The black smoke ring of death

Dear all,

I have what my parents would probably term some extreme opinions. I can’t help it. Having spent coming up for eight years studying purely the brewing death of the planet and everything on it, I do feel as though I have some insight as to precisely what is going to stab us in the face.

I have really mixed feelings about having children, for example. I mean, I’m a bit scared of them, and I was in the office with my boss’ kid the other day and I kept opening my mouth like a fish and closing it again because seriously, what do you even say to a five-year-old? All I could think of was ‘Nice pirate hat’ and I don’t blame him for ignoring that. I didn’t know what to say to five-year-olds when I was one, never mind now. But they seem all right, and it would probably be great to have a baby one day, and I think I’d be good with teenagers. Anyway, I’ve digressed – because they seem all right and everything, and that’s an experience I’d quite like one day, maybe. But how can I, when I know the shitstorm of injustice that would claw them from the womb? How can you possibly avoid the fact that a) the world you brought them into is not the world you were brought into and b) simply by living, they are going to make the whole situation worse and basically kill themselves faster. That is HORRIBLE, isn’t it? But it’s the truth. The more people, the faster the resources run out. Resources including space, food and water. But also ecosystem services like waste cycling, oxygen production, soil formation. How do you expect your kids to be living in fifty years’ time? Do you think it’ll be like now? Because I’ll tell you for nowt, I expect to be foraging for edible plants and catching diseased rabbits in a desolate moonscape. Hope you’re bringing your kids up with some good survival skills for when the oceans are acidic and barren, the antibiotics are useless, fuel has run out, martial law run by oligarchs has taken over, the sky is grey, and the vast parts of Africa, Asia and Oceania are uninhabitable desert. Ta-ta.

Also, news item on the damage to economies by steering away from primary industry, mining, plastics etc. I said, basically, who cares if you lose jobs in those industries? Because if you don’t lose jobs in those industries, you’re gonna lose the entire planet, and last time I checked, we don’t have ANY industries running anywhere else. My dad was like “HOW CAN YOU BE SO CALLOUS AND SHORT-SIGHTED, PEOPLE NEED THOSE JOBS TO LIVE” I’m like “Yeah but how they gonna live when CO₂ is 1000ppm, temperatures are 5^O higher which doesn’t sound much but will desertify huge areas, melt the permafrost and accelerate more global warming by releasing vast amounts of trapped methane, the oceans are acidic and full of plastic, all the fish are dead, humans and livestock are the only animals left on earth and they’re all starving together, the ice caps have melted and drowned vast swathes of coast around the world along with ocean expansion by heat, the coral reefs have dissolved, and growing food is impossible on most of the earth’s land surface – BECAUSE WE HAD TO PRESERVE THOSE JOBS IN THE OIL INDUSTRY …” (and that’s just a tiny little hors d’oeuvres to the encyclopaedia of death heading our way)… like, what. He said, you just don’t understand the economy, it’s not an economic possibility to shut down and *added bonus ding ding* we need population growth to sustain the economy too. Whatever, probably time we switched up the economy then??? bye.

There is no point having an economy that is literally on self-destruct??!?!!?!! Huh?!

Fuck the economy. Fuck politicians who can’t see further than the next election. Fuck companies that fuck over the planet, stuff their pockets with money and run off leaving kids starving and dying of dehydration. Fuck manufacturers that fill the planet with items used for one minute that last for a thousand years.  Fuck the people who say nothing can be changed, fuck the ‘business as usual’ model, fuck the establishment that has tried for decades to lead society blindfolded into a self-made apocalypse and told them they have no choice. Fuck the power dynamics, education bias and wealth inequality in this world. Fuck the system that says the biggest change we can make is stop buying plastic water bottles and switch to energy saving bulbs as if the entire world isn’t pumping out an INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENT-SUBSIDISED black smoke ring of death.

Fuck. Them. All.

With love from a ‘conservationist’ (which should be renamed ‘observer of destruction and desolation’ cos I tell you what, we’re not much good at holding the tide back with mops against the rich fat cats and companies surfing the fucking tidal waves)

Georgie

In Other News

Um yeah it is hard to follow that with something light-hearted tbh. My friend told me this week he was snogging a girl at a party, drunk, and passed out literally in her lap, which made me laugh a lot. He’s training to be a vicar, so there’s hope for the church yet, then.