Fires Burning, Disorder Spreading, Greta Rules
A cautionary tale about climate change
Admit it, we've all been a little fixated by the recent uptick in social unrest. And we've had a few flavours to chose from this time around, whether it's the US protests, the Hong Kong riots or the lockdown rebellions. I guess we enjoy a dose of chaos and confusion, an almost biblical rewind to fire and brimstone.
Given the extreme levels of inequality blown wide open by the Corona crisis and the somewhat ideological leaders currently reigning in Covid flattened countries, you might be asking yourself if civil disorder is a new norm in the making, you know, like Zoom video calls.
But there's something else chewing away at this. Something echoing around my head a bit like Jean-Michel Jarre live in concert. There's something pulling at my conscience and bugging my brain only this time it's not Cummings-and-goings. It's something even more sinister.
For a number of years climate scientists have been warning us of the consequences of unchecked global warming. The cost of climate change. And Greta keeps telling us that we've got to listen to these scientists. Not just because they actually know what they're talking about, but because Greta's had it with politicians offering her consulting gigs to go solve the Cummings affair, er climate crunch when she just wants to get back to hanging out with her friends and flunking school to go to the beach instead of dropping out to save the planet. (She promises to hit the beach in a non Cummingsy trash the lockdown rules kind of a way).
Environmental scientists have been telling us that continued global warming will lead to extreme Stormzy, flooding and drought - check. They've stated that the continued destruction of key habitats, like rain forests, in the name of industrial farming will increase the risk of disease and wildlife loss - check. And the combination of the two will lead to mass migration, social upheaval and more extreme politics - check disorder in the US, Hong Kong, Syria, Michigan and our very own one man protest at Barnard Castle.
So, in the name of Greta and every darned climate scientist on the planet, we should not only invent a vaccine for Corona but also spend some cash on a wake up pill the size of Donnie's Trumpian ego to get us ALL to smell the friggin coffee and realise that there is a way out of chaos and confusion and pandemic after pandemic followed by Noah like flooding conditions, hurricanes every five minutes and droughts the length of the second Cummings.
The way to avoid America and China and the rest of us going to war, with Kim Yong Ding Dong chipping in, but not in a teeing up at Mar-a-Lago kind of way, the way to stop the planet going up in fire and SpaceX's share price going up to Mars is to rewild the friggin planet and keep those pesky bat's and pangolins and Dom's locked up as far away as possible in some hidden, protected, untouched rain forest so the virus stays with them. And while the virus sticks to them, the rewilding of our planet bit means we get to stick to where we are - or at least for a little bit longer.
This rewilding would not only be good for us, but would also be good for our little pangolin brethren. It might keep the climate scientists off our backs, keep Greta on the beach and stop us shooting up in a rocket to go piss off some other planet in the name of industrial farming on a separate universe, only to stir up their extra-terrestrials like we pissed off the bats and pangolins down here. Yep, like a bunch of suicidal, narcissistic terrestrial muppets, right at the point at which we might finally recover from Corona, we'll go shake up a bunch of infested aliens who'll invade us cos they have SpaceX and Zoom too. Then they'll unleash on us the next pandemic from hell except this time around even Jacinda won't be able to save us.
Thank god I've already rewilded my place. I guess I won't need to migrate to New Zealand after all.
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