Tuesday 5 March 2019

The planet is dying.

I have this underlying anxiety (and anger) that I repress every time I see a news article about the state of the planet and its failing climate, every time it is warm in February, every time I see an image of a dying polar bear, or an empty Amazon rainforest or really just every single time I think about global warming.

I have to repress it because otherwise it is overwhelming. I once heard that if we were exposed to the direct effects and statistics of global warming every day we wouldn't be able to emotionally handle it. I have no evidence to back that theory up, but I feel enough to know that it is probably close to the truth.

I have to repress the anxiety and the anger because as an individual there is extremely little I can do. I can recycle properly, use less wasteful plastic, try and reduce my consumption of products from corporations which contribute the most to pollution and waste, switch lights off, use the car less. I can do that, but I am tiny. My impact is tiny. How do I know that everyone else is doing it too?

That's the other thing, I am so angry that the blame is put on the ordinary individual, that the responsibility is put to the public. How can I be responsible? I am not old enough to be responsible for this! I wasn't there! I wasn't born!

I want something radical to happen. I want these huge corporations forced into stopping waste and pollution, I want universities and companies to divest from oil companies and invest in research into the alternatives, I want governments to enforce sustainable energy sources and ban damaging behaviour like those bloody individually wrapped food items which are already in plastic packaging before you get to them. I just want something to happen.

But I don't think it will. Will it? Is everyone, and by everyone I mean governments and huge corporations, just going to continue ignoring this?

And so I repress it. The anger and the anxiety. They live humming below the surface now I think for most people, the people who have been told off for using straws as if that is the singular issue at hand. Naughty public! Buying into all of the conveniences we sold you at a disastrous price we were fully aware of but kept the truth hidden anyway, look what you've done!

Who is to blame? Where do I go? What do I do? Who am I supposed to scream "JUST FUCKING DO SOMETHING!" at? Who's even really listening?

No comments:

Post a Comment