There are a number of things within the present political landscape that I consider to be very dangerous. The rising sympathies, specifically in America, toward fascist ideals and fascist policies of governance is very high on that list. Trumpism and conspiracy cults are well on their way to destabilizing society as well. And I can’t help but also mention how poorly many nations handled the Covid pandemic. Covid was not nearly as bad as it could have been, and yet still it has killed millions of people. The current statistics show that well over a million people have died in the US alone. Covid-19 could be seen as a dress rehearsal for a bigger and badder pandemic. Based on all observations: we are not ready for the big one. Not at all.
But the massive problem that looms over all is the one that gets talked about the least. The drastic warming of the Earth is having disastrous effects already. Scientists cannot fully agree on what the world will look like within the next century, but they all say it is going to be very, very bad. Some people look at the fact that their outlooks differ and use that to say “See? None of it is real. It’s all a government ruse.” This is, of course, idiocy for a number of reasons. Doctors, for example, can have different opinions about what kind of symptoms a cancer patient might experience after a diagnosis. There is no way to know for sure what ailments any specific patient may go through. Every cancer victim’s journey is slightly different. One patient may receive one kind of symptom while another, who has been diagnosed with the same type of cancer, receives a different symptom completely. But any good doctors will agree that they have cancer. Nearly all professionals in the field openly claim that climate change is happening and is very dangerous. They just can’t fully agree on the symptoms our sick planet will experience and when exactly these symptoms will arise.
The overwhelming sentiment from experts around the world is that we are in big trouble. We are already seeing tremendous amounts of damage from harsher storms and longer heat waves. Many nations in the global south are practically boiling in front of our eyes. Canada, my home country (which is the literal opposite of the global south), has been on fire all summer. We broke dozens of fire records in only a few weeks. Things are getting out of control and we are still in the early stages of the climate disaster. I am not certain if it is due to sheer conspiracy-brained stupidity, or whether it is due to understandable fear about the future, but many people refuse to consider climate change to be a significant issue at all.
The silliest of all deflections appears to come from the US (I wish you could see my surprised face). I have read such arguments as “Why would I care about some hotter weather when there is an invasion happening at our southern border! Illegal immigration is out of control!” I find myself wondering whether an individual who says such a thing knows about what immigration will be like by 2050 if the global south keeps heating in the way it currently is. Tens of millions of people are going to be demanding entry into nations north of the equator. If things are not done now about the burning of fossil fuels, then catastrophic wars are bound to be fought over this issue. What is one meant to do when a hundred million people are trying to relocate to save their families? Turn them away and tell them to piss off? If you do that they die. This cannot be considered acceptable. And yet, can our systems and nations maintain this kind of influx of people? Certainly not. So, what is the solution? I’d say the best first step would be for the general populace to stop ignoring the climate problem and pretending it does not exist. Most people nowadays roll their eyes and sigh at movements that are attempting to draw attention to this ongoing crisis. Just look at how people treat Greta Thunberg for example.
I remember when Greta first became a popular figure online. She appeared to gain many people’s respect with how bold she was about calling out large governments over their abysmal energy policies. But now I can’t find a single blog post, article, YouTube video, or Twitter post (no, I will not call it X ever) about her where she isn’t being mercilessly torn apart by everybody for being some sort of charlatan. Perhaps her advocacy has not been perfect, but people seem eager to find something wrong so they can dismiss climate advocacy entirely as some sort of hoax. I’ve watched this same phenomenon happen to the likes of David Suzuki as well. No matter what good he has done for nature over the decades, he travels by plane a lot or something so therefore everything he has ever said about climate can be safely ignored. This is madness. It is one thing to criticize an activist for the hypocrisies they exhibit. It is another thing to dig for hypocrisies so you can let out a sigh of relief and continue to pretend there is no problem at all.
Climate denial has reached the phase where it is causing vast amounts of suffering. As I said: storms are getting worse. Droughts are getting worse. Disease is getting worse. And yet most western governments are too preoccupied losing their sanity over trans people and ‘Woke’ Netflix shows to focus on seemingly anything else. This has always been a clown world, but the circus is only getting weirder and weirder by year.
The greatest harm being done to the climate has always been the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and poor agricultural practices. I’m not saying you need to feel like Hitler because you took a flight this year. That is rather silly. I take flights (very rarely, granted) and will continue to do so. But the system itself that makes these things the only reasonable choice needs to be addressed and confronted whenever possible, and better alternatives should be discussed and funded on a wide scale. Everyone is a slave to the system. It’s always struck me as rather puerile to guilt trip everyone you know for, say, leaving lights on when they’re not in a room or driving someplace instead of taking a bicycle. We all do things every single day that increase our carbon footprint. But we should at least advocate and fund innovations that change the system to a better version of itself. The worst thing we can do is get annoyed by climate activism and choose to pretend it’s all some liberal hoax. This is a world of idiots. Be one of the rare clever ones.