Are you one of those people who aren’t all that bothered about climate change?
You might look out of the window and think…. It looks nice enough, the weather. And when you last went on holiday, sure it was really hot and some local temperature records were broken, but that happens now and again anyway, right? You might think to yourself that, hey, the climate has always changed, so it’s all part of natural long terms trends.
If that’s you, then you’re the person I’ve written this article for.
Imagine this – you’re the chief executive of a large fossil fuel company. It could be oil, gas or coal. Your company makes billions of dollars in profit every year. But a problem has been found; it turns out that burning all that fossil fuel, after it adds billions of tonnes of extra gas to the atmosphere, every year, creates a slightly thicker atmosphere that traps heat and starts to warm up the planet. It turns out that your industry needs to massively reduce its output or even close completely in order to fix the problem. The problem – climate change – will cause massive global disruption to human and ecological systems.
It means that you have to give up your billion dollar company. Imagine walking away from a billion dollars! So what do you do? Do you walk away or… what if instead you just hoped the problem would sort itself out… if you waited. So you ignore the problem and hope it goes away. A few years down the line, it’s obvious that the problem isn’t going away. In fact, it’s getting worse. Do you walk away from your company and close it down now? Well, as you’re extremely rich, you have lots of extremely rich and powerful friends. They are in influential positions in society. You and your friends still find it impossible to walk away from a billion dollar industry, despite it causing a serious problem… so… you take a deep breath and decide to lie about the problem; pretend that it isn’t a problem at all. And you’ve got a lot of money to spend in supporting and promoting this lie. He who has the most money has the loudest voice and most influence in society. And so the lie is promoted; it’s in the media and on the lips of politicians. The lie: climate change isn’t real, no need to worry.
This is the climate change conspiracy; that it isn’t a problem, when it is in fact the biggest problem we have ever faced, as a global society.
So if you’re the sort of person who isn’t yet bothered by climate change, you have fallen victim to this conspiracy. The people making money at the expense of all of our futures have got you exactly where they want you – unconcerned.
I hope by now that you are feeling angry over the deception. Your political representatives and media have been complicit in this lie all this time! And you fell for it!
The reality is that everything you ever loved about planet Earth, whether that’s penguins, rainforests, a certain beautiful coastline or the future of your own family, is now in jeopardy. We could be looking at the worst thing to happen to this planet for 65 million years when the dinosaurs went extinct.
Er… try not to worry… too much.
The problem of climate change can be solved. Humanity is a very clever species. It’s not beyond us.
But… once people know about climate change, the next trick from the fossil fuel industry is – doom. If you feel that the situation is hopeless, you might as well give up on the problem and just carry on as normal… burning fossil fuels while you wait for inevitable… and that’s what the fossil fuel industries want.
So, congratulations, you have exposed the lie. And now it’s time for optimism – we can fix this. It’s a daunting task to take on by yourself. What the hell can you do?! Well, you’re not on your own. People acting together can have a lot of influence. Whether it’s in what you buy at the shops or who you vote for. Together, we matter.
Welcome to the fight.
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