Your moment of climate grief

[sabotabby]

 Barely making headlines yesterday was the announcement that governments have failed once again to meet climate targets. As Hurricane Melissa barrels towards Jamaica, threatening to do catastrophic damage, it's important to remember that these governments had a choice, that we as so-called Western civilization had a choice, and we chose wrong every single time.

The thing you may not have heard of at all was the announcement yesterday of the extinction of the Christmas Island shrew. This little animal was a victim of an even older human-caused catastrophe, the colonization of Australia and its surrounding islands by first Britain, then Japan. The invasion of Europeans introduced black rats to the island, which in turn introduced a parasite that wiped out most of the population. 

With so many other horrors, including the continuing horrors perpetrated by colonialism, take a moment to grieve for this tiny, innocent creature, which was a unique being that in our carelessness and cruelty, we destroyed. Just another beautiful life lost to the gaping maw of capitalism. The people in charge think that they can cheat death by colonizing Mars or uploading their brains into a god-machine but there won't be any little shrews there, and also their fantasies are impossible. There is only this world and we're shitting it up like we have a spare one stashed somewhere.

Comments

[sovay]

The thing you may not have heard of at all was the announcement yesterday of the extinction of the Christmas Island shrew.

I had seen the first item. I had not seen this one. I hate it.

I wanted to live in a future that went to the stars, but not in a billionaire's fantasy of discarding planets behind them like stained tissues. I thought it would be neat to be somewhere else. And still to take care of home.

[sabotabby]

I wanted to explore space as a kid and now I'm like. Fuck. Let's leave that to science fiction and terraform earth instead.

[symbioid]

Meanwhile, the carbon sinks are failing in Australia and the Amazon, so yay.

[sabotabby]

Who'd have thunk it.

[minoanmiss]

*sighs and sadly agrees and worries about my island*

[sabotabby]

I got a lot of people in my life with a lot of connections there, and my heart is with all of you.

[lydamorehouse]

Oof on all accounts.

But, yeah, I hate that last bit so much and they really do buy into that bullshit.

[sabotabby]

It's so weird because if they weren't rich we would rightly just say they were insane, because that is a truly insane thing to believe.

[blogcutter]

Thanks for the info on the extinction of the Christmas Island shrew; I hadn't heard about that one.

You don't need to convince me about the climate disaster we have largely brought about ourselves! Where I suspect you and I might disagree, however, would be on the most effective strategy and tactics to spur people on, both individually and collectively, towards constructive actions to at least mitigate some of the inevitable outcomes and clean up some of the messes we've already made.

In my experience you don't do this through heavy guilt-tripping or endlessly quoting arcane statistics, but rather with a few concrete examples of how this all affects and is relevant to them and to their nearest and dearest. I wish I were good at this, but sadly I'm not. Is it a skill set that can be learned? An inborn talent or aptitude or personality trait? Dunno.

Frankly, the most successful advertisers - you know, those folks who are firmly enmeshed in that gaping maw of capitalism - are great at appealing to the hearts and minds of their target audience, whether for good or ill or greenwashing. But same thing with successful fundraisers for worthy causes (and unworthy causes too, of course). For now I try just to be a sensible, ethical consumer and donor.

[sabotabby]

That's why the shrew is so important. It's a creature I can identify with. We kill off countless species every year but a little cute thing that's completely unique makes it personal.

I don't think there's much use in guilting, or even converting, individuals. Like I'm vegan (good) and don't drive (even better) but I fly places on vacation (cancels out the other two) and live in the Global North (can't be helped but it's about the most destructive thing you can do) and all of the attempts to guilt me into washing my cans and not using plastic straws don't even hold a candle to Elon Musk's private jet. I do engage in guilting and shaming when it comes to LLMs, because this is a new technology that's not yet integrated into every part of our lifestyle, and it's completely unsustainable. But we need collective, not individual action.

