20th December 2022:
I read recently that, as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak and the shutdown of the global economy in 2020, worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) had dropped that year by 7%, the first significant drop we have ever seen since global awareness of the climate crisis began. That really emphasised for me what the real problem is, and what the real solution is: we don't need carbon sequestration or electric cars or global agreements, we just need people to stop wasting GHGs for non-essential purposes.
Post 2020, of course, the world has resumed its rapacious addiction to all things fossil fuelled, and emissions are back on track to carry on increasing year after year.
I want to talk about this, because it's really important to digest, and I do not see any commentators talking about it at all. In fact, you'd think it was totally insignificant, totally irrelevant, and that it wasn't worth talking about at all other than for the occasional special interest site to mention in passing.
But I think this is vitally important to digest and understand. Probably more important than any other topic out there, because it tells us a great deal about the world that we live in. The governments, the people, the businesses, the media, the whole lot.
In 2020 governments around the world took radical action on the perceived threat of COVID-19 and not only ordered everyone to remain imprisoned within their home, but also shut down the entire global economy. Now, you'd think before making such an important decision that a full risk analysis would be undertaken. That is, that at the very least 1) it would be determined that COVID-19 is the biggest threat that humanity faces, and 2) that shutting down the global economy would actually save more lives than it would cost, over the long term. Personally, I know that no such study was done, because 1) COVID-19 is not the biggest threat that humanity faces, and 2) the cost in the long term of shutting down the global economy and confining everyone to their homes has not been done, or even realistically estimated. Of course, in northern Europe, you could probably argue that shutting down the economy was no big deal. After all, mostly everyone got handouts from the government, and could still pay the rent and feed themselves, and carry on living comfortably. But what about the several billion people that live in Asia, or Afrika, or South America, for whom there may have been no social security net, what happened to them when the global economy shut down? Does anyone even know, or care? Has anyone done any calculations? After all, we are told that this is being done in order to protect and save lives, and if that is the case, then let's see that calculation. Let's see the calculation that says shutting down the global economy will save lives.
Of course, no such calculation exists, because no such calculation was done, and no such calculation was done because this was never about saving lives. I mean, that's the narrative that is presented to us, right - that this was done in order to save lives? But if the world's governments are so concerned about saving lives, then how did they come to figure out that shutting the entire global economy was the way to do it? If, on the other hand, this was just a panic reaction to a total shit-storm whipped up by the world's media, and a 'keeping up appearances' type of shebacle whereby everyone has to be seen to be doing the right thing and acting responsibly and taking strong action, regardless of whether that is the right course or not, if this was a panic reaction like that, then you wouldn't expect anyone to have done any studies on whether shutting down the economy was the way to save lives, because it wouldn't matter what the best option to save lives was, the only thing that would matter is that you are seen to be doing the right thing, the thing that we are all told is the way to save lives. Whether that actually is the right thing or not is irrelevant, as all that matters is keeping up the appearances, and not responsible governance.
I mean, after all, it's not like governments have a track record of being loving, or of being totally concerned with the welfare of their own citizens (other than as a productive workforce that is). We all know that governments as they currently exist, exist to protect and serve the interests of the powerful industrial and aristocratic classes, the financial classes, the political classes, and any other of the elite classes from whence those governments have arisen. They do not exist to represent the interests of people, and anytime the people exert themselves to demand better treatment, they get beaten down. Governments do not have a track record of being concerned about saving human lives, instead they have a track record of exploiting human lives to serve the interests that they represent, interests whose lifestyles depend on said exploitation. I mean, when have you ever seen the world's governments get together in order to decide how they can save as many lives as possible, how they can be more loving and kind, and how they can protect more people from harm? Has that ever happened?
So this narrative that the world's governments acted to protect lives is simply not feasible. It's an infantilised narrative that is an insult to any intelligent person. Perhaps the real reason the world acted that way was because, as I said, the media decided to kick up a shit storm in order to drive their sales, and thus the governments, fearing the reactions of a panic driven public to any inaction, decided that they must be seen to be decisive and strong. Or perhaps it was a conspiracy driven by a global authoritarian elite who wanted to increase their hold on power and subdue the population into obedience, or maybe the pharmaceutical-financial complex was behind it all, or maybe all of the above and more. I don't know, but what I do know was that the narrative we are presented with is totally bogus, and that the general public reacted en masse like a group of people having a collective panic attack as a result of a media induced psychosis.
