There’s a lot to this article. One part that got my attention is the way that fossil-fuel corporations are trying to push the blame for carbon emissions on ordinary citizens who did not make the word they are living in.
a 2005 US media campaign that cost more than $100 million per year, deflecting responsibility for combating climate change onto the individual consumer.
In other words, the narrative that you, personally, are responsible for the climate crisis has been carefully crafted and drilled into you by the fossil fuel industry.
From Shell: “Young consumers, especially, demand action.”
What to do to get young consumers to divert their attention away from fossil-fuel companies? Get them to blame their elders, not large corporations, for all that is wrong with the world. I read an article a few months ago, which I can’t find now, which said that the whole “OK Boomer” trend was propaganda engineered by corporations to get young consumers to blame their elders for what is wrong with the world so that focus was removed from corporate guilt. True? I'm not sure.
If we live long enough, we are unlikely to die without having at least considered what it means to bring a new life into being. Whether or not you have children, whether you want to have a child, or dread it, or both, whether you feel confident in your desire never to procreate or find that you are not able to procreate, at some point before you reach the end you will have navigated the question of whether or not to be a biological parent. If you are reading this sentence, it is almost certain that at some point, perhaps as you are making toast in your pyjamas, or taking a bus to work while looking out at the grey right angles of a city block, or dancing barefoot, or lying awake at night with the pillow too hot against your cheek, the modern fantasy of choice and control will whisper to the age-old fantasy of ‘self’ knocking about your brain that having or not having a child is a decision. And you will make it. Or you won’t. Or you will feel – with rage, or sorrow, or relief – that it has been made for you. But the fantasy of choice quickly begins to dissipate when we acknowledge that the conditions for human flourishing are distributed so unevenly, and that, in an age of ecological catastrophe, we face a range of possible futures in which these conditions no longer reliably exist.
Writing so real it’s visceral, physical. I gasped a few times, held my breath. Had to stop and walk around and think. It’s so so much, in the best possible way.
I was just a student a few years ago, and I didn’t have to think of wildfires, power shutdowns, and global health crises as barriers to my education. Now these are obstacles for any student to complete their education while learning to grapple with the complexities of coming of age. And to think that fossil fuel companies have deliberately steered propaganda by manipulating us into believing there is greater individual fault in contributing to climate change than their entire industry - despicable. Imagine how many children see those ads and internalize them at a young age. The world we are in now should not be the only reality children believe in for their future. Climate change is not governed by political boundaries. We have to be global citizens, not just citizens of our countries, in order to work towards solutions that incentivize corporations to do something to alter their practices.
This is not to say that you should have a biological child. I rather think the point is that no one should tell anyone else whether or not they should procreate. One does not have to give birth to believe in the possibility of a human future.
Yes. That’s exactly how I feel. A bit stunned, frankly. I want to write a longer response (because I’ve been thinking SO MUCH about child-having and child-raising recently) but I need more time to think.
I started this one late last night and finished first thing this morning. What a way to end and start a day (!) with basically all of the biggest of big thoughts: the meaning of life, the meaning of family, and the extreme urgency of what’s happening right now to our planet.
There’s a lot to this article. One part that got my attention is the way that fossil-fuel corporations are trying to push the blame for carbon emissions on ordinary citizens who did not make the word they are living in.
From Shell: “Young consumers, especially, demand action.”
What to do to get young consumers to divert their attention away from fossil-fuel companies? Get them to blame their elders, not large corporations, for all that is wrong with the world. I read an article a few months ago, which I can’t find now, which said that the whole “OK Boomer” trend was propaganda engineered by corporations to get young consumers to blame their elders for what is wrong with the world so that focus was removed from corporate guilt. True? I'm not sure.
Read this:
Writing so real it’s visceral, physical. I gasped a few times, held my breath. Had to stop and walk around and think. It’s so so much, in the best possible way.
Wow. Incredible piece.
I was just a student a few years ago, and I didn’t have to think of wildfires, power shutdowns, and global health crises as barriers to my education. Now these are obstacles for any student to complete their education while learning to grapple with the complexities of coming of age. And to think that fossil fuel companies have deliberately steered propaganda by manipulating us into believing there is greater individual fault in contributing to climate change than their entire industry - despicable. Imagine how many children see those ads and internalize them at a young age. The world we are in now should not be the only reality children believe in for their future. Climate change is not governed by political boundaries. We have to be global citizens, not just citizens of our countries, in order to work towards solutions that incentivize corporations to do something to alter their practices.
Yes. That’s exactly how I feel. A bit stunned, frankly. I want to write a longer response (because I’ve been thinking SO MUCH about child-having and child-raising recently) but I need more time to think.
I started this one late last night and finished first thing this morning. What a way to end and start a day (!) with basically all of the biggest of big thoughts: the meaning of life, the meaning of family, and the extreme urgency of what’s happening right now to our planet.