[smhwpf]

In my experience you don't do this through heavy guilt-tripping or endlessly quoting arcane statistics, but rather with a few concrete examples of how this all affects and is relevant to them and to their nearest and dearest.

Katharine Hayhoe (Evangelical Christian climate scientist, yes they do exist) is very big on using relatable stories that mesh with people's existing concerns and interests to talk to them about climate, and it makes sense and likely does work. But the thing that gets me is, there are a lot more people that already agree that climate change is a problem and governments should do more, than vote for parties that will do more, or even that will do the bare inadequate sort of minimum that non-Trumpian western governments are doing. Like, there must be significant numbers of people who vote for what are now far-right parties (GOP in US, PC in Canada, Reform or Tory in UK, etc.) who recognise that climate change is a big problem and governments should do more. And of course a whole load more who vote for the "accept climate change is real and promise to do something about it, but not nearly enough" (most US Dems, Canada Liberals, UK Labour Macron in France, etc.). So people's concerns don't translate into votes or into pressing the vaguely sane parties to have stronger policies. And I don't think relatable stories that may wake people up a little bit and get their hearts engaged and so forth, while clearly a valuable thing, are gong to be enough. Not at scale. What could work? I don't know.

And it totally sucks about the Christmas Island shrew.

[sabotabby]

There's also just really bizarre contradictions baked into how electoral politics work. It's absolutely politically fine for Carney to appoint a Minister of AI with the stated intention of demolishing jobs, especially jobs in the government and arts despite the economic benefits of both sectors. Voters don't think of those as real jobs. But it is not fine for him to declare a moratorium on building new pipelines or a slowdown of the exploitation of the Tar Sands, because that would...cost jobs, and therefore votes.

Katharine Hayhoe

[blogcutter]

I'm actually quite an admirer of Katharine Hayhoe, even though I'm certainly not an Evangelical Christian. I first encountered her in 2022, when she was a keynote speaker at a library conference I went to in Dublin. Just after that, I read her book Saving Us, and since then I've heard her at least once on the radio program Quirks and Quarks. She definitely strikes me as someone who practises what she preaches.

People are fascinatingly multifaceted and I try very hard not to make knee-jerk assumptions about them, something that's increasingly difficult in an age of social media, fake news, mis- and disinformation, AI etc. After glancing at your profile, I'm really intrigued that you identify as a Libertarian Socialist, as I've always placed myself somewhat in that camp too. So many people conflate libertarianism with far-right politics, whereas I see it as a totally different dimension of where I stand on key issues.

I agree with your points about people's climate concerns not translating into sensible policies and votes, although I think at least part of the problem is down to the institutional structures we're stuck with - the mechanics of government and the electoral system.

[greylock]

governments have failed once again to meet climate targets.

The targets are bullshit anyway. They're the bare minimum that could be reasonably agreed to by conflicted parties.

Meanwhile, our conservatives, have been told (apparently, I haven't fact-checked) heat death isn't a thing and, well, they think we need to focus on the economy NOW, first.

The thing you may not have heard of at all was the announcement yesterday of the extinction of the Christmas Island shrew.

I had not heard this, but IIRC, we lead the world in extinctions!

[sabotabby]

Number one!

[greylock]

We're also the BIGGEST gas exporter, and possibly coal!

#1

[radiantfracture]

Here this will hurt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV_ucgZ4HTE

[sabotabby]

Literal chills.

How the fuck can we keep doing this? How can anyone live with themselves?

[brittdreams]

I didn't hear about the Christmas Island shrew. Sigh. I hate what capitalists and billionaires have done ot this planet.

[sabotabby]

It's enraging. It's like Reverse Omelas, many suffer so that one or two can live in utopia, which they do not even seem to enjoy.

[brittdreams]

Enraging is an understatement.

[frenzy]

may their memories be a blessing :((((( (or an inspiration to action but gods, hope feels like a curse lately)

[sabotabby]

It sure does.