Annastacia's Coal Mine II

Speaking Of Coal Mines... Who's Going To Pay For The Damages?

There's a fellow over at Extinction Rebellion who has an important post that I want to quote from. No, I didn't get his permission, but I'm sure he'd like his thoughts spread far and wide so, I imagine he'd be okay with it. Besides which I make no money here on this blog. If he wants a percentage, he can ask for whatever percentage of nothing. I'm sorry  - but we're all in this together so, let's unpack this...

One of key reasons why XR is being unsuccessful is because it refuses to communicate accurately and concretely in everyday language what is going to happen in the next two decades. This can be summed up in six words: the fiscal crisis of the state. Forget dolphins, whales and icesheets – there is only one reality here and it is what the state does when it runs out of money. This has very little to do with politics or values – it’s much deeper than that. The first principle of the state is to maintain itself. And when it experiences extreme economic stress it raids society to get cash. This means it takes money from unproductive parts of the society to pay for the parts that are productive. So, for instance, in World War Two the UK government raided the assets of the rich to pay for the war. This was done by Tory MPs – it was not a matter of politics but national survival. So you know what is going happen in a decade or so when western countries are having to pay for the massive cost of electrifying their economies, retro fitting their entire housing stock, and dealing with “defence” costs of social breakdown in the sub tropics: it’s going to raid the pensions of my generation. The brutal reality is that the interests of the retired won’t matter.

And that right there should be grabbing the attention of politicians right now. If they leave Global Warming off the priority to-do list, the bill is going to come in sooner than you think, and it's going to be bigger than you think, and society is going to suffer greatly to pay that bill. So who will governments raid to pay for that bill? 

Well just consider that our children and their children will have no motivation to act any differently than us. Payback time is coming. It could be merely structural. The younger generation will come to power and the logic of the state, as mentioned, will lead to the rapid impoverishment of my generation, presently in our 40’s and 50’s as we get into our 60’s and 70’s. But more likely there will be a visceral contempt: you created this shit and so you can pay for it. Polluters pay and all that. We are not heading into some ecological steady state circular economy new civilisation. Much more likely we are heading into a time when people over 60 will be spat at as they walk down the street, and be literally left to die in urine stinking death homes.

It gets very frank:

If you want to speak with some effectiveness about the actual reality of the climate crisis to the public, this is what you have to start talking about. <edit> In 2021 our governments are locking in this horrendous social stress because my generation of adults are refusing to go into civil resistance to stop it. It’s as simple as that. This is our war, but we are refusing to fight it.

Unsurprisingly this part of the talk along with the other “tell the truth” sections were taken out by the middle class liberal “let’s not upset people” regime that soon took over XR. But taking things out of talks which upset you does not stop then from happening: that is the post modernist conceit.

That much I can agree with wholeheartedly. The mere substitution of 'Climate Change' for 'Global Warming' was one of the most dishonest swicheroos pulled exactly because governments didn't want people to panic. Truth be known, Greta Thunberg is right: we all need to panic like our houses are on fire, because, they are. 

If you're into scary truths - and you ought to be - you can find his lecture here:

O what joy that was. 

Consider too that video was from 2018. 3 years on, I'd say we're even firmly deeper into the shit than we were then, and still the Australian Government is in denial mode. Last I checked, the Carmichael Mine is celebrating for striking first load in June this year. 

I mean, seriously, how fucked are we? 

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