Why Adults Are Unacceptable In Positions of Authority Over Policy
Looking closer at A Climate Declaration
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 continue to destroy our children’s planet.
Whether it’s fossils like Trump and Biden and Sanders (who are diametrically opposite but still operating under the same systems) or young well-meaning whippersnappers like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, change is not coming through the current systems.
This is why for decades after being warned by scientists that we are endangering the health of the planet and the survival of our species, no leaders anywhere have succeeded in making any meaningful progress on the problem. In fact, the problem continues to worsen and now the climate catastrophe is playing out in a highly visible and destructive way across the globe.
And yet the same leaders and the same systems remain in place. The simple fact is: either these leaders and their systems go, or our children go. Who’s side are YOU on?
