I wrote this before the awful murder of David Amess, so have been sitting on it for a bit wondering if I’m being unreasonable. But watching some quarters attempt to use such a tragedy to supress genuine criticism of those (on both sides of the political divide) whose actions are leading to the enrichment of themselves and their donors and the ruination of so many other things made me think that actually, I’m not being unreasonable to expect a certain level of decency and care, and not for it to be okay for companies owned by overseas interests to dump raw sewage into our watercourses in the interests of their shareholders (yes, I know there's supposedly been a U-turn. We'll see.) So, I published it anyway:
Get back to work. Playtime’s over. Everyone knows that we’ve just been dossing off during the pandemic. Working from home? Give me a break. They worked from the office in the ‘40s with bombs raining down like explosive confetti (except, they didn’t; they very sensibly hid when the bombs actually fell). What do you mean the war wasn’t contagious? What’s that got to do with it? What do you mean they didn’t have home computers or wi-fi? Things have changed you say? Progress you say? Progress isn’t for the likes of you milado. Progress is the problem, it’s why you lot go around thinking you should be free to be who you feel you are. Get back in the boxes we’ve always put you in. Too many minorities these days.
Get back in the office. No you’re not going to be paid more. You should be grateful to spend your time and money on commuting, parking and lunch instead of doing your work from home. Unless you’re a woman. Then you can stay at home and do caring, cooking and housework. Like in the good old days. Care begins at home donchano, and with three-quarters of people on Carer’s Allowance being women, we can force women to do more of that at-home stuff they always used to. Win-win!
Never mind that the last couple of years has been such a strain on the wellbeing of the majority of the population; we pay lip service to your mental health and that should be enough. Anyway, the best thing for mental health is to work, work, work. Work unto death; it’s the future! Look; even the opposition agrees. When you felt mildly hopeful for the chance of a better world when you were younger, you were just being naïve. Childish. It’s time to grow up and get back to work.
Just look at me. Born rich. Inherited wealth. Funnelled into investments and offshore so I don’t ever have to pay fair taxes; to, shudder to think, contribute. That’s for you to do. Work and pay tax. Not my fault you weren’t born rich. We’re all in this together you know. The same storm, that is, not the same boat. I’ve got a yacht.
At least you’ve got a boat. Or a dinghy. It’s more than some should have. Migrants? Shirkers. They don’t deserve a boat. Send the boats back. Not our fault if they drown – I promise you’ll face no legal consequences for letting people drown. If I had my way, I’d chuck you in the slammer for savin’ ‘em. Up is down, you know? Let Europe have them. Isn’t Europe safe enough? What do you mean most of them probably speak English as a second or third language and not other European languages, so it stands to reason they might feel more comfortable here? Don’t they know they speak English in Europe too? Even though it’s usually in a funny accent. Let Europe have them. Many European countries already take in loads more than we do? We don’t take our fair share of refugees? So what? We’re closed. Too many as it is. Of course, nobody to drive the lorries, or work in the hospitals, or pick the fruit. Still, good to know we’ve taken back control of all that rotten fruit eh? Makes you all misty eyed to see all that control of failing supply chains, and those farming and fishing industries that have been decimated. At least they’ve been decimated on our terms, yeah? Makes you feel proper patriotic it does.
Anyway, get back to work. Up is down. Wrong is right. Freedom is slavery, and the future of humanity, to borrow from Mr Orwell, is a boot stamping on a human face forever. ‘Cos I’m the boot and you’re the face, so I’ll never let you get even.
Occasional feature: Ending with a song loosely related to the post (or more like a lyric I can take out of context and loosely relate to the post):
Arcade Fire: My Body is a Cage – “I’m living in an age, that calls darkness light.”
Showing posts with label stressed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stressed. Show all posts
Saturday, October 30, 2021
Wednesday, August 25, 2021
Still they do nothing.
