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1) I'd like to posit a few possibilities about our leadership.
What if when our leaders commissioned all these people, sincere academics to come up with plans to address the climate crisis, that they never really had any intention of implementing them? https://twitter.com/KevinClimate/status/1386616135647440897
What if when our leaders commissioned all these people, sincere academics to come up with plans to address the climate crisis, that they never really had any intention of implementing them? https://twitter.com/KevinClimate/status/1386616135647440897
2) What if these leaders were just buying time. That they hadn't got a clue what to do about it. But didn't want to stop business as usual because all their status and wealth was derived from it. But at the same time didn't want to tell people that they didn't give a damn.
3) Right from when climate change became a public story in the late 1980s the public were very concerned about it. So political leaders knew if they wanted to get the public to vote for them, or support them, they had to at least act concerned.
4) The simplest way for politicians to appear concerned and committed to addressing a serious threat about the climate crisis, was to commission research to develop strategies into averting catastrophe.
5) If leaders weren't really committed to action to addressing the climate and ecological emergency, but they were just saying this to get elected, and to enjoy the wealth, the power and status for as long as possible, you'd expect them to keep procrastinating.
6) The problem is that this is exactly what they have done. Since they first pledged action 30 years ago, carbon emissions have rapidly risen and biodiversity has continued to decline steeply. Yet still our leadership procrastinates.
7) Up until about 10 years ago it was just about credible that governments had big plans to address the climate and ecological crisis. After all governments keep their strategies and plans secret. The problem is, it has now become apparent that no government or leader has a plan.
8) On of the tricks of distraction is to pretend that they have only just realised how serious the problem is. Let me disabuse this lie. Please read the UN Report, Our Common Future from 1987.
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/5987our-common-future.pdf
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/5987our-common-future.pdf
9) Our Common future was the conclusions of the Brundtland Commission set up by the UN in 1983, because they were alarmed no action had been taken after the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment, which highlighted the dire situation we were in.
10) In other words, it was known about at the highest possible level that if we were to avert future catastrophe caused by our unsustainable exploitation of the natural environment that sustained us, we needed a major change in direction.
11) So the claim that we have only just discovered the seriousness of our situation is a complete and utter lie.
For 50 years governments have ploughed on chasing economic, growth, profit and ever greater wealth for the super-rich, knowing they had to change direction.
For 50 years governments have ploughed on chasing economic, growth, profit and ever greater wealth for the super-rich, knowing they had to change direction.
12) Just how much more evidence do you need that this is a consistent pattern of procrastination?
13) Some people do much, much better out of the current system, than the majority who are just struggling to keep their heads above water. They live in palatial houses, have great wealth and very high status. All leaders are in this category, even if not the wealthiest.
14) From the very beginning i.e. 50 years ago, it was well known that this change in direction would involved equity i.e. the equal sharing of resources, which was incompatible with some having much more than others.
15) In other words, those much higher up in society, had much, much more to lose by a switch to a sustainable society than ordinary people, who would lose very little, and might gain quite a bit.
16) Therefore those most motivated to procrastinate were those in power making the decisions.
By no coincidence, this is what we see for the last 50 years. A constant pattern of procrastination, whilst the wealthy and powerful benefiting from economic growth plough on with this.
By no coincidence, this is what we see for the last 50 years. A constant pattern of procrastination, whilst the wealthy and powerful benefiting from economic growth plough on with this.
17) I am sure most of these climate professionals were sincere in their endeavours. But let's be honest about this, there has never been any political will to implement the strategies they have developed at the scale necessary.
18) It's all about scale. To make a difference, measures have got to be implemented at the necessary scale to make a difference. But all we see are token gestures.
19) Let me suggest that it is not the plans at fault, but the lack of political will to implement them.
20) We assume that governments are there to serve our needs and protect us, because that is what the tell us, and that is what happens in the movies. But is this the case?
21) As I've pointed out, some people are doing much better our of the present system than the majority. This includes all those in leadership and decision making position, and the other even wealthier people bankroll politicians and have all the influence.
22) The lie is peddled that politicians could make the necessary decisions and act, because of a lack of public support. I SAY THIS IS A MONSTROUS LIE!
23) Between the 1992 Rio Earth Summit when politicians made these huge pledges to address the crisis, to just after 2010 people consistently voted for politicians vowing to address the crisis.
24) There were never any major public protests about action to address the climate and ecological emergency. In fact as recent as 2010, British PM David Cameron was promising the "greenest government ever". https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pms-speech-at-decc
25) David Cameron was only offering the "greenest ever government" and had been hugging Huskies 5 years earlier, because it was politically popular and a vote winner. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2016/apr/22/earth-day-2016-what-happened-to-david-camerons-green-tory-dream-video
26) Therefore, there is no basis at all to the claim that politicians were stopped from implementing measures to address the climate and ecological emergency, because 20 years after these pledges, it was still a vote winner.
27) Public climate change denial is a fairly recent phenomena, and only really gained the status where it could influence elections at the time that Donald Trump got elected.
28) Therefore, what stopped political leaders implementing measures to addressing the climate and ecological crisis in the intervening 20+ years? It certainly wasn't public opposition.
29) Unfortunately, we have had nearly 30 years of the public being misled into believing that the climate and ecological emergency, was possible whilst pursuing economic growth to the maximum, and that these clever strategies were going to save us.
30) Even now the public is being misled into believing that it is just a matter of switching over to electric vehicles more renewable energy etc.
31) However, the biodiversity crisis, and other components of the ecological crisis are as serious as climate change, and could cause the collapse of our civilization, even if the climate crisis did not exist.
32) In the words of Sir Robert Watson.
"We cannot solve the threats of human-induced climate change and loss of biodiversity in isolation. We either solve both or we solve neither." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/06/biodiversity-climate-change-mass-extinctions
"We cannot solve the threats of human-induced climate change and loss of biodiversity in isolation. We either solve both or we solve neither." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/06/biodiversity-climate-change-mass-extinctions
33) However, electric vehicles, renewable energy etc, will do absolutely nothing at all to reverse the biodiversity crisis. In fact, almost certainly they would make it worse. Only whole system change can address an ecological crisis (because ecosystems are systems).
34) Unfortunately, the whole climate strategies of the last 25+ years have been little more than a fig leaf to hide the fact that our governments had got no plans to address the crisis, and no plans to change the system.
35) Earlier I linked to the report of the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment, and Our Common Future (1987), that formed the basis of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. They make it clear that system change is necessary, not isolated techno-fixes.
36) Once again, I am not opposed to using technology. It is just that technology itself will not change anything, without major change to the whole system in which this technology is implemented and utilised.
@threadreaderapp - please unroll?
