IS THAT A TUSK?

A phrase I like is ‘ignoring the elephant in the room’, and there isn’t a better phrase to describe how we are reacting to the impending environmental catastrophe.

It is similar to when you look at the numbers involved in astronomy - the brain sort of switches off and it just doesn’t seem to make sense anymore, it is too big to comprehend.

“4 miles away? Ok, I got you.”

“400 billion miles away? Urmmm…” 

So it is with our reaction to what we are being told about what is already happening, but also what is likely to increase rapidly.

If you say something like…

“Tigers and polar bears are in danger of becoming extinct.”

You get a reaction like…

“That is terrible, hadn’t we better do something?”

However, if you say something like this…

“Every major ecosystem on earth is in serious decline, biomass is declining and with each small decline it loses more of its ability to regenerate. This means that the entire ecosystem and us with it are now in the gravest kind of trouble.”

The reaction is more…

“Oh. Fancy a pint?”

Human domestic use accounts for about 25% of all water and energy use in the world. The vast majority is for industry and aviation and yet most of the solutions that are put forward in the lifestyle magazines are about slightly altering our consumption patterns.

It won’t work. It might help to slow the decline a little, but it won’t work.

Much more needs to change in order to have any significant impact.

All we have been doing so far is the environmental equivalent of buying one piece of fairtrade chocolate and then believing that all of Africa is going to be fed and watered for that.