Being a mildly obsessive consumer of Reddit world news is an intriguing but depressing hobby. It’s a great way to have the startling effects of climate change among other gems, broadcasted directly into my psyche on a daily basis. This habit of mine made taking part in the climate protest at the legislature on September 27th all the more meaningful and reassuring. It was concrete proof that many of us are actually into being proactive and pushing for change.
Seeing public reaction move from the pixels on my screen to chalk on the wall at UVic was a welcome sign. The advance of climate change and global warming has been a little like the watching the approach of a tidal wave from hundreds of miles away, in slow motion. Impending doom that may envelope you, or at least some poor developing nations at sea level.
Using scientific analysis to project the future of weather, climate and human suffering in the form of numbers and words is a powerful tool to convince our collective consciousness that a problem exists. Although I can’t help but feel that vivid imagination should be the next level we construct from this foundation. To imagine what it looks like to see 300 million people starving. To imagine what it smells like when they die. To imagine what the collapse of the food web actually means to all life on earth. I don’t want to believe that we won’t truly understand until the waves lap up to our front steps. At this point, our imaginations are failing us. Human inability to understand the gravity of certain realms of possibility has been a consistent shortcoming throughout our history.
Peter Pan and the Lost Boys have always maintained that adults are pirates. You grow up, you lose your imagination, you become a pirate. That’s the way it goes. And that’s what the climate strike felt like for me. The young people with still enough imagination to see properly into the future came out against the pirates. The pirates drill for oil, make pool noodles by the millions, and drive their F250s to Walmart to buy grapefruit and clothes made by children. It feels as though there’s just not quite enough stock in the future for many adults to scream it off the roof tops. They will however, read about it while nice and toasty, next to their natural gas inserts and then cast a vote for that nice conservative boy who will put the economy first.
The corporate paradigm is a nasty beast. It’s possibly the furthest point from the human soul, if you believe in that stuff. As I understand it, a huge piece of our puzzle as humans is to understand that we are those corporations. They’re not some douche in a suit. They’re the effect of what has more or less evolved inside all people. The instinct to be comfortable and to hoard resources. In a way, that’s how we may have to end up working against our own instincts. To be less comfortable and to have less, because whether it’s by our own volition or not, it’s going to happen.
