As I type this Europe’s leaders, along with captains of industry, news reporters and that guy who owns easyJet are over in Switzerland, discussing what is to be done about the world’s great problem. Problem? I hear you cry. Well, it’s a problem that’s been occupying the minds of the governments of the world, the media and no doubt your very own employer for the last 5 or so years. Still not sure what I’m on about? Let’s just say it’s world wide and ends in –ing. Cottoned on yet? Good.

Anyway, go back to the start there and read through the people I mentioned attending this conference-come-business-type-lunch. Spot the recurring theme? Yep, it’s being attended by those people you love to hate, Businessmen. (As an aside, I’ve already made my opinions on these people very clear in previous editions) Quite why they seem to think they have the answer is a complete mystery, as most (Mr. Stellios easyJet more than most) have caused, or at least contribute, to global climate change. And all the plans I’ve heard to combat it, from my own government specifically, seem to involve getting someone else to do it for you. Not What I Call Progress.

Go and watch your media feed for a bit, be it TV, Radio or otherwise, and see how long before someone mentions Global Warming. Now see how they depict it. Chances are that they will not portray it in a favourable light (if they do, please email me and I’ll go and kick their teeth in), but equally the chances are that they wont discuss how to change the current state of affairs. This seems to be the current theme of government and media; they come up with a problem, blame it on you, and then leave you to formulate your own way of solving it. Even when our own fair BBC actually mentions the latest “Solution”, it’s always business orientated and will not help you in the slightest. Unless you incinerate your own trash, in which case, you’re welcome to try. Our corpocratic system seems to be determined to clean its own conscience by at least attempting to do something, however unhelpful. This could be a parallel of the old Protect and Survive vids of the Cold War era.

The problem is that most of these schemes, especially the great green hope of Carbon Offsetting, seem to me (even though I’m no expert) to appear not to solve the problem over a long term. All the schemes the government comes up with are preoccupied with covering their arses until the end of their current term, which is only a year away(ish), and then heap what’s left to the new guy. In my experience of British politics, this is not very surprising. But the problem will still remain, and we will still have to deal with it. Maybe it is too late, maybe we are all screwed for the foreseeable forever, but that’s just the worse kind of pessimism.

What everyone seems to forget is that the problem could have been stopped along time ago. I found a quote from way back in the 1970s the other day about Greenpeace warning we only had 50 years to fix our ways or we quite literally fucked for all eternity. That was ~30 years ago. And what did we do? Ignore them. Coal fired power plants are still in use, and still planned for many areas of the world, Cars will never be scrapped because they’re so damn convenient and I doubt we’ll ever ditch the world shrinking power of air travel. Unfortunately what people also seem to ignore is that the mass-pollution is the factor of the Industrial Revolution, which is still in progress all across the world as we speak (for a specific case-study I’d recommend having a look at China). It is part of social development and, sadly, until we can find an affordable alternative to fossil fuels, and anything else that can cause climatological problems, we stuck with it. That “We’re Fucked” theory looks mighty appealing now, doesn’t it?

Of course the various governments of the world have tried, as I mentioned previously. The other methods are wide and varied, but all eventually lead down the same road of willpower. Yes, we have the capability to solve the entire world’s power problems by the end of the month. Seriously! The only problem is that no-one would stand for it. A Global Unified Power System? Blasphemy! Communism! But that’s the problem isn’t it. We have the means, which has been around for a good few decades now, but the current global mindset seems to want to make money rather than save the world. Until we get a large amount of people thinking against the grain, we (or more specifically, the planet) don’t stand a hope in hell for the future. The power to save the world exists, it’s just the big wigs have decided, on our behalf, that it’s not worth looking into, because it won’t benefit anyone. Except The Dutch (think about it, think about it). And now, if you excuse me, I’m off to build a safe room under my stairs in case of Global Warming induced flooding.

--Jittery Joe

--Once again, We’re all fucked

January 2007