The most important thing everyone needs to understand about the climate and ecological emergency will be explained in a series of tweets here. It's to do with the reason our leadership has steadfastly refused to commit to immediate action to address the crisis. @GretaThunberg
@GretaThunberg 1) Since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, and in fact long before, our leadership has been promising action, just not now, but several decades in the future. There is one overriding reason for this I will explain in following tweets.
@GretaThunberg 2) Our leadership, business leaders, the super rich, know very well that as soon as immediate action was announced, they'd be tacitly declaring a crisis and emergency, whether or not they announced one, and the public would know this and demand all out action now.
@GretaThunberg 3) In other words, our leadership, business leaders and the super rich would know they'd be totally committed to all out action by public demand. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY WHAT THEY'VE BEEN TRYING TO AVOID TO KEEP CONTROL OF THE SYSTEM AND TO MAINTAIN THEIR POWER AND LUXURY LIFESTYLES.
@GretaThunberg 4) This is all about the powerful, the wealthy and all those benefiting from the fossil fuel economy most keeping their hold over society, their power, their privilege, their wealth, and their luxury lifestyles.
@GretaThunberg 5) Those benefiting most from the fossil fuel economy, know that in a system committed to addressing the climate and ecological emergency, that they'd immediately lose their grip on our society, because they'd not have the pre-requisite skill sets for addressing the crisis.
@GretaThunberg 6) As @GretaThunberg says, the most important thing about the climate crisis is seeing it as a crisis - and the biggest problem is it not being seen as a crisis. This matters more than anything else. No other aspect matters more. We must focus on this.
@GretaThunberg 7) We can know whether our leadership is truly committed to taking action to address the climate action, by whether they agree to immediate major action now, or if they try putting it off into the distant future.
@GretaThunberg 8) Again, they know that the minute they agree to significant action now, their ability to further delay action will be totally lost, because it will be what the public demands, not what they want.
@GretaThunberg 9) The most significant obstacle is the peculiar deference people have to those in positions of power. People are genetically programmed to see our leaders as our protectors and benefactors, even though they are not.
@GretaThunberg 10) People evolved to live in small tribes, societies where leaders were chosen because of they were the best people, the most honest, the bravest, the wisest, the individuals people could trust most.
@GretaThunberg 11) In the small societies modern humans evolved in, it was impossible to pretend to be something you were not. If someone was honest, cared about others, had good judgement, was brave, every person in this society saw it. They didn't need to be told it.
@GretaThunberg 12) This is why we evolved to implicitly trust our leaders, because originally every person had known them since they were born. There were no fake leaders who pretended to be geniuses whilst being buffoons, who pretended to be brave, whilst being cowards, who were selfish.
@GretaThunberg 13) However, since our societies became much bigger and the wealthy hid behind a legally enforced wall of secrecy it became easier and easier for leaders to be able to just pretend they had the qualities people looked to in leaders.
@GretaThunberg 14) In fact most modern leaders are quite self-interested and rarely have the personal qualities that resulted in people evolving to implicitly trust their leaders. Yet people still have this trust they evolved to have.
@GretaThunberg 15) This has led to the majority of the public having blind faith in a leadership which doesn't even represent them. Which is actually there to protect wealthy vested interests like the fossil fuel industry, although it is a deadly threat to the lives of future generations.
@GretaThunberg 16) I'm not suggesting overthrowing this leadership in a violent revolution. Such things rarely or ever work, because the leaders of revolutions are generally corrupted by power in the same way as those they overthrew.
@GretaThunberg 17) There is in fact no reason for any type of leader to have great personal power, huge wealth, to be legally unaccountable. These are simply powers those corrupted by power gave themselves.
@GretaThunberg 18) What I'm suggesting is that everyone needs to know the truth. To understand that the climate and ecological emergency demonstrates that our leaders do not in fact represent their best interests. They're in it for themselves and their wealthy friends.
@GretaThunberg 19) The problem is viciously circular. People are not perceiving we are in the crisis were are, because our governments are not acting as if it's the crisis it is. Yet our governments aren't acting as if it's crisis for fear the public will see it as a crisis.
