...I thought this meme was very pertinent. All those people saying "but what about our children when the economic downturns affects their future?" need to start thinking about when we start not having grandchildren, because our children decide they cannot start life on a planet with no future.
You know when we all saw China in lockdown and it felt so far away and we were sure it was all going to sort itself out before it got to us, like SARS and MERS? That was just a trial run.
If we wait until climate change gets here, we're fucked as in, small groups of people living in medieval style colonies around the poles, fucked. Because just like with coronavirus, there is a time lag. We waited until we had deaths, and by the time we responded, there were tonnes of cases in the community and it was too late to sort it out painlessly.
Yep. That x100000000.
Really, economic downturn is a chance to stop and reassess how we plan to move forwards. If we carry on as we are, we will reach a dark ages type time (at best) or extinction (at worst? Depends on if you are human) within a century.
If you are really worried about your children, use this opportunity to rebuild into a green future, not this old world of mass consumption.
Look at how few people working it takes to feed us all. The rest of us are all working for "the economy". But the economy is a man made thing. It doesn't feed us, clothe us, sustain us. That is labour. And it doesn't take much labour to do those things. Most of us are in bollocks jobs, making bollocks things that no-one needs to feed "the economy".
We have hit a pause button. Less wars. Less cars. Less planes. Less fast fashion making shirts for 50p that cost the planet.
Can we not choose a different path here? Because we cannot survive like this. We are ripping up rainforests, we are burning, forest fire after forest fire. Our grandchildren will never see tigers, or rhinos, or pandas, or coral reefs. They will see tornados, hurricanes that need new definitions to describe, causing destruction on untold scales. They will see wars fought over resources and fascism as we close our borders to refugees we cannot afford to accommodate.
Can we not choose a different path? And if we are going to choose that fork in the road, isn't now the time to do it?
I think people will just say - but the economy, but my job, but my car, but my holiday...
And I feel very, very sad. I feel like this is out last chance, like an extra life we got given when we really didn't deserve it. And I feel like it still won't make any difference.