About a fortnight or so ago, the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report was published. It reports that there are visible signs of climate change all over the globe and that those effects will continue to intensify. It noted that without immediate massive change to reduce carbon emissions everywhere, there isn’t any chance to prevent the climate warming by more than 1.5C. Doesn’t sound like much does it, but in actuality, it means catastrophe on a global scale.
It made the news for a bit, but a great deal of the reporting tended towards opinion pieces. Climate change denial has pivoted in recent years from ‘it’s not happening’ to ‘we can’t afford it’ or ‘there’s nothing we can do about it’. We can do plenty. We can stop emitting carbon. I don’t mean me and you – our individual contributions to this, like recycling tins, or watering your flowers with your washing up water, or punishing your anus with recycled toilet paper, they’re all great, but without the rest of it it’s a fart in a windstorm. One of the best (I use the word ‘best’ here in the most sarcastic manner possible) things BP ever did for themselves was to start this whole individual carbon footprint thing as it gaslights us into believing we could solve this if only we made enough small individual changes. Don’t misunderstand me, I think small individual changes are great, and when enough of us make them they can have huge impacts, but in actuality, without massive systemic change to go with it, it’s merely a louder, more intense fart in the aforementioned windstorm.
Not long after the report was published, the Spectator, that bastion of balance, and not a far right wing mouthpiece at all, ran a cover with a picture of a hole into which money is falling, bemoaning the ‘cost of net zero’. First, net zero is bullshit – it’s governments and companies trying to offset carbon emissions. But they’re still emitting the carbon. Climate change doesn’t give one shit about your nonsense economic wriggling. Nobody talks about the cost of not halting carbon emissions, which will be, at the least, billions of lives and at the most, well, everything.
The cost isn’t actually that much either; in the UK and the US it is estimated that the cost of converting to a non-carbon setting is less than what is spent on military budgets each year. And yet, they continue to do nothing. Nothing but organise summits that accomplish nothing and talk about far future net zero targets that shift the responsibility on to the next cabinet/generation.
THERE IS NO MORE ROOM TO SHIFT THE RESPONSIBILITY.
THIS SHOULD BE EVERY GOVERNMENTS' AND EVERY COMPANY’S NUMBER ONE PRIORITY. BAR NONE.
IT SHOULD BE FRONT PAGE NEWS EVERYWHERE UNTIL IT’S UNAVOIDABLE – HALF-ARSED REPORTING IS ONE OF THE MAJOR REASONS SO FEW PEOPLE GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE IMPENDING COLLAPSE OF THE ECOLOGICAL NETWORK WE RELY ON.
Spend the money to roll out the infrastructure. Install solar panels on every roof, and windfarms in every coastal water. Make every car electric. Replace every petrol station with recharge points.
It’s a start, isn’t it?
None of that is a perfect solution, and there will be some problems with it, but we have run out of time to wait for the market to provide a low cost, profitable, perfect solution. The market won’t. The market will let us all die as long as the profits keep rolling in, right until there’s no more food.
Think I’m overreacting? Being alarmist? Negative? The tipping points we’ve been warned to look out for are starting to tip. The Amazon rainforest now emits more carbon than it absorbs. We’re now seeing visible signs of the collapse of the Gulf Stream (something we have known for a while is at risk). If that goes you can kiss goodbye to UK agriculture and expect to start relying on imports for all of our food, which thanks to our newly-minted non-EU status, might be a tad tricky. (Also, I know I keep linking to Guardian articles re: climate change. It’s not bias, it’s that no other source is doing a whole lot of climate reporting, even now.)
We’ve known about this for over 100 years. Perhaps almost 200. We’ve had decades to incrementally ween ourselves off our reliance on fossil fuels. But we’ve suffered an endless misinformation campaign waged by companies, media outlets and governments that rely on the profits generated by burning fossil fuels that caused us to question if it even existed.
