Thread by @GeorgeMonbiot

As horrifying fires devastate large tracts of North America, Siberia, Greece and Turkey, have we already stepped over the brink? We're seeing the kind of escalating disasters some of us warned about for decades, as ecosystems are pushed past their tipping points.
Thread/

Our warnings were greeted with denial and insults: we were accused of being jeremiahs, killjoys, communists, fascists etc, etc. Even those who paid lip service to the science refused to act on it. They made speeches and set targets, but shunned the necessary economic change.

Everything else came first: the corporate lobbyists, the road building, the unnecessary wars, the urge to appease media billionaires and comfortable, complacent voters. Scarcely anyone told the truth. Self-interest and egotism pushed us towards catastrophe.

Even now, as the fires rage, governments delay, obfuscate, look the other way. And we, our senses dulled by consumerism, trivia and the lies and misdirections of the media, remain quiescent.

This is the greatest crisis humanity has ever faced: the escalating collapse of our life support systems. We should be confronting it with everything we've got.

The longer we wait, the worse it will become. It's too late for the towns and homesteads and magnificent ecosystems that have already been incinerated. It might be too late for much else besides. But we must save all we can. There are no excuses any more.

What does this mean? It means a complete retooling and redirection of economic life, away from growth, consumerism and accumulation, towards restraint and restoration.
This means confronting power.
The power of money.
The power of vested interests.
The power of sunk costs.

We must be brave, braver than we have ever been before, pushing past our old timidity and social restraint, standing up to those who wreck our living planet, confronting our own desire for a quiet life of consumerism and complacency.

Let's begin by joining @ExtinctionR's #ImpossibleRebellion later this month.