Our battle, 2030 or Bust’s battle is not with the climate. Or the Republicans. Or the fossil fuel industry. Or any of the other popular and usual suspects out there being vilified and attacked on multiple fronts. Our foe is much darker, much more sinister, much more cunning and insidious. Our adversary is within, not without. It is the nature of humanity itself. It is the seemingly inherent drive to avoid confronting the cold, stark reality of a situation that we find uncomfortable. Like when we first learn we have an incurable disease or when we first hear that we are at the beginning stages of a global pandemic that will likely bring the world as we know it to a screeching halt.
Is our first response to get the facts completely objective, separate from our emotions, opinions, beliefs, and ideologies? No. It is to deflect it, deny it, pretend that it’s not really happening, that what we’re hearing is not actually the case. It is to hear the words but avoid the impact of letting those words penetrate our veneer of denial, delusion, and avoidance. What we can’t or won’t confront, we simply pretend, isn’t there, not the full breadth and depth of what it is. And we respond consistently with the pretense – with hope, platitudes, and distraction.
Such is the case with the upcoming UN climate conference, COP 26, in Glasgow. A collection of incredibly well-meaning people, all at work on the situation of climate change, and little to no real confront of what it will take to end the crisis; no actual plan or strategy to bridge the gap between where we’re headed and where we need to be to have any real shot at a future of sustainability. A global collective of best efforts, progress, and ungrounded optimist, is exactly what we don’t need. A conference that feeds the beast of what is keeping us on the road to extinction, the wolf in sheep¿s clothing,k the emperor with no clothes, an accomplice in keeping us asleep to the real crisis, the crisis that is us.
Biden is hell-bent on getting some kind of climate legislation passed before the conference, not because it will actually do the work necessary to end the crisis, but because it will let him make the speech that tells the world that a great job he’s doing, and how we can all now be assured that we are well on our way to a future of sustainability. All lies, lethal lies, deadly lies, lies that keep the BIG LIE in place. the lie that the situation is under control, no worries, if we just keep doing our best and stay positive, it will all turn out. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
I have attended these conferences in the past; i will not be attending this year and will not be wasting my time. Oh, there will be protesters for sure; maybe even Greta will show up to scream at everyone for not working faster, none of which will make even a dent in what needs to be blown to smithereens, i.e., our complacency, resignation, and powerlessness. We will be content to watch this diplomatic pep rally and find comfort and refuge in the lie that someone else is handling the crisis, living in the delusion that it’s not REALLY that big a deal, that as long as we can get to work without battling a flood or wildfire, then it can’t be so bad, that it’s not really OUR business, that it’s not really up to you or me. We will stay numb and happy and powerless. Just how humans like it.