It made the news for a bit, but a great deal of the reporting tended towards opinion pieces. Climate change denial has pivoted in recent years from ‘it’s not happening’ to ‘we can’t afford it’ or ‘there’s nothing we can do about it’. We can do plenty. We can stop emitting carbon. I don’t mean me and you – our individual contributions to this, like recycling tins, or watering your flowers with your washing up water, or punishing your anus with recycled toilet paper, they’re all great, but without the rest of it it’s a fart in a windstorm. One of the best (I use the word ‘best’ here in the most sarcastic manner possible) things BP ever did for themselves was to start this whole individual carbon footprint thing as it gaslights us into believing we could solve this if only we made enough small individual changes. Don’t misunderstand me, I think small individual changes are great, and when enough of us make them they can have huge impacts, but in actuality, without massive systemic change to go with it, it’s merely a louder, more intense fart in the aforementioned windstorm.
Not long after the report was published, the Spectator, that bastion of balance, and not a far right wing mouthpiece at all, ran a cover with a picture of a hole into which money is falling, bemoaning the ‘cost of net zero’. First, net zero is bullshit – it’s governments and companies trying to offset carbon emissions. But they’re still emitting the carbon. Climate change doesn’t give one shit about your nonsense economic wriggling. Nobody talks about the cost of not halting carbon emissions, which will be, at the least, billions of lives and at the most, well, everything.
The cost isn’t actually that much either; in the UK and the US it is estimated that the cost of converting to a non-carbon setting is less than what is spent on military budgets each year. And yet, they continue to do nothing. Nothing but organise summits that accomplish nothing and talk about far future net zero targets that shift the responsibility on to the next cabinet/generation.
THERE IS NO MORE ROOM TO SHIFT THE RESPONSIBILITY.
THIS SHOULD BE EVERY GOVERNMENTS' AND EVERY COMPANY’S NUMBER ONE PRIORITY. BAR NONE.
IT SHOULD BE FRONT PAGE NEWS EVERYWHERE UNTIL IT’S UNAVOIDABLE – HALF-ARSED REPORTING IS ONE OF THE MAJOR REASONS SO FEW PEOPLE GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE IMPENDING COLLAPSE OF THE ECOLOGICAL NETWORK WE RELY ON.
Spend the money to roll out the infrastructure. Install solar panels on every roof, and windfarms in every coastal water. Make every car electric. Replace every petrol station with recharge points.
It’s a start, isn’t it?
None of that is a perfect solution, and there will be some problems with it, but we have run out of time to wait for the market to provide a low cost, profitable, perfect solution. The market won’t. The market will let us all die as long as the profits keep rolling in, right until there’s no more food.
Think I’m overreacting? Being alarmist? Negative? The tipping points we’ve been warned to look out for are starting to tip. The Amazon rainforest now emits more carbon than it absorbs. We’re now seeing visible signs of the collapse of the Gulf Stream (something we have known for a while is at risk). If that goes you can kiss goodbye to UK agriculture and expect to start relying on imports for all of our food, which thanks to our newly-minted non-EU status, might be a tad tricky. (Also, I know I keep linking to Guardian articles re: climate change. It’s not bias, it’s that no other source is doing a whole lot of climate reporting, even now.)
We’ve known about this for over 100 years. Perhaps almost 200. We’ve had decades to incrementally ween ourselves off our reliance on fossil fuels. But we’ve suffered an endless misinformation campaign waged by companies, media outlets and governments that rely on the profits generated by burning fossil fuels that caused us to question if it even existed.
And still…in the face of absolute undeniability, they do nothing.
Friday, July 9, 2021
So, the worst of all possible combinations then.
At this point, I’m not convinced there’s a right way to resolve the situation we’re in. If we’d have acted sooner, more decisively and for longer with proper support and enacted a working test, trace and isolate system, then things would most likely be, if not peachy, a good deal peachier than they are. But shoulda woulda coulda ain’t gonna do a whole lot about the now. Not that I think it’s okay, what happened; taking the opportunity to give out contracts to donors and friends – which has proven to be most lucrative, while they were crying out for PPE and then attempting to gaslight half a nation by claiming there never was a shortage.
But what’s going on now is a little difficult to fathom. Basically treating it like flu, even though it’s not flu. Claiming we’ll just have to live with it and a whole load of people will just have to die, because, you know, Costa’s been low on profits for a while. Which is obviously worse.
