When it comes to the environment, we're all c*nts.
The sleepy Swiss mountain town of Davos is currently being besieged by the world’s rich and powerful. Like a meeting of the Skeksis from the Dark Crystal, they have descended upon the town for the World Economic Forum, whose mission is to: “engage the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.” Wonderful stuff. Except from where I’m sitting this whole circus just looks like a pointless exercise in self-congratulatory back slapping and dick measuring.
The clue’s in the name, World Economic Forum. We are still completely focused on the quest for endless economic growth. In itself this isn’t such a bad thing I guess, except for the fact that we can see the total failure of our current global system of governance and economics every day. The world is broken yo. It’s a crunchy old cliché but we are literally the poster child era for “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer”. So there’s that uncomfortable truth, and then there’s the small question of climate change to deal with too.
The completely tone-deaf nature of most of the guests’ arrival in Davos shows just how seriously the global elite is taking the biggest single issue humanity has ever faced. Most arrived by private jet or helicopter. I can’t. Greta was there of course, repeating her warnings of impending doom, and pleading with world leaders to listen to the science. She was met with lots of earnest head nodding in some quarters, and with outright mockery and disdain by representatives of the US government, and of course by the skin tag in chief Donald Trump.
Ultimately, the annual meeting in Davos seems to me to be a complete waste of time. I’m by no means an economist, but it is obvious that you can only have endless economic growth if you have endless resources to fuel that growth. Earth does not have infinite resources; we have used most of them up and taken a giant dump on the planet in the process. If we keep going like this, we are signing our own death warrants. Only idiots disagree. But still our leaders insist on E standing for economic, rather than environmental.
It’s hard to feel optimistic about the future. We’re running out of time to save ourselves and we’re not getting there fast enough. And we are ALL part of the problem. Take me for example, I’m an intelligent, educated person. I know all about the damage to the environment caused by intensive farming for meat, and aviation, yet I still want to eat steak (had it the other day), and I fly all over the place. I kid myself that because I don’t drive or have kids, my carbon footprint can’t be that bad, but I’m lying to myself. The truth is that all of us, just by dint of living in developed countries, are part of the problem. I know, I know, we try and do meat free Mondays, and we all recycle, but that’s just not going to cut it I’m afraid. We all fly too much, we all drive too much, we all still eat too much meat and dairy, we all still insist on having our own biological children, and we are all still good consumers. We are all cunts.
Until we have a total overhaul of our global system of governance, we’re screwed. And the reason I know we’re screwed is because if someone like me can be in possession of all the facts, and still continue to make the wrong, selfish choices time and again, what hope is there of Dan from Idaho who only watches Fox news coming into the light?
I sound incredibly selfish, and I suppose I am, but we have to be honest here. I’m not going to stop flying, and I’m not going to stop eating meat. But even those of us seemingly making better choices for the planet are aiding in its demise. Almond milk, quinoa and soy are by no means magical cure alls, but whatever makes you feel better Stacey.
The truth is, unless we are all forced to make drastic changes to the way we live, (don’t ask me how, I don’t know) the future is bleak as all hell.
Anybody have any ideas? Seriously. Asking for a friend.
