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Time for Change.: Difference between revisions
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In healthcare, when someone has a stomach ache, you can quickly ''treat'' it by going to a pharmacy. The pharmacist can address the immediate problem, indigestion = antacids, diarrhoea = loperamide, pain = analgesics. However whilst the acute symptoms may subside, you have just removed a key bodily warning system which might remind you that something more serious is wrong. The same is to say with our actions to save the environment, whilst well-meaning, not using plastic straws only helps relieve a symptom of a much larger problem. The science of third parties trying to convince you of these facts is not nefarious, there's no James Bond villain stroking his white cat. Its simply that we are living in a society which bases its success on profit. A classic example of greenwashing is when Volkswagen admitted to cheating emissions tests by fitting various vehicles with a “defect” device, with software which could detect when it was undergoing an emissions test and altering the performance to reduce the emissions level. | In healthcare, when someone has a stomach ache, you can quickly ''treat'' it by going to a pharmacy. The pharmacist can address the immediate problem, indigestion = antacids, diarrhoea = loperamide, pain = analgesics. However whilst the acute symptoms may subside, you have just removed a key bodily warning system which might remind you that something more serious is wrong. The same is to say with our actions to save the environment, whilst well-meaning, not using plastic straws only helps relieve a symptom of a much larger problem. The science of third parties trying to convince you of these facts is not nefarious, there's no James Bond villain stroking his white cat. Its simply that we are living in a society which bases its success on profit. A classic example of greenwashing is when Volkswagen admitted to cheating emissions tests by fitting various vehicles with a “defect” device, with software which could detect when it was undergoing an emissions test and altering the performance to reduce the emissions level. | ||
== The Issue. == | |||
''These are the main issues we face:'' | |||
* '''Deniers''' - cherry picking small pieces of information and relying on people’s lack of comprehension and capacity for research to sow doubt and uncertainty. | |||
* '''Undermining expertise and intellect''' - (Goebbals, Gove, Bannon, Farage, Savarola, Trump, Putin) creating division between those who care, and those they care about | |||
* '''Religion''' - prizing faith over research and evidence based approaches & telling people that their own higher power won’t allow destruction, floods and desertification | |||
* '''Mercantilist capitalism''' - capitalism, a great system that has done more to reduce poverty than nearly any other institution, but corrupted and protected by governments in order to allow them to exhaust resources rather than respond to the consequent changes in supply and demand | |||
* '''First past the post electoral systems''' - promoting single issue politics (Brexit), and weakening the capacity of smaller parties to campaign for complex longer term issues (understandably seen as secondary) | |||
* '''Consolidation of the media''' - I don’t subscribe the conspiracy theories, but 80% of all UK media is controlled by just 4 men - and any economist can tell you the damage done by oligopoly - and any political scientist can appall you with horror stories of what oligarchies do | |||
* '''Apathy/(bread and circuses)''' - compare subscriptions to sky sports against subscriptions to Greenpeace - once the bread gets a bit short, it’ll be too late | |||
* '''Technoutopianism''' - I’m a fan of a technological solution - but it is a bet and a risky one too - the interrelationships of climate and environment are complex, and the rise of the scientific method over superstition has been incredibly successful in speeding up progress, but it can take a long time, and as you can see from the thermometer below we are already crazily close to the +1.5C increase | |||
* '''Poor education standards''' - making it easier for people to be misled through ignorance of the availability of data for research and forecasting (negating their talents and intellect) | |||
* '''Undiagnosed and untreated mental illnesses''' - narcissism, psychopathy of the wealthy and those in power. | |||
* '''Copyright and patent system''' - if we could copy the code of FB, Gmail, Youtube and distribute it, we would not have to sit through endless advertising promoting excessive consumption just to connect with one another. | |||
* Undisclosed corporate lobbying - many politicians migrate between private and governmental positions. | |||
* '''Pro natalism''' - it's inherent in our culture to have more kids. The best thing you can do for the planet is have 1 or less children. | |||
The argument that is presented on this site is that these issues are a symptom, a consequence of a root cause. | |||
== The Goal. == | == The Goal. == | ||