Friday, December 18, 2009

A thought on Hopenhagen

So, everybody's been more or less following the climate conference in Copenhagen. Hard to avoid. The big question is, supposedly, will something real & worthwhile come out of it all, or not? Umm ...

My thoughts on this subject ought to be pretty clear. I recently shared with you all my message to the world, here. Now, that was for a project by a blogger here in Norway. He collected lots of these photos and then made a video with some or most of them. You can see the video here if you want. My photo wasn't included in the video, of course, since my message wasn't a touchy-feely-let's-all-get-along-and-be-happy kind of thing like most of the others. Smile to the world and the world smiles back, etc. How I wish I could be able to laugh when it turns out that I will be right in the end and they are all enabling saps. But I'm pretty sure it will be too sad to laugh about.

I don't think the Copenhagen conference will result in anything that will make any real difference, and everything's going to go to hell in a handbasket. That's what I think. There will be little or no improvement on the things that need to change. It'll be a lot of talk (and a lot more pollution, because of course all the delegates have to fly their own private jets or whatever, they can't mingle with the plebs) and nothing concrete will actually be done.

The reason for this is very simple. I personally think that there are things we could conceivably do - probably much less than is needed, because we've painted ourselves into such a fucking corner, but still - but those things aren't going to get done before it's too late. Because there's no money in it. I think that that is the sad truth. Preserving our biosphere, not destroying other fascinating species that share that biosphere with us, making sure there will be sufficient resources available for our ancestors in centuries to come, keeping human civilization on its goddamn feet ... there's no money in it. Maybe there might be in the long run. But that is one of the fundamental flaws of Homo sapiens sapiens, that we don't feel threatened by a danger that isn't presently apparent to us. So we don't take these apparently vague future dangers into account ... and that means that there's no money in changing the status quo, and we love money so much that we'll cling on to the status quo even when it kills us.

It's like I said. We're doomed. But will anyone listen? Sheesh, humans.

1 comment:

Paz said...

Ironic when you think about it, all the private jets used to get there and the carbon footprints that they will leave after them, and it will probably lead to nothing.