This is an environmental column. I know I’m late. The chronicles on the environment, it was last week, during the COP26. Today, we are elsewhere. The subjects of concern are the rebirth of Quebec hockey, the agony of the Canadiens, the shortage of Christmas trees and vaguely COVID-19.
This is precisely the problem. Global warming is just another hobbyhorse, in the merry-go-round of our priorities. In vain we predict the apocalypse in less than a century, a festival of natural disasters, the disappearance of the human species, it has an effect of chest tightness, of nocturnal anguish which is only temporary.
Yet climate change has already occupied the top spot on our list of good intentions, for weeks or even months.
That was ages ago, that was in 2019. The Greens had the momentum. We were starting to change our habits. To be careful. We finally realized that it was urgent. Then the coronavirus arrived. And from the first position, he took hold. For a long time. What is the point of worrying about the fate of the Terrans of the future when it is the Terrans of the present who will pass by? We started stocking rolls of toilet paper, polluting our spaces with non-recyclable masks, preferring to take your car alone rather than gang public transport, in short, to be much less green and much more. green zoom, by dint of staying locked in the house. The environment was no longer a planet, it was a five and a half.
The pandemic has nevertheless enabled us to see that in the face of dangers, our leaders can have initiative. For the first time in our lives, they shut down the economy. They closed everything. It’s not nothing. Leaders never stop the economy. Remember, on September 12, 2001, the day after the terrorist attacks on American soil, what was President Bush’s first advice to his citizens? Go shopping! As quickly as possible ! This is America, buy! Ben in March 2020, we were told to stay home. Don’t work anymore. Don’t go out anymore. To hell with the consumer society. No restaurant, no travel, no hairdresser, no show that must go on. Of course, you could always order from Amazon. Mental health issue. I spend, therefore I am.
What could have caused the high priests of neoliberalism to put aside the religion of the god? cash ? The sense of urgency. The death curve was exponential. Everything had to be put on hold. Save the populations, because without them, who will enrich the rich?
The worst of the epidemic is over. At least that’s what you might think when entering karaoke. The economy has restarted. It’s going to be fine. What’s the next threat? Ah yes, the melting glaciers. We’re going to make a summit. To fight against the pandemic, there was no summit, big meeting, resolutions, targets to reach, report. We did not discuss. We acted.
The sense of urgency that makes us go into survival mode, when does it take hold of us? All climate conferences are last-chance climate conferences. We have reached 26 last chances. How many are in the package?
The pact adopted by the 200 states present in Glasgow promises a global warming of 2.7 ° C at the end of the century. The Paris agreement in 2015 promised a warming of 1.5 ° C. Six years later, we are not moving forward, we are going backwards. Even in the promises. So imagine on the ground. On the flooded land.
If Mark Zuckerberg wants to do useful work with his metaverse, let him bring us into the virtual reality of what will happen to us. Let everyone put on their little helmet and see what an increasingly heated world will look like. Let us sweat our life.
We need to see cataclysms, droughts, floods, chaos to truly mobilize. As long as it remains an abstraction, our measurements remain abstract. We are against fossil fuels, but for the pipeline.
We write pro-environmental columns and then we go and make our Christmas tree. By the way, what is best for the planet? A natural tree? An artificial tree? We don’t know anymore. No pantout tree? That must be it. But you have to live well. As they say.
We cannot leave all the responsibility for the future of humanity to individuals. We elect leaders to lead us. Direct us to safe harbor. Not at the bottom of the water.
The green of the planet is more important than that of the banknotes.