Has the last train out of climate hell left the station?
Adults are still waiting on the platform
Raise your hand if you’ve ever stood on a train platform fully knowing that the last train has left. Well, I have, more than once. Because the alternative options would be too painful to execute. So I waited on the platform, because that’s where trains tend to stop. Because maybe there is a crazy train, one that they forgot to put on the arrivals board, that may just appear out of nowhere. Because maybe it will be beamed into the station by the Star Trek crew. Besides, there are others stupidly waiting like me. Except for the children, they are on a Climate Strike, a Halloween parade of sorts where they wear a different type of delusion mask and trick or treat their way to any candy left over by greedy, fat adults.
Everyone in their own world. It’s all a comedy of the absurd where, tragically, we can’t afford to laugh.
But in the famous Hans Christian Andersen tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, it was a child in the crowd who was the only one who had the guts to shout “the Emperor is naked”. This child today is Greta Thunberg. Humanity has rallied around “heroic” Greta like a sorry hypocrite, only so that it can lessen its own embarrassment for lying to itself for decades. Now that the Emperor’s self-deceit is exposed, he is telling Greta “Yes, I’m naked, ofourse I knew that, I’m just testing you. Well done you brave girl! I’m gonna make you my PR chief”
The Truth is Approaching. Or at least, some interesting version of it
If the silence of politicians after the Climate Strike isn’t telling you anything about humanity’s ongoing denial, if the fact that Shell and BP are internally planning for 5C yet pretending they have carbon credits for 1.5C, then the latest spin on the report released on the eve of the UN Climate Summit 2019 should keep us entertained. When newspaper headlines such as “countries must triple climate emission cut targets to limit global heating to 2C” are not causing the panic they should cause, but a deafening silence instead, then you know that the Emperor is in crisis mode, and running for cover in the bushes. If our biggest climate action is letting our children strike on the streets and fend for themselves instead of us adults taking responsibility, then you know that the real truth is hard to swallow. And here is the latest truth:
Emissions need to be cut by 45% by 2030. Now, if you are reading this article, and you are an adult, before you start lambasting me on social media, please ask yourself how attainable this target is without obliterrating half the world economy somehow, asap. At a loss for a magic suggestion, I can only offer at this stage the Green “Nuke” Deal : the dismantlement of parts of the world economy we can dismantle that are the most polluting and CO2 emitting. The products we don’t need, the factories producing useless new fossil-fueled car models, the wasteful fast fashion industry that tramples on human rights. It will come with losses and sacrifices, but we have no other choice.
We need a Climate Coup
Oh wait, I forgot. The Emperor has found some clothes in the bushes. It is a beautiful Green royal mumu dress. What?! You can’t see it? Traitor!
Which truth do you want?
It’s not only the Emperor’s version of the truth that is shifting towards Green New Deal Lalaland. The actual truth (the real one), is actually moving the other direction, shifting closer and closer to hell. The gap between Lalaland and slap-in-the-face truth is now so wide that no railway bridge can cover it without crossing far too many timezones, too late.
We are being told we are accelerating. We are told that mitigating (not even reversing) a runaway climate apocalypse requires 3 times, 5 times, who knows how many more times the effort compared to current agreements. Given that there is a pattern over the past few years of reports and predictions being constantly revised, this prediction will get worse and worse in the next few years. AGAIN.
Can you see the pattern here? We’ve already missed the train, and the Emperor is butt naked.
Denial brings Disaster. Desperation brings Hope.
You can follow me on Twitter @99blackbaloons
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