Well, ok, but better to try that when we have more of us vaccinated yes? Because you know, this is a virus that mutates as it spreads. So just letting it go nuts on a partially vaccinated population means a good chance of more variants that the vaccines are not effective against that are more deadly to more people and are more transmissible. It’s already happening; hello delta variant. Then there’s the mounting evidence that surviving it isn’t just a case of ‘that’s it, well done, off you go’; it affects the brain and the body in ways that won’t be clear for a long time, not forgetting long covid, which is present in all age groups, children included. No other country in the world is trying this experiment of just giving up and letting the population just get infected and see what happens, and it seems to be baffling the international community (I admit I laughed when CNN compared our PM to Lord Farquaad). It is entirely unsurprising that the new health secretary is a mega fan of Ayn Rand, and I don’t see why we should be happy for them to take this risk with the lives of people they are entrusted to safeguard. Of course, they’ve left us with little alternative other than to forever go on the lock-down/reopen/lock-down/reopen carousel. Might it just have been a bit better to have held on until the vaccine roll out was complete, or near as dammit? It’s weird how anti-lockdown folk tend to also be anti-vaccine folk. So what, your preferred option is for as many people to die as possible? Why?
Being sick of experts unfortunately doesn’t stop them usually being right. Ignoring expertise has led to the most bonkers strategy to deal with the virus; to leave the EU in the most nonsensical manner imaginable and I’ve no doubt that scientific expertise will continue to be ignored regarding climate change.
Like some kind of Sunnydale-on-Sea (it genuinely does look like a hellmouth), we’ve actually managed to literally set the ocean on fire, and we’ve allowed a small town in Canada to literally burn down to the ground (note the ridiculous journalistic standards on that article that still make no mention whatsoever linking the temperatures and wildfires with climate change – the media are fully complicit in this being as bad as it is), but we still won’t move away from our dependence on fossil fuels with the urgency that was required decades ago. The response to this, and the growing protest movement from Extinction Rebellion? Change the law so the right to protest is rendered powerless and, according to the recently-passed bill, noisy protests can carry a 10 year jail term. So you can now be jailed for longer for, say, pulling down the statue of a slave trader than for rape. Well, they shouldn’t have inconvenienced people trying to grab a Costa should they? (Granted, the change in the law is likely also in response to Black Lives Matter in addition to Extinction Rebellion, but you know what? Black lives do matter, and they are still largely treated as though they don’t, or at least that they matter less, and until that changes and there is some kind of proper social justice, there are going to be those protesting about it.) Those in power call themselves libertarians? When they want to jail you for a decade for disagreeing with the endless corruption and incompetence that is leading to the actual end of our civilisation as we know it and the death and forced migration of billions of people (not as far away into the future as you would like to think)? I don’t think that word ‘libertarian’ means what they think it means.
Somewhere in the multiverse there is a reality where Murdoch, Koch, Rothmere et al don’t have the kind of influence they have here and we don’t have such a significant portion of the population that are so enamoured with populism, nationalism and jingoism, or so happy to get apoplectic about whatever culture war nonsense is used to distract them that they are happy, to borrow from Christopher Nolan, to watch the world burn so long as they can be mean about a princess from another country with brown skin. A reality where the statement given by an expert that has spent their entire life studying a subject isn’t given the same weight as some fool that’s read something online and now thinks he knows more.
I want to go to that reality.
Occasional feature: Ending with a song loosely related to the post (or more like a lyric I can take out of context and loosely relate to the post):
But what’s going on now is a little difficult to fathom. Basically treating it like flu, even though it’s not flu. Claiming we’ll just have to live with it and a whole load of people will just have to die, because, you know, Costa’s been low on profits for a while. Which is obviously worse.
