Thread by @SteB777

1) It is vital that all those committed to addressing the climate and ecological crisis, understand the dynamic I've described in the 3 tweet thread I've linked to below. @GeorgeMonbiot @Fridays4future @ClimateHuman

https://twitter.com/SteB777/status/1354700864552914946

2) For 30 years, in fact longer, we've been trapped in an unproductive cycle of our leadership promising to address the climate and ecological crisis, and then doing nothing except making a few token gestures.

3) This is very dangerous because we've lost lots of valuable time we no longer have. 25-30 years ago it would have been possible to transition to a sustainable society in an incremental way. But this is no longer possible and only radical action now will work.

4) In fact at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, and in the COP climate talks and other climate talks, this is what our leadership promised to do i.e. incremental action. They promised to shift to a sustainable system, where the climate and ecological crisis would be addressed.

5) With almost 30 years hindsight it is now crystal clear that this pledge was false, and that actually they never intended to make anything but token gestures, whilst being firmly focused on the pursuit of economic growth, driving the ecological and climate crisis.

6) The reason our leadership has been forced to be so disingenuous is because they fear losing their grip on the system. Our leadership is well aware that addressing this crisis is popular with the public, and not addressing it could create a rebellion against their rule.

7) As @GretaThunberg has accurately identified, treating the climate and ecological emergency as a crisis, is central to getting everyone focused on addressing what is the central problem of our time. If we fail to address it, our civilization could and is likely to collapse.

8) However, our leadership, backed and bankrolled by vested interests, realises that the moment they declare an actual crisis and emergency, the public will then expect this crisis to be addressed as an emergency. Forcing them to act in a way they don't want to act.

9) The only way we can realistically address the climate and ecological crisis is in undoing a lot of the economic growth obsession, driving the ecological crisis. Ironically, vested interests are highly aware that addressing this crisis will mean dismantling the current system.

10) Vested interests realise that once it's treated as a crisis, and the public get behind treating the ecological and climate crisis as a crisis, they will be powerless to prevent this system change, and therefore their control of the whole system.

11) There is a cabal of vested interests who ensure the current system is entirely focused on pursuing economic growth, and therefore growing their own wealth, power, status and control of the system. It is a circular process.

12) In a system focused on addressing the climate and ecological emergency, and a public energised and focused on addressing this crisis, suddenly those fixated with economic growth, would no longer be relevant to advancing the public interest.

13) The public would demand leadership and political representation by those most willing and able to address the crisis, and those fixated on maintaining economic growth, and growing their own personal wealth would be side-lined and lose control of the system.

14) As the raison d'etre, the reason for existence, of wealth and power is control, namely control of the system, this cabal of vested interests sees declaring the ecological and climate emergency as a crisis, as an existential threat to their vested interests.

15) The reason I'm pointing this out and saying this dynamic must be understood and acknowledged, will be explained in the tweets below. To solve a problem you must first fully understand the problem and this means understanding the nature of this obstacle, that is my rationale.

16) On the face of it declaring the ecological and climate emergency as a crisis, to enable this existential threat to our civilization to be addressed, seems to be obvious and rational to resolving the problem. That all that's necessary is to convince people of this.

17) Unfortunately, it greatly underestimates just how much the cabal of vested interests currently controlling our present system will resist this. It is as I say an existential threat to their control of the system, which is their raison d'etre i.e. their reason for existence.

18) The more successful the environmentalist movement becomes in pushing for change, to get the ecological and climate emergency declared a crisis, the more the cabal of vested interests controlling the current system will push back against this.

19) As @GretaThunberg has noted the current leadership is stuck in this mode of making vague promises to address the ecological and climate emergency in 20-30 years time. The problem being they were promising the exactly the same thing 30 years ago.

20) This addressing the crisis, but only in 20-30 years time is a rolling process, where we'll never get there. In 20 years time, they'd have pushed forward the time for taking action to be another 20-30 years time in the future. In other words it's endless procrastination.

21) Our leadership, which primarily represents business as usual i.e. the vested interests of the very wealthiest, corporate interests is compelled to keep doing this, to avoid losing their control of the system.

22) The way to break out of this cycle is for what is going on to be fully recognised, fully acknowledged and widely understood. To properly identify that our current leadership is engaged in perpetual procrastination to avoid losing control of the whole system.

23) The primary way to do this is to demand and only accept significant action now. To say no more of this you'll do it in 20-30 years time when you won't even be around to take responsibility. That either you act now, or we will regard your pledges as false and insincere.

24) It's about being assertive and taking the lead from @GretaThunberg in speaking truth to power. It's about not taking no for an answer. To say, either you act now, or we will take it that you'll never act in the way you claim you want to.

25) Just think about this. If our leadership were really committed to acting in the way they claim they want to act, why not start now? The only obvious reason for promising to do this in 20-30 years time, and not now, is because they have no real intention of acting as claimed.