Normalize calling it neocide - “the deliberate killing of young people and future generations”
The climate and ecological emergency is so obvious now, to everyone, and the projected impacts are so severe (and this is also well known), that this sustained lying and inaction from corporate and government leaders is a form of neocide theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Genocide is "the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group." Climate and ecological breakdown is directed toward young people and future generations. I personally feel this is distinct and that a more precise word might be helpful.
btw, here is a thread discussing what to call it, lots of ideas
Oil spills are bad but the true devastation is when everything works as designed, the oil is burned, the planet heats up, and irreversible climate and ecological breakdown moves up another ratchet.
Immediacy bias in risk assessment. Helps explain climate inaction.
I think it is the same mechanism that allows people to feel burning fossil fuel is still OK, e.g. plane flights. They don't see the devastation - there are no oil-covered birds, the damage is indirect, the linkages are abstract - so they do not think of it or are bothered by it.
Here's my article about the coming epidemic of deadly climate depression among the world's youth, and why getting past #blahblahblah is the only way out. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
The Greek word neo means “young, new”. We can thus coin a word, neocide, meaning “the deliberate killing of young people and future generations”.
It is psychologically devastating to feel climate and ecological catastrophe closing in every day while watching those in power not only failing to act, but actively making things worse by expanding the fossil fuel industry.
I strongly suspect world leaders are busy at COP26 embracing the absolute techno-bullshit that is CCS when they should be making detailed plans on how to end the fossil fuel industry within ten years. This would be disastrous. Here are my thoughts theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
A few more thoughts on how inadequate and impossible CCS will be to scale up in time to make any difference at all
I am not generally hopeless, but so long as world leaders chase CCS vaporware instead of the real work of ramping down the fossil fuel industry, there is essentially no hope. This is the key thing. We will know we're on the path to safety only when they stop chasing distractions
There is still a LOT of confusion about Climate Income, where you put a fee on fossil fuel and give it right back out to people in an equal monthly check. So, a thread.
First, it's not regressive for one simple reason: rich people spend vastly more on energy than poor people.
Suppose you have 10 people. 5 people put $1 in the pot (representing the working class) and 5 people put in $10 (representing the rich, who buy a lot more energy). Everyone then gets $5.50 back. $5.50 > $1.
More expensive fossil fuel then accelerates changing everything.
Second, it's not a tax. If the government kept the fee and spent in on stuff, it would be a tax. But they don't, they give it back to everyone in an equal monthly check. So it's not a tax. It's a universal Climate Income. So don't call it a tax. Because it isn't.
I think governments should seize fossil fuel assets at this point. It may sound radical but there has never been another point in history when human actions were on the verge of destroying the habitability of our planet. It would allow for equitable emergency control of supply.
So long as fossil fuel barons and investors are allowed to maintain enclosure, there is no way to ramp down on a schedule while controlling price and allowing equitable access for all. Despite causing this planetary crisis they'd profit grotesquely while most others were cut off
They lied routinely for decades, thus ensuring this unbelievably horrific crisis for all life on Earth for their own petty, selfish, gain. They deserve prison, not obscene profits.
I need to tell you all about the five day hike we took in the Sierra Nevada in June, on the John Muir Trail. I haven't been able to do it yet because there were so many dead trees, it broke my heart, and I realize it's still broken.
We were there three years earlier (we took a 20 day hike then, with both kids) in August and things looked fine. This summer, in June, everything was bone dry. No snow to speak of, not even on passes. Many dried streams that we'd seen running strongly in the earlier August trip.
With this stuff it's like your heart bends and never springs back how it was. I love the Sierra so much. Now I don't know if I can still go into that beautiful backcountry. I used to go to escape and feel my soul soar, now I'm constantly reminded of climate breakdown and I grieve