Well, ok, but better to try that when we have more of us vaccinated yes? Because you know, this is a virus that mutates as it spreads. So just letting it go nuts on a partially vaccinated population means a good chance of more variants that the vaccines are not effective against that are more deadly to more people and are more transmissible. It’s already happening; hello delta variant. Then there’s the mounting evidence that surviving it isn’t just a case of ‘that’s it, well done, off you go’; it affects the brain and the body in ways that won’t be clear for a long time, not forgetting long covid, which is present in all age groups, children included. No other country in the world is trying this experiment of just giving up and letting the population just get infected and see what happens, and it seems to be baffling the international community (I admit I laughed when CNN compared our PM to Lord Farquaad). It is entirely unsurprising that the new health secretary is a mega fan of Ayn Rand, and I don’t see why we should be happy for them to take this risk with the lives of people they are entrusted to safeguard. Of course, they’ve left us with little alternative other than to forever go on the lock-down/reopen/lock-down/reopen carousel. Might it just have been a bit better to have held on until the vaccine roll out was complete, or near as dammit? It’s weird how anti-lockdown folk tend to also be anti-vaccine folk. So what, your preferred option is for as many people to die as possible? Why?
Being sick of experts unfortunately doesn’t stop them usually being right. Ignoring expertise has led to the most bonkers strategy to deal with the virus; to leave the EU in the most nonsensical manner imaginable and I’ve no doubt that scientific expertise will continue to be ignored regarding climate change.
Like some kind of Sunnydale-on-Sea (it genuinely does look like a hellmouth), we’ve actually managed to literally set the ocean on fire, and we’ve allowed a small town in Canada to literally burn down to the ground (note the ridiculous journalistic standards on that article that still make no mention whatsoever linking the temperatures and wildfires with climate change – the media are fully complicit in this being as bad as it is), but we still won’t move away from our dependence on fossil fuels with the urgency that was required decades ago. The response to this, and the growing protest movement from Extinction Rebellion? Change the law so the right to protest is rendered powerless and, according to the recently-passed bill, noisy protests can carry a 10 year jail term. So you can now be jailed for longer for, say, pulling down the statue of a slave trader than for rape. Well, they shouldn’t have inconvenienced people trying to grab a Costa should they? (Granted, the change in the law is likely also in response to Black Lives Matter in addition to Extinction Rebellion, but you know what? Black lives do matter, and they are still largely treated as though they don’t, or at least that they matter less, and until that changes and there is some kind of proper social justice, there are going to be those protesting about it.) Those in power call themselves libertarians? When they want to jail you for a decade for disagreeing with the endless corruption and incompetence that is leading to the actual end of our civilisation as we know it and the death and forced migration of billions of people (not as far away into the future as you would like to think)? I don’t think that word ‘libertarian’ means what they think it means.
Somewhere in the multiverse there is a reality where Murdoch, Koch, Rothmere et al don’t have the kind of influence they have here and we don’t have such a significant portion of the population that are so enamoured with populism, nationalism and jingoism, or so happy to get apoplectic about whatever culture war nonsense is used to distract them that they are happy, to borrow from Christopher Nolan, to watch the world burn so long as they can be mean about a princess from another country with brown skin. A reality where the statement given by an expert that has spent their entire life studying a subject isn’t given the same weight as some fool that’s read something online and now thinks he knows more.
I want to go to that reality.
Occasional feature: Ending with a song loosely related to the post (or more like a lyric I can take out of context and loosely relate to the post):
Dirty Pretty Things: Bloodthirsty Bastards: “Bloodthirsty bastards making plans for no one/but themselves.”
Wednesday, June 9, 2021
Ugh.
Getting fed up of it now. Acting illegally. Bigging up a deal to increase corporation tax while at the same time trying to sort a loophole for your mates in the city. Mates that are still funding the destruction of us all. An opposition that appears to do literally nothing to oppose. And yet, what gets focused on? Vilifying black footballers that would like it if people stopped showering them with racist abuse. Vilifying a group of students that didn’t want a picture of the queen up. I mean, I had a picture of a queen up when I was at Uni, but it was the queen known as Buffy Summers, not Liz Windsor. More non-news. More culture war bullshit to distract from the endless corruption.
