in society, we are told about our effect on the environment by the government, endlessly told through mindless trauma porn about the “poor polar bears that have their habitat destroyed by you!”. on tv, we are encouraged to donate “just £3 a month to adopt this poor bonobo, its habitat eviscerated by climate change”- despite palm oil production ultimately clearing forests. what are all these campaigns in search of? sympathy? thoughts and prayers? to cleanse our society of the ills, we must end the society that brought it around in the first place. our hyper-consumerist, proto-feudalist system causes so much pain, heartbreak, and grief- yet we are told that it is our fault- an intrinsic evil within all of us we must cleanse. why?
in the 1970s, post industrial revolution, scientists noticed something- the temperature of the earth was consistently rising, on a timescale unprecedented before this. after many years of research into the causes, it was determined that the burning of fossil fuels, and the greenhouse gases they gave off, were the primary cause of this phenomenon — called “global warming”. when this was presented to major corporations- like exxon, chevron, and shell, their first thought was not how to solve this, but how to deflect blame onto the public. indeed, it was known polluter, deepwater horizon causing british petroleum who coined the term “carbon footprint”. the image of the ocean on fire, and the main goal is still to generate profit. our society has been poisoned, an oil spill of biblical proportions, and we are still sent to work- for what? in search of a profit, to keep the wheel spinning- even though we don’t know why it’s spinning in the first place.
the only way forward is to cut the illness off at the limb- we have been brought here by one system. capitalism. in one way or another, disregarding petty semantic battles, capitalism has reigned over the world for over 200 years, and yet- we seem to be a worse place than before. incredible healthcare that can help and cure billions of people- and we limit it to those who pay, or those who live in rich countries. millions of people die each year due to a lack of access to clean water- and we waste thousands of litres watering our lawns. a burgeoning mental health crisis in the youth, and the solution is to overpresrcribe pills that fundamentally rearrange our brain chemistry (and also, coincidentally, generate a profit), instead of dealing with the problem at its roots. to fix society needs a revolution- in our culture, in our economic system, in our roles in society. but we must ensure this all-encompassing revolution does not lead to a worse system than before- we must devote ourselves to the cause of improving humanity, not improving ourselves- instead of becoming a joseph stalin, we should aim to be a thomas sankara- who vastly improved his country in every way, and would’ve continued doing so, if not for the assassination (both physical and ideological) carried out by the west.
in a perfect world, tackling global warming would be our highest property. climate change is real, and is the biggest underlying problem in our society. however, we are past the point of no return in terms of our individual effect on climate change, and without a massive political and societal upheaval, there is little we can do about it. instead, we should dedicate ourselves to helping marginalised peoples of the world- we should fight for women’s rights in the courts, protest against racialised police brutality, and boycott all corporations which donate to anti-gay charities. there cannot be capitalism without subjugation of the people, and the liberation of all people in the world should be our main goal in society- the revolution should not only be a revolution for the few- but for the many.
