant).
However, factoring our political reality into account, the two crises are more similar: Conservatives (the GOP and the UK conservative party at the very least) would rather downplay the problems and/or pretend they don't exist, and think that capitalism is a greater concern than public health (even though the former depends on the latter). The GOP are still in denial about covid and climate change, and the UK conservatives are treating covid like a PR threat and acting like fracking is a good long-term solution. When the political powers are not singing from the same hymn sheet in response to a global issue, then neither is the populace. When enough of the populace is not taking the crisis sufficiently seriously, then the political powers are happy to concern themselves with other issues like trying to make the capitalism spice flow in the short term.
We've got enough people claiming that covid doesn't even exist (or isn't a serious issue) when the death toll has reached the millions and hospitals have filled to the point that critically ill people cannot be cared for to normal standards; the issue is right in front of them and still they act like this. What chance does humanity have against countering climate change when the symptoms are a lot more easily deniable (attributable to other causes)? We've got lunatics who are happy to say people who died of covid actually died from something else though it was a direct result of a covid infection. My parents (conservatives of course) honestly believed that when the local council asks us to separate waste for recycling that they all throw it into the landfill anyway.
Even though I've written a whole load of very fatalistic viewpoints about covid and climate change, I'm not going to let my guard down for a second and think that any personal effort is pointless anyway because it might still help in some small way, but I do think the writing is on the wall for humanity. I'd be surprised if either crisis resulted in the complete end of humanity, but IMO the outcome of either will not be to the betterment of humanity, ie. we confronted a problem and pulled together heroically to achieve the best possible solution as quickly as we could and we've learnt something in the process. We may pull through but not without great loss and without having achieved something that stands us in better stead for the next crisis.
I'm personally at a point where yesterday I was considering the likely scenario that the region I live in will enter lockdown again that instead of doing nothing I might volunteer at a local hospital in a lower-risk capacity (whatever donkey work needs doing). It's crazy that I live in a developed country that will likely need that kind of help because its populace has enough uncivilised people in it, but that is the sad reality we are living in.
Thoughts?
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