And people continue to lap it up.
As I said: ugh.
And people continue to lap it up.
As I said: ugh.
Wednesday, March 3, 2021
Good…and bad.
I feel like some days I might be two different people in one ragged overweight shell. I feel like some days I’ve been trying to hold two realities in my head at once; both equally true, yet both very different. The personal and the external.
My life is going ok generally. Yes, there is an awful lot of extra stress at the moment from being stuck at home a lot. There is boredom from not being able to see friends and colleagues socially, or to take my kids to the local swimming pool or to the cinema or even to my local for an overpriced mediocre meal. But the rest of it’s going well.
Staying at home isn’t so bad because I’ve managed (with help – still impossible to do without help) to buy a house, and it’s a house that we love. I still have a job when so many others are struggling. I live with my family. You know, I’m not king of the world or a millionaire, but generally things are going well.
As long as I don’t widen that viewpoint, things are fine. If I look up beyond my own personal circumstances things get bleaker. Corruption and dishonesty in plain view from those tasked with governing us both at home and overseas, with a media that instead of holding them to account, spends its time trying to distract us with racist hit-pieces on members of the royal family they don’t like, a collective lack of effort to mitigate the numerous and linked challenges facing us in the near future, decisions made to increase, rather than reduce, the grave imbalance between the ultra-rich and the destitute, still refusing to pay staff on the front lines of this fight against the pandemic what they’re worth, paying them instead with claps.
The existential nature of the fear and the threat of climate change-caused ecological breakdown and how it will affect every part of our lives with increasing extremity, coupled with the fact that those tasked with preparing society to face it are chained to the will of those still profiting from fuelling the breakdown and the way most of us face the situation with apathy.
All of that causes a weird feeling in me some days. The peace I feel at home from the generally positive place I’m in personally feels unearned and somehow disrespectful when the wider view of the world imposes itself on me. Some days I think the cognitive dissonance is enough to make me crumble to dust and just stop doing anything.
It's a strange thing.
Occasional feature: Ending with a song loosely related to the post (or more like a lyric I can take out of context and loosely relate to the post):
My life is going ok generally. Yes, there is an awful lot of extra stress at the moment from being stuck at home a lot. There is boredom from not being able to see friends and colleagues socially, or to take my kids to the local swimming pool or to the cinema or even to my local for an overpriced mediocre meal. But the rest of it’s going well.
Staying at home isn’t so bad because I’ve managed (with help – still impossible to do without help) to buy a house, and it’s a house that we love. I still have a job when so many others are struggling. I live with my family. You know, I’m not king of the world or a millionaire, but generally things are going well.
As long as I don’t widen that viewpoint, things are fine. If I look up beyond my own personal circumstances things get bleaker. Corruption and dishonesty in plain view from those tasked with governing us both at home and overseas, with a media that instead of holding them to account, spends its time trying to distract us with racist hit-pieces on members of the royal family they don’t like, a collective lack of effort to mitigate the numerous and linked challenges facing us in the near future, decisions made to increase, rather than reduce, the grave imbalance between the ultra-rich and the destitute, still refusing to pay staff on the front lines of this fight against the pandemic what they’re worth, paying them instead with claps.
The existential nature of the fear and the threat of climate change-caused ecological breakdown and how it will affect every part of our lives with increasing extremity, coupled with the fact that those tasked with preparing society to face it are chained to the will of those still profiting from fuelling the breakdown and the way most of us face the situation with apathy.
All of that causes a weird feeling in me some days. The peace I feel at home from the generally positive place I’m in personally feels unearned and somehow disrespectful when the wider view of the world imposes itself on me. Some days I think the cognitive dissonance is enough to make me crumble to dust and just stop doing anything.
It's a strange thing.
Occasional feature: Ending with a song loosely related to the post (or more like a lyric I can take out of context and loosely relate to the post):
The Doors: Strange Days: “Strange days have found us, strange days have tracked us down. They’re going to destroy our casual joys.”
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