A Hard Rain´s Gonna Fall ...

Whilst not wishing to sound callous, I have long felt that nothing serious will be done about climate change in England until London gets a major flood. It has suffered flooding since Roman times and probably before, it is going to take quite a large increase to galvanise the Establishment.
If you have been keeping up with events in Germany, Belgium, Holland, China etc, you will know that a large increase has already made itself apparent there, cars shipwrecked upside down in suburban gardens, houses washed away, bridges gone — this is also London´s future.
Coupled with the effects of the Covid virus, it would seem that the English are in for a rough time.
Which brings me to my point :-

Years ago I attended the Samaritan´s Annual Conference at York University. A new director made an impassioned speech on the subject of Emotional Health. We are all familiar with physical health and mental health, but neither of those are the bailiwick of the Samaritans. If you’d broken your leg or were unable to function in society we would have been little use, but for those who could not adequately cope with the pressures of poverty, relationship problems, difficulties stemming from childhood abuse or similar, and were contemplating escape, talking it over with a non-judgemental listener seemed to be of great benefit.
However, coming out of the lecture, I was met by the local Director, face like thunder, who told me that as head of publicity at my branch I was to take no notice of this and stick to “Core Values.”
Shortly after this, my branch was told officially that Emotional Health was no longer a concept we could or should deal with. Everything was either physical or mental health. END OF.

Eventually I realised that my support for the idea was hopelessly misguided. Had the Samaritans taken up that torch, they would have to have taken a clear position on all sorts of things — Prince Andrew´s interesting social life, Prince Philip’s cheerful racism, Boris´s difficulties with the verity of his pronouncements, the Pope´s reluctance to hold recalcitrant clergy to account — the need some people feel to possess huge piles of money while others starve, in short, they would have been tilting at an impressive array of windmills, with no hope of success.

An awareness of the need for better emotional health is too explosive an issue to be aired in public, yet the need for it is critical to our survival as a species.
It is a test I think we are going to fail as a society, but not necessarily as individuals.

 

Governments have surely got one eye on climate change but there's a fair few other distractions right now.
And how hard will the public stomach it?
Are we all ready to ditch our cars?
Are we all happy to ban domestic and long haul air craft?
Would we accept a limit on children like China (i know they now allow two)
Would we accept that in Britain.. The first goverment that imposes that kind of control will be out on their ear.
We want all our own way.. a lovely clean planet, safe wildlife and fresh air.
So long as it doesn't affect us personally and we can drive around in polluting cars, n fly all over the shire...

 

Can´t argue with that JR, there may, indeed should be better ways of living than exploitive Capitalism supported by amoral science and technology, and a stone-age tribal war-god, but I´m not at all sure we are going to find one. We´ve been here for thousands of years and we haven´t even got the drainage sorted out yet. I don´t for a moment think that this is the first time civilisation has found itself up a certain creek bereft of a paddle, we´ve had untold millions of years to clear this hurdle and live in peace, ---- maybe next time ?

 

I think I'd like to hit agree there, but to be perfectly honest I dont understand 90% of it.

I kind of understood the first sentence and to that I'd like to say, what are all those windmills doing if England is doing nothing about climate change.

Or do they all belong to Scotland and Wales?

 

As usual Pete I´m being more metaphorical than my argument will bear. The windmills of which I speak are a reference to Don Quixote, and his futile attempts to banish imaginary foes. I pick my metaphors from a strange bag, collected over the years, some people know what I´m talking about, others with differing viewpoints don´t.
I see emotional health as being of vital importance now, in the face of a rising woke culture which blames others for their own feelings, and the increasing power of global conglomerates which feed on our unawareness of the importance of emotional health.
I´m sure that if you read my post a few times it would appear clearer, but I have no confidence your time would be well spent.

 

I think I understand a bit more of that one, mostly the last line.

 

The idea of collective responsibility is a beguiling one, but nothing will change much while 'society' is powered by the need of huge corporations to make huge profits (and create the environmental problems that we hear so much about). Governments are powerless to legislate against them. The easier option that they're taking, certainly in France, is using taxation, both direct and hidden, as the 'stick'. Incidentally swelling government coffers. No carrot. You've got to admire the success of the publicity machine/power of media for making individuals feel guilty, even paranoid, about their (usually) modest lifestyles. Well I don't buy it.
ETA Just looked up 'woke', which I always thought was the past tense of wake. Silly me. Perhaps the americans could have the decency to create their own language, instead of abusing, crucifying even, the English language. Grrrrr

 

When I waked up this morning I never new that I should have woke instead.

 

Maybe there is a problem with the drainage systems in all large cities. My town only started putting in large holding ponds for rain run off in about the last 10 or 12 hears. Since that time, no flooding anywhwere.

Trying to couple air pollution with flooding, in my opinion, silly. Our Red River in Manitoba creates a giant flood plain every spring and has done so for hundreds of years. Long before our population could fill a stadium. The river runs through a level area and there are no natural banks to stop it flowing outward until the ice jambs break up.

How long has it been since there was , "nightly pea soup", in London? It is the countries who still use massive amounts of coal for power production that are doing the lion's share of polluting.

 

Quoting Noisette, "The idea of collective responsibility is a beguiling one," and I do agree.
I also think that I share a common tendency to want to change the collective world, when all that is in my power, is to change myself. That changes the world.

 

Lovely sentiment, but in terms of raping and possibly destroying the planet, while money is the key motivation, nothing will change. Take recycling for example. Our council recently changed the parameters of what goes in the recycling bin. The result? 90% of our household waste is collected and trundled off to...?? Where? We don't know, but we feel all virtuous because it's being 'recycled'. The other 10% (a tiny 20l bag) goes to landfill. But shuffling the rubbish around doesn't change a thing in terms of it being created in the first place. I can't imagine that over-packaging of goods will be tackled, because that means lost jobs, lost profits. That is just in one of the most civilised countries in the world. Add in the 'underdevelopped-trying-to-develop' countries, and those that simply refuse to change.
I can achieve zero waste here, at least in terms of disposal, but what about people living in flats or with small, urban gardens? Nappies! Parents give up disposable nappies and go back to washing re-useable ones (). Using lots of water. Which we're told we must conserve and which is a prime target for more taxation.
The great cosmic joke will become apparent in a few centuries time when it will all turn out to have been a natural cycle in the life (and death) of the planet.

 

Ah? Nothing to do with the countries whose populations have several, large, fossil-fuel-powered cars on the drive and (formerly) flitted all over the place in planes?

 

Noisette47 writes :-
"The great cosmic joke will become apparent in a few centuries time when it will all turn out to have been a natural cycle in the life (and death) of the planet."

I completely agree, and imagine that many cycles of civilisation have occurred, which is why we find manufactured articles in pieces of coal. Plato is perfectly clear about Atlantis ...
So I try not to fret too much about the world situation as empires rise and fall, my immediate surroundings provide challenges enough.
As you point out, in general we have not yet evolved beyond greed to a point where we can respect others´ needs equally with our own -- money rules.
The interesting thing to me, about Covid, is that it will clearly demonstrate that we all need to look after each other, regardless of our differences and preferences.

If continual cycles of civilisation are the shape of our evolution, I´m not sure we´ve made much real progress this time around -- I think we´ll have to spin the wheel again.