Stephen Barlow Profile picture
Jan 22 26 tweets 9 min read
@DoctorVive has hit the nail on the head, because it is essential all of us understand this. The present system, which arose out of the industrial revolution, which was designed on purpose, was a profound mistake, based on entirely false assumptions about our world.
1/🧵
Any full acknowledgement of the climate and ecological emergency, not just the science, but how the system, which caused it started, is profoundly subversive. It totally undermines the powerful and wealthy who rule over us. It says that full system change is essential.
2/
The present system, which as I say, arose out of the industrial revolution, is entirely based on one false assumption - eternal economic growth.

You cannot have eternal growth on a finite planet. But the false assumption is you can!
3/
Once you acknowledge this and I have heard environmentalists saying this for the last 50 years - it is profoundly subversive. Not only does it implicitly, say full system change is absolutely essential, but says those profiting most from it, are the problem.
4/
I highly suspect the billionaire class, and those just below them - and who own the world's media - are highly aware of this. This is why they are quite deliberate distorting the media perception of the climate and ecological emergency, to mislead the public.
5/
Given the established science and facts, you might think that all the environmental conferences, from the 1972 UN Stockholm Environment, the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to the COP talks, would acknowledge full system change as a solution?
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un.org/en/conferences…
But bizarrely, the most obvious solution, is not even considered. Self-evidently, the industrial capitalist model, which arose out of the industrial revolution is the cause of the climate and ecological emergency. There is not one shadow of doubt about this.
7/
Yet no conference, no summary of the crisis, not the world's media, no mainstream politician, will even entertain the idea, that it is the system that is responsible for this crisis, and that it has to be profoundly changed.
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Even when the then UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon acknowledged the "Twentieth-Century Model [is] ‘A Global Suicide Pact’" he failed to acknowledge system change as an option. Instead "climate-resilient green growth".
9/
un.org/press/en/2011/…
The wonder @GretaThunberg and all the youngsters inspired by her have seen right through this. That green growth is a "fairy story", that we need "system change, not climate change" that the cause is the failure to acknowledge the crisis as a crisis.
10/
But none of the adults in the room will acknowledge this most bleeding obvious fact, instead dismissing it as youthful naivety. No, it is they who are naive, what the youth climate movement identify as the problem, is the profound truth.
11/
This is why I've fully supported the youth climate movement from the very beginning and I give them my undying support. You see, for the last 50+ years I have been trying to understand why no one will acknowledge this. I to was dismissed as naive, when I said this at age 10.
12/
I have spent this last 50 years going in very deep as to why no one will properly acknowledge such a serious crisis, and why no progress is being made. My conclusions were what @DoctorVive has focused on.
13/
When I first heard @GretaThunberg speak, I was utterly stunned. It was the first time in my life, and I am over 60, when I heard some one else say what I'd been saying for 50 years. Anyone who read my Guardian commenting, knows this to be the case.
14/
profile.theguardian.com/user/id/431189…
I was expecting @GretaThunberg to say something I disagreed with. But all I heard were more profound truths I had been trying to get across for over 50 years. I don't say this because I regard Greta as any sort of saint, but because it is THE TRUTH!
15/
Anyone who does not acknowledge that profound system change, is our only option, is in some form of denial, and is not acknowledging the crisis as a crisis. I can fully understand and empathize with their dilemma. I'm not insulting them, just stating a fact.
16/
You see, it is as @DoctorVive implies, to acknowledge the climate and ecological emergency in full, is a profoundly subversive act, which says the whole system has to change. It is acknowledging everything you have believed in, is false.
17/
This crisis cannot be addressed with techno-fixes, green growth or anything else. Yes, technology, sustainability and all the rest is very important, but none of that can work in the present system, without total system change.
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What I say is not in the least bit ideological. I don't have any preferred system I want to see, just one which is truly sustainable. The present system is totally unsustainable, and cannot be turned into a sustainable system with the sticking plaster solutions suggested.
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Only a system which does not mindlessly pursue economic growth, is not mindlessly competitive, obsessed with the accumulation of wealth, but which acts for the common good, through cooperativeness, not competition can be sustainable.
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If you fix all the things inherent in our present system, which are thoroughly unsustainable, you end up with a profoundly different system. It does not say exactly how this sustainable system should be, only that it cannot be like the present system.
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To answer @DoctorVive's question, which I'm sure was rhetorical and meant to produce this answer. None of the media, no mainstream politician, establishment academic, will never acknowledge the crisis in full, because tacitly, it says the system has to profoundly change.
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Tacitly, anyone with serious wealth, a very high salaried position in the present system, anyone with power, high status, influence, is risking losing their privileged position in society, if they acknowledge this.
23/
@threadreaderapp Please unroll?
Should have been "wonderful", not "wonder". I was typing fast and didn't have time to proof read it, as I was doing something else.

