this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
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Young people have more incentive to do something because they have many more years to live.
Old men in politics don't care because they are only thinking about the next five years of good life they have left.
They're often thinking about "what will my legacy be" or "how will I be remembered" or "what will history say about me"
The answer to those kinds of thoughts can involve deciding to be a good ancestor.
I firmly believe that they are either not thinking about any of that ... or that they just don't have their mental faculties any more to even be bothered. All they seem to understand is money, wealth and power at all cost.
Otherwise, if someone or a group of people were thinking about their legacy or 'how they will be remembered' ... they would have started an unbelievable amount of work to get things done by now. Instead, they are all methodically trying to do things while saving their bank accounts and the bank accounts of their wealthy friends while doing it.
They won't be remembered for trying ... they'll be remembered for risking the future of humanity in order to save a bit of their wealth and privilege. If we have historians in the distant future, they'll think of this same time period in the same way we look back at the Babylonians and Sumerians who praised and worshipped unseen Gods and thought they would live forever. Our modern religion and God are finance and money and like our ancient ancestors ... we're willing to sacrifice ourselves for our beliefs because we honestly believe that our Gods are worth more than all of humanity.
The problem isn't that nobody is trying; it's that the fossil fuels industry has more power still, so what we've been able to pull off so far isn't sufficient.
For real, I went to protests, made signs, mailed an ungodly amount of flyers, donated and voted for changes. Barely made a difference for the years I put in, massively uphill and rigged battle. They just started and are bitching us adults aren't doing anything, we are tired from constantly fighting with little to show for it and are more concerned with paying rent next week bc we have actual responsibilities and obligations as adults ontop of everything else.
Lobbyists run the government
The only way you can counterbalance that is by getting involved. Phonebank with an activist group. Donate to a campaign. Use whatever access you can get to push the case for doing the right thing. Create a virtuous cycle of people whose job depends on decarbonization, who then help elect candidates who want to help get off fossil fuels.
I'm not sure, but I think that is the point they were making. The fossil fuels industry isn't some machine or an alien being, but a collection of humans, each of whom is very deliberately choosing wealth and power over correct behaviour. Likewise the politicians who deliberately choose to let them or, worse, help them get away with it. And don't get me started on the economists who treat corporations as machines or aliens who must be appeased rather than harnessed to the benefit of society.
The general public has known for at least 20 years what is necessary. The political class has known for at least 40 years. Industry has known for at least 50 and probably 60 years. Depending on how you read the research, scientists have known for as long as 150 years.
Actually, if you consider carbon emissions as just another case of dumping waste into the environment in the naive hope that nature will take care of it, everybody from all classes and sectors has known what was needed since at least the creation of the first national park designed to protect nature from destruction.