17
votes
The Australian scientist who tried to raise the alarm about climate change asks himself "Where did I go wrong?"
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- Title
- 'Where did I go wrong?' The scientist who tried to raise the climate alarm
- Authors
- Graham Readfearn
- Published
- Nov 20 2023
- Word count
- 1397 words
Sorry, return on investment just wasn't good enough. Next!
To put the cynicism aside for a moment. It's natural to blame yourself in such a moment, especially if you spent your life campaigning for a (just) cause you truly believe in. But the forces at work here are so monumental, the money made so ludicrous, it's difficult to put the blame on any single individual. Sure, a lot of folks share the blame for it, but because so many do, it's very hard for the individual in such a group to recognize their blame, which makes it easy to deflect and focus on the things that matter in their life, like paying the rent, or mortgage, or for the next school trip of their kids.
There's no one person or group who are directly responsible, we are all guilty somehow and somewhere due to the vast network of supply chains and globalisation.
But that means so many of us take it as our personal vendetta to solve this gigantic, phenomenally vast problem as individuals. Which you just cannot do (unless you're an asset manager who owns all the rest!)
I mean, let's honestly and realistically look at this from a worst case scenario perspective. If I actively lived my life trying to be the worst case scenario individual for climate change, I would still have a negligible impact on the global scale. I'm talking driving an F350 truck everywhere, don't recycle a single thing, keep my heat as high as possible in the winter, run my AC in every room all summer at the highest setting, etc. I don't have the financial ability to be as bad in my entire lifetime as Kim Kardashian is in a single year with her private jet.
I drive a small vehicle because it is less expensive for me, and the fact that I have a slight positive impact on the environment over driving a pickup is an added benefit. I recycle my plastics, glass and aluminum whenever I can because I care. I bluntly don't have the ability to save the planet, or to destroy it. Not the way Bill Gates or Elon Musk do.
I vote whenever I can for politicians and policies that support pro environmental policies, that is the single most important thing any individual can do for climate change. Us poor or middle class people debating eachother over how to be the most environmentally friendly is a distraction from affective policy.
In terms of single things maybe, but voting isn't enough. Like, you should vote straight ticket dem every year because of the alternative, but if you're an environmentally conscious person you know the democrats are not currently doing enough and that won't change without grassroots political activism.
Voting is a thing that you should do, it takes very little effort. But policy is not informed by people's needs or wants without a lot of work too, and right now national policy is so out of sync with the wants and needs of the majority of people that we can't act like voting is the end-all-be-all of civics and governance.
You're pretty much spot on. The very wealthy seem. To be causing mayhem, though we in the West aren't exactly innocent when we buy into shitty systems. We can cushion our effects, but we're as beholden to a shitty system as everyone else.
We need actual regulations that go enforced against those who cause the most damage. But alas...