This is the message sent from a small town in R.O.I. to the young people and children of Ireland and the World.
The message is loud and clear: “Business as usual”.
No action, no shame.
This is the latest Christmas video released by Irish DIY company Woodies:
This is definitely not the kind of message we should be sending at a time that immediate Climate Action is needed!
What rock do these people live under? What medieval cave does their mind reside in? Do they have children or grandchildren? Do they care in the least about the kind of world these young people are going to inherit because of our apathy and criminal insanity?
“We don’t give a flying fuck about your future” scream the Christmas decorations on the main street.
“We don’t have the decency to do even the smallest thing, to help you have a better tomorrow” shout the lush light displays.
I am ashamed on the behalf of the brain-dead who made this decision.
I am angry for all the others who don’t see why this is so wrong, selfish and criminally irresponsible.
Young people around the world are demanding Climate Action.
What do we say to them? That they don’t have a right to a viable world because we can’t be arsed to get off our butts and change course?
It starts here. It starts now. It starts with us.
With you and me.
If we don’t act on Climate Change now there will be nothing left to celebrate in the years to come. The cost of apathy is death and destruction of life as we know it. [Read: Biological Annihilation – a planet in loss mode].
“Christmas time is accompanied by seasonal increases in our level of consumption. From eating and drinking to giving and receiving, it is the time of the year when we do things to excess.
Our total consumption and spending on food, travel, lighting and gifts over three days of festivities could result in as much as 650 kg of carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) per person – equivalent to the weight of 1,000 Christmas puddings! This is 5.5% of our total annual carbon footprint”. [The Carbon Cost of Christmas].
Let that sink in: we are adding 5.5% to the damage we’ve already done. Every single year. For bling!
Researchers at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI-Y), based at the University of York, calculated the Carbon Cost of Christmas – over just three days of festivities (Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day). This survey does not take into account the carbon footprint of the entire festive season which for many if not most has started already, with extra shopping and driving to and from shops to buy gifts, send cards, and extravagant lighting displays that are already up and will stay up until twelve days after Christmas.
So the real cost of Christmas on Climate Change is many times over than the study calculated and truly staggering for its effects on our already struggling planet…
Add to that the many other negative impacts of the Christmas season consumerism amok – the True Environmental Cost of Christmas. This is our Christian humanity and Christmas Spirit, while humans in other parts of the globe are being ravaged by the effects of Climate Change, while babies are dying in man-made famine, genocide and wars, while asylum seekers (just like the biblical Mary & Josef) are jailed, persecuted, separated from their children and attacked with poison gas…
What Christmas means is Family Time: a few days, hours, special moments shared with my loved ones – which this year will be limited, as they will be working for most of the Christmas and New Year period. Oh yeah, Capitalism is so great…
Family: it’s not about presents and money and putting up a bigger tree than the neighbor, our Christmas light displays being the most outrageous in the neighborhood or keeping up with the Joneses and the Kardashians.
It’s about caring. It’s about empathy. It’s about making each other feel better and making each other’s lives a little better, with Peace, Love and Understanding.
12 Days before Christmas, driving through small rural towns that are competing against each other for the biggest and most expensive, impressive decorations and light displays their meager budgets can afford, I truly wonder how many people are really thinking and care about the fact we are just 12 years away from the point of no return: civilization collapse and our children’s worse nightmares.
All I want for Christmas is a Future – not for me, lucky me, old enough to look back and be grateful that I have lived a dozen lifetimes in one, with enough adventures and memories to sustain me to the last of my days – but for my young loved ones.
We need to realize we are facing a real ultimatum, the most life-threatening emergency we’ve ever faced as a species; we simply can’t afford this insanity. This is a time for people to be acting exactly as they would, and as they did before, at war times – doing away with every luxury that is putting our future – our innocent children’s future – at grave danger. Living sensibly.
Climate Change Denial is deadly. Those who have children and grandchildren surely must now step up and do their duty. [recommended reading: “Hothouse Earth Co-Author: “The Problem Is Neoliberal Economics“].
What everyone should be doing:
Consume Less. Buy Local. Eat Less Meat & Dairy. Recycle-Repair-Reuse. Drive Less – Use Public Transport. Conserve Energy. Switch to Sustainable. Plant Trees. VOTE for people and policies that value Life. Demand Climate Action.
Simple things, not a huge sacrifice, if we think what’s at stake: Life. Itself.
If we all did our best maybe we can all get what we want – what everybody with a bit of sense wants for Christmas and every day of the year: Love, and a chance for a better Tomorrow. It doesn’t matter if you believe in Christmas or not -Christmas is an ancient pagan festival hijacked by Christianity- Climate affects us all.
Yes, we are at that: we used to dream of “a better future”. Now even a mere future is no longer a certainty. Hothouse Earth will be inhospitable for intelligent life.
I don’t know what you want for Christmas, but I do think what really matters is what our children and grandchildren ask for. What every parent, grandparent and sane person on Earth should dream of and work for:
A Future for All the world’s Children.
The Eros Principle 