Writing on the Wall

Mark Lynas writes passionately and accurately at the current corruption of leadership on climate change.

New Statesman - Our leaders are steering us into the abyss

My response is that this is to do with us aiming our messages at the wrong people. The question that bears most strongly on all of this is who is facing the abyss the most. That is where the strongest political pressure-base can come from:

I believe we are not fighting this issue in the right places.I am sat in India, where people with marginal lives stand to die in collosal numbers if nothing is done. And yet awareness of the issues is miniscule amongst those most likely to be killed by it.The rich world (wrongly) feels insulated from the problem by our huge wealth, thinking it will be possible to enjoy now and buy our way out later.

The poor in the tropics have no such illusions, but have yet to mount any major campaigns on this, largely due to its absence form the sort of media they have contact with: Their is a near total disconnect between vernacular language and English Language media here, with climate change mostly discussed in the latter, which are not the publications of the poor.

We need a political strategy that will mobilise those likely to be affected worst. They need to be aware that the wealth they see in advertisements will not spread to them, because of environmental constraints, and that their lives are currently being traded in as concessions to powerful political funding lobbies.

We need this because justice is never given but always fought for (even if non-violently), and the justice issue of our age is the enclosure of poor people’s future survival by the current consumption patterns of the rich.