Thoughts for Tomorrow
COP29 and Mahatma Gandhi
Yet another COP has passed with little achieved that seriously tackles climate change. It's clear now that, one way or another, we all are suffering, or will suffer severe consequences of climate change sometime in the future, directly or indirectly depending on where we live and how rapid the changes are. So, whether it's flooding, hurricanes, forest fires, unbearable heat or the wider impact on society of food shortages, migration, or civil unrest etc, we will all be affected somewhere and somehow."Oh really?" you say. "It's not clear at all, probably a hoax!" Then let's have your detailed arguments, the evidence that refutes the consensus of just about every expert on Earth. Yes, there are different conspiracy theories ranging from uninformed conjecture to webs of disinformation linking climate change to deliberate human manipulation, and so on and so forth, but not one of these emerges with any consensus.
I know that many people attending COPs do see things as they really are, whatever the official position of their masters. The distress of those from the most immediately threatened countries has been well reported as has the deceit of fossil fuel lobbyists using COP29 to promote their commercial interests. However, there's only anecdotal evidence of what many officials from the countries most responsible for the climate emergency are thinking privately. Obviously the politicians among them fear the next election and the industrialists that falling sales of their products will see them out of a job, but isn't there at least some discomfort when their behaviour disconnects with very basic beliefs and values?
I don't believe that very basic beliefs and values differ so much when it comes to culture, religion or even politics. Isn't honest recognition of the common good a universal value that must be reckoned with? Some brave souls try to work for the common good inside their commercial organizations doing what they can to end support for fossil fuel interests in ways that are likely to be at odds with their company's policies. Even sabotage has been reported inside the fossil fuel industry itself by employees who at great risk to their personal livelihood, just cannot live with a guilty conscience.
The point here is that there's not much time left and the degree of success for adaptation and mitigation for climate change depends on how quickly very large numbers of we humans can personally act for the greater good, regardless of our circumstances.
Here's the quote* by Mahatma Gandhi.
"We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a person changes their own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards them. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do."~ Mahatma Gandhi
I think he still makes sense!
EcoBud
*Updated by replacing 'man' with 'person'.
