Why Adults Are Unacceptable In Positions of Authority Over Policy

Ray Katz
4 min readJul 18, 2022

Looking closer at A Climate Declaration

Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

We are in our current desperate situation, in large part, because positions of authority in politics and economics are held by adults. As Lord Acton said, power corrupts. In today’s world, political leaders are financed and supported by wealthy people. This is true in America, but it is also true in other countries and even other systems. Oil and gas and coal money is a key driving force behind the behavior of wealthy adults and adults holding high-level political positions.

Systemic Failure and Why Even Good Leaders Are Useless

By inclination and/or ideology, adult leaders benefit from the system as it stands now. They gain from the continued burning of fossil fuels. This is true whether or not they are kind people, thoughtful people, or just arrogant assholes. Systemically, they tend to do exactly the wrong things to protect the Earth’s climate. And this is increasingly true.

That’s why even the mildest efforts to slow climate collapse is nixed by the Supreme Court or Joe Manchin. And this is why media isn’t ringing the alarm bells. And why even the good politicians rarely speak up. It’s simply not possible for the current people and current systems to do anything other than…

--

--

Ray Katz

Internet pioneer. But I’m most interested in stabilizing the Earth’s climate and promoting our common humanity. WeAreSaners.org