I mean, lets imagine for a moment that the world's governments really did care about their citizens, and really did care about the state of the world, and the future of humanity. Wow, wouldn't that be amazing? What would be the first thing you'd expect such a group of amazing leaders to do? I'm guessing they'd get together and figure out how they were going to respond to the many crises and difficulties that the world actually faces. Things like uncontrolled arms sales, the flow of medical supplies to the world's poor, the elimination of nuclear weapons, the re-distribution of wealth, the reduction of GHG's, protecting the world's ecosystems, bringing peace to war torn areas, and so on. I'm not sure shutting down the entire world economy as a result of COVID-19 would be on that agenda at all, to be honest.
It's been two years since the COVID-19 outbreak and the shutdown of the global economy, and since that time around 5.5 million people have died as a result of the disease. That's a lot of people, but bear in mind that 1.5 million people die each year from accidents and air pollution caused by cars. That's 1.5 million people every single year, year after year after year, from just one issue that most people have probably never even heard about or realised it was an issue. In other words, in the same time since COVID-19, around 4.5 million people have died due to cars. And that is largely caused by people selfishly driving cars for non-essential journeys. You'd think, wouldn't you, in a world where governments really care about their people, that individual car ownership would be strongly discouraged, that car sales would be restricted to essential use only in specific circumstances, and that only essential journeys would be allowed. But of course it's not about caring for people. The media hype and the mindless behaviours of the public spouting about their concern for others, and how they are shielding others, and so on, is all about appearances, and being seen to be responsible, and not about actually being responsible, because as soon as the lockdown was over, people just jumped in their cars and began poisoning people to death again so that they could drive their non-essential journeys, day after day after day, year after year. 1.5 million people a year. And that is just one issue, that of cars, never mind all the others.
Let's talk about, for example, climate change. Oh yeah, climate change, that thing whereby the global economy, which largely exists to provide us with superfluous things which we don't need and can easily live without, such as a car or a flight abroad or a playstation, that thing whereby the GHG emissions of all this superfluous activity that the global economy is empowering everyone to do is causing the entire global climate to breakdown and collapse, threatening the future of humanity and life on earth as we know it. Wow, really? Yup, really, I mean, it makes COVID-19 seem like a totally triviality, which it is, in comparison, yet somehow the world's governments, and the public, all deemed COVID-19 to be worthy of immediate and unprecedented action, and both exerted great pressure to ensure everyone conformed, and all took great pride in how caring and unselfish and self sacrificing they were by locking themselves up and shielding others from the terrible harm that they might do to them. Am I the only one that sees through this wall of total baloney? As soon as COVID-19 was done with, that's it, business as usual, we can all get back to the real deal of completely destroying life on earth as we know it as fast as we can, in order that we can have all the superfluous and meaningless shite that we enjoy. And what's more, because we all locked ourselves up during COVID-19 and proved to the world how caring and loving and wonderful we are, we can all feel great about ourselves while we do it. Am I the only one totally sickened by all this hypocrisy?
Around 8 million people die a year due to emissions from GHGs, and a further 5 million people a year die from warming caused by those GHG emissions. Lets not talk about alcohol, drugs, cancer, sugar, cigarettes, wars, arms sales, generic pollution, toxic waste spills, and so on. COVID-19 was a demonstration of just how unhinged the world really is, of just how far the world is from having any grip on reality whatsoever, of just how far the world is from taking any real responsibility whatsoever. It shows us the true state of the global psyche, living out a delusional reality whereby we are all good people that care, instead of a world ruled by a selfish and brutal humanity that is perfectly happy to destroy the lives of its own children and the lives of all livings things on the earth in order to maintain an economy that provides for its lust for trivial, mindless, non-essential pursuits. You can't blame governments, or corporations, or the elites. That doesn't wash at all. Humanity is deeply, deeply corrupted, and its heart is darkened with a shade that looks remarkably like evil. The only good side of all this is the fact that most people are not aware of that yet. People still do not see, are not fully conscious, of the evil that they are bringing into the world, and that means that there is still hope, because it means that the bulk of humanity has still to make a conscious choice. That means that there is still the hope that, as people become conscious, they will react with horror when they see themselves in the mirror, and instead choose, consciously choose, a more wholesome and responsible path.