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More from @SteB777

Jan 24
I am putting my thread written spontaneously underneath @GeorgeMonbiot's tweet, which is focused fury, in a proper thread. This is so it can be read like thread. Although I won't be able to number it, so look for unroll at the end. There's a few additional tweets.
This is the most abominable act of ecocide I have ever heard of. The equivalent of human genocide, but on our life support systems. Deliberate ecocide, rather than inadvertent ecocide through stupidity, is the most EVIL act imaginable. It is genocide of future generations.
I do not use these terms lightly. When European colonists first reached the Americas, they waged constant ecocide against the native inhabitants. Simply because they had a deep attachment to the land and wouldn't yield to them. so they tried to exterminate their whole culture.
Read 19 tweets
Jan 23
@peterwalker99 The Mail is running a dishonest propaganda campaign against cyclists. It's trying to tell people the new Highway Code overhauls are introducing new rules. This is a total lie, this is how it was when I took my driving test in 1977.
1/
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…
Everyone of these so called knew rules were as taught to me in my driving lessons, and I was clearly told failure to adhere to them, or failing to explain this to the examiner in your driving test, would result in you failing your driving test.
2/
It's deliberately trying to whip up hatred against cyclists. Just look at the comments under the article.
3/
Read 4 tweets
Jan 23
@BootstrapCook, is to my knowledge the only person to ever highlight this phenomena.

"The Smart Price, Basics and Value range products offered as lower-cost alternatives are stealthily being extinguished from the shelves"
1/
I can not only confirm this phenomenon, but can confirm it happened before, in I think 2008-9. After the financial crash, there was a sudden rise in food prices. All the supermarkets immediately removed the "value" ranges from the shelves.
2/
This appeared to be to stop shoppers buying the "value" ranged products, instead of the standard range of products, which had just shot up in price. It was definitely not that they ran out. One day the shelves were full of these products, the next day they were gone.
3/
Read 15 tweets
Jan 23
Historical precedent is probably the most important indicator of what is possible and what isn't. The only historical precedent in fairly modern times of economies being suspended for the common good is WW2. I'm not a fan of war analogies, but that is all we've got to go on.
1/
As I say war analogies aren't ideal. The objectives and implementation were different. But it is an example of how the economic model can be put on hold, and the public actually come together to work for the common good.
2/
Most of the technology we take for granted, arose out of WW2. Jets, electronic computers, antibiotics, radar, sonar, even rockets etc, if you count the German side. Many had origins before, but they were never put into full scale use, until necessity produced them.
3/
Read 17 tweets
Jan 21
I'd like to use this point to illustrate why the claim that all people are responsible for the climate and ecological emergency, through their consumption, behaviour and the governments they elect, is a monstrous false argument and misrepresentation of the facts.
1/🧵
As rightly noted, those without a sympathetic employer (and most aren't) or wealth i.e. most of the population, have to keep in the rat race driving the crisis, just to keep their heads above water. This includes voting for a government most likely to keep them in work.
2/
This is not just about time off to protest. It's about the ability to make alterations to your lifestyle, or the government you vote for, because most are just trying to keep their head above water.
3/
Read 33 tweets
Jan 20
Once more I ask why aren't Boris Johnson and others being investigation for perverting the course of justice by the @metpoliceuk, for lying about these social gatherings in Downing Street?
1/
Former cabinet minister Chris Huhne was convicted of perverting the course of justice, and given an 8 month prison sentence for simply lying to avoid a speeding ticket, and getting his then wife to say she was driving at the time, 10 years earlier.
2/
independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/…
This proves no matter how trivial the original offence is, if you lie to avoid conviction you are guilty of perverting the course of justice, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, and nearly always results in a prison sentence.
3/
Read 13 tweets

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