I get scared when I watch Enough Rope and see Tim Flannery*on there, close to tears, looking scared shitless because our Government and most Governments of the world aren’t doing enough to combat climate change. What’s possibly worse is that he doesn’t use extensive flowery language, but you can tell in every gesture and in his eyes, his tired eyes, that he’s afraid our planet is going to hell. According to him, we’ve already passed the tipping point, which was sometime back in the 1990’s. Back when the only people who were really caring were hippies and a certain number of marginal scientists who were all were being written off as scare mongers. Or, worse, capitalist doomsday-ers.
I wonder what Tim’s most afraid of? Governmental ineptitude? Sure. But Andrew Denton that night didn’t ask Tim if he wasn’t frustrated with us normal people for doing nothing. Frustrated with urban dwellers and suburbanites alike, or the poor buggers on the land who understand more than most what the hell’s going on, for not using our voices as loudly as we should be. Or ought to be. I’m luckier than most people when it comes to the comforts of life – I’ll admit this, and you probably can to – but it hasn’t escaped my attention that my shopping bill has gone up about 20 per cent since Keira was born (taking our growing family into consideration) and in the past 12 months all of our power bills have gone up and we’re doing nothing different than what we did before.
I can see why people start getting despondent at this point . I don’t blame them. They stare at a bill and go fuck it. Fuck it all. How can I do anything about climate change when the money for my kids’ next lay-by payment for their Christmas presents is going to be siphoned off elsewhere? Or there are those of us out there who recycle a plastic bottle here, a piece of cardboard there, more often than they used to and their brains say Bravo. Clap clap clap. You’re doing your part.
I get scared. I get scared, and I get sad. I get angry.
I get frustrated because all the things I had planned to do this time last year for the blog to help, to use my voice (what there is), has not happened. Perhaps this is understandable given all that’s on my plate lately, but I daresay this is what most other people say. And what good are excuses?
I had grand plans for this fundraiser, which has stalled since May. I blink and it’s already October. I have this little pocket diary which I sat down with in January for over an hour to fill in all the big ‘world’ dates so as to remember to write about each as they occurred. Have I? In 99% of cases, no. In fact, I’m not too sure where it is at the moment.
Sure, there’s this pledge – but is it enough? And there’s a couple of other groups in my community I’m involved with and don’t discuss here – but is it enough?Is it enough when we in foreseeable future could be sitting in our lounge rooms with the sea pouring in, or our children will be doing so with their children, and we will all look at each other and go, “How did we come to this?”
Yes, I get scared.
Don’t you?
