Sunday, November 12, 2023

Changing the Rules

 (This piece is from two years ago.)

"We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed. Everything needs to change – and it has to start today." -- Greta Thunberg

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If there could be just one takeaway from the global Covid-19 plague it would be that we are all in this thing together against a common enemy. A cliche, true, but only a useful insight if we can apply it to our non-pandemic lives.

Unfortunately, as the climate summit winds down in Scotland, the various parties are having trouble coming together to forge meaningful new limits on carbon emissions. And if there were ever a common threat to human survival we need to unite against it would be planetary climate change.

As usual, Hollywood and science fiction are way ahead of the curve, offering dystopian visions of the crisis. But there really are no words to describe the end of the human story.

Just silence.

As a village in Wales slips into the sea, the leaders of the major powers quarrel over dollars. It's biblical, isn't it? The scope of what is to come.

Yet giving up hope in the face of this calamity is also beyond words. The voices of the children ring out. As Greta Thunberg says: "How dare you?"

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