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We need to stop ceding the conversation to stories about spoiled children with bombs and guns killing each other — and clueless people competing for excessive wealth and power to abuse.
The NY Times notes in a headline about an election that “Mexico Gives Leftist Party Tighter Grip.” In a sub-head, it notes that the new leader is the country’s first female president. What’s unsaid is the most important part of the story — President Claudia Steinbaum is a Nobel-prize winning climate scientist.
This isn’t just significant for environmentalists. This is significant for every creature on Earth that drinks water and breathes air. Her election is a tiny but unprecedented step, giving our civilization and our children a bit of genuine hope for a future. But there’s almost no talk about that. Stories also note that Steinbaum is Jewish, heading up the government of one of the world’s most populous Catholic countries.
Not only is the well-being of our planet ignored, but we focus obsessively on a competition between two very old men, both of whom will probably be dead in little more than a decade, and neither of whom will make a meaningful effort to stabilize a collapsing climate. Indeed, one of them is much worse than the other, yelling “drill, drill, drill.” But even the one who passed the biggest climate bill in history is doing, on balance, nothing to even slow the next more brutal phase of the disaster.
Of course, protecting the planet is something nearly every leader on Earth opposes — because it could be bad for business, or at least corporations — especially Big Oil. The battle against Earth is a fight against Life Itself to maximize profits and power. The pettiness of the greed, and the failure of (corporate) media to focus on the important story would be stunning. But it’s all too familiar.
Let’s make fun of the silly fools! Instead of furrowing our brows, or taking sides in the conversation as THEY shaped it, let’s do things our way.
I call this, The Saners Way. The Saners is a group and a movement determined to prevent climate collapse and build a kinder and, well, SANE society. We begin by talking sensibly and tweaking the cruel and clueless silliness of our insane civilization and its leaders.
