A steady last few days at the Old Vic. The self sufficiency drive is doing well, been harvesting apples and making juice, stocking up the freezer, dug out the last lot of summer potatoes and harvested wild fruit and nuts from the garden. The bioblitz drive also doing well, only five species away from 1000 species recorded in the garden (the cigar and fireworks are on standby) , the moth list is now on 471, only 29 away from the 500 target. Hoping to hit both these targets this year.
Summer holidays are nearly over (Jacob will be starting school so been making most of it). Our most recent day trip was to the West Midlands Safari Park. These places never cease to amaze me- pleasure domes of IUCN critically endangered species, animatronic extinct megafauna, hot dogs, penguins, rollercoasters and cuddly toys. These places are absolutely packed- this really is how most people (in this country) 'connect' with nature. It's such a paradox, with information boards about extinction and the whole thing flying under the banner of conservation, at around £150 a day for a small family for entry, lunch and toy, this is connecting with nature mass consumerism style. I really enjoy these places (they are mental!) but they are like a giraffe filled dream world, almost psychedelic, like a trip, so detached from reality, insane, like a circus of all consuming un-relentless detachment from our evolutionary past, our animatronic ancestors telling us stories of mass extinctions and the eventual fate of all species and all eras Perhaps we will be immortalised somewhere, in some theme park, someday. Not sure our mini-farm is really any match for pandemic, escalating inequality, growing authoritarianism, mass extinction and climate chaos but it's hopeful rather than pure fantasy.
Great Thunberg keeps going on about that we need to act like this is an emergency. The fact that she keeps targeting this message at world government and is given so much attention by main stream media is interesting and makes me suspect that her message is being propagated so loudly by the system because in some ways, paradoxically, it upholds the system (a truly radical message that undermines established power would not be embraced by the system so that it could shoot itself in the foot). Not sure there's any conspiracy here, just the convenient exploitation of naivety and a young girl having fun. Like any teenager she collects social media likes, likes attention and it's good material for the loud speakers of the planet (her message ticks all the boxes- it ticks the cognitive ease box basically- in fact there is only one box when it comes to mass ideology and simplicity is that box).
Anyone who understands how this world works (i.e. in an infinitely complex evolving way which is impossible to understand) is always acting like we are in an emergency, because we are, an eternal emergency. Life is fragile, freedom even more so and chaos is always close and oppression even closer. As Greta says (I really like her) this is an emergency, not because humanity and the natural world is somehow more vulnerable than it ever has been but because an ecological narrative that makes us believe we should surrender our freedom is at large. She is the emergency. A narrative that says that big government is the answer, that through taxes and vaccines they can protect us while the capitalist forces that continue to expose the masses to the threats of ecological and climate stress while they extract value from nature remain unopposed (there is no mass movement targeted at the billionaire class). This is how government and the billionaires work together to control the majority and ask us to carry the burden of the human condition while taking ownership of our fears and our vulnerabilities, turning them into stories and selling them back to us.
To act like this is an emergency is to do exactly what the most powerful people on this planet do- they protect themselves and their families and their allies. That's all I can do in my limited capacity and that's what billionaires are doing- the reason they hoard wealth, have multi-homes across the world linked by private jets and helicopters, are non-domiciled, have private security forces, bunkers and panic rooms, invest in space travel and space colonisation (to get the fuck off this planet), in cryogenics and genetic enhancement is because they know this is an emergency, and they know that mass extinction, genocide and societal collapse are never too far away and when these things are inevitable, it is best to drive them rather than be driven by them. If they can stay on top of unsustainability, they can steer the collapses, re-sets, culling and re-structuring. They can sustain unsustainability indefinitely with the burden of that being taken up by the world's poor kept in perpetual misery and by drawing down on nature's infinite ability to re-generate. World governments will never act like this is an emergency because government is a buffer in this emergency, to protect the rich, to deflect global stress onto the vulnerable and to permit summer holiday circuses and dream worlds and to allow little girls to have the world stage to enforce the fantasy that government and democracy is a match for evolution and nature. My experience at Beddington Farmlands taught me very well about the weakness of democracy and the incompetence of government in the face of superhumans, corporations and billionaires. I align with nature in the fight for freedom from superhuman (and their systems) oppression and destruction- not government.
2 comments:
Powerful stuff Peter! Enjoyed reading that although it raised my blood pressure a bit!
Sounds like you need a nice cold glass of my pink apple juice :-)
Post a Comment