“The extreme flooding in B.C. is unusual. In the future, it won’t be.” – CBC News
Anger, is what I feel.
Anger, and also compassion. Because the people who are fanning the flames of the #climate crisis, with greed and blind materialism, are ultimately hurting themselves as well as everyone else. We’re all in this together.
I’m watching the devastating floods unfold on CBC. Just seconds later — multiple, aggressive ads, pushing huge, belching trucks to whomever will buy. At the same moment we have both the destruction, and the cause. Thoughtless, selfish, socially acceptable greed.
In each ad the shiny new pickups are shown destroying nature, each in a unique fashion. One has driven out to a caribou herd. Another is tearing up the ground, just for the fun of it. In the third, believe it or not, an idling truck roars so loudly that it destroys a snowman. A spitting image of exactly what we’re doing to the climate — too crazy but true.
The farmers and tradespeople who actually need trucks already have them, and are not the target of these ads. But the ads function as intended. Profiteering corporations pay tens of thousands of dollars to seduce their targets — many good people, our neighbours and friends. Through climate everyone is the victim.
Is this the world we want? Is this the best we can do?
What’s happening in BC is just the beginning — it’s up to us just how bad it will get. Our choices, our priorities, our actions or inaction. Lifestyles that once were okay, becoming nothing less than murder.
The ads themselves are criminal, should the law treat them as such? Or better yet, increase carbon taxes so high that such behaviour would be untenable?
We live in a society where we are ruled more by old habits and norms, than by using our brains. We’re more worried about doing what’s ‘cool’, than doing the right thing. That has to change, or we will perish.
Every day I see well-meaning people obliviously idling their cars. In parking garages, I see moms idling SUV’s with kids in the back, hatches wide open, slowly loading or unloading. Meanwhile, millions of us overheat our homes and workplaces, rather than dressing properly for winter.
There’s no longer any excuse.
There’s nobody to blame but ourselves.
We need to stop pointing fingers, pull together and act.
Or… don’t complain when storms, food shortages and even war, kill us and our children.
Will you be part of the change, the action, the work that needs to be done?
#ClimateEmergency #ClimateCrisis #ClimateAction #ActiveTransportation #SustainableTransportation #SimpleLiving #Frugality #DriveLess #Walkability #GreenJobs
PeterBlanchard.ca 