Though he seems likable, one wonders whether UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres can actually do anything to save Earth. We may stand a better chance with Greta Thunberg and other grassroots activists. At least Thunberg does not head an organisation that though not actually bound and gagged by the powers that control it, is nonetheless toothless when it comes to action on the climate emergency now upon us.
Guterres does have a gift for framing the looming catastrophe in pretty much accurate terms (“The climate crisis is killing us,” he recently commented in response to a Lancet report entitled Health at the Mercy of Fossil Fuels). But his organisation is emerging as far less effective than activist groups such as Extinction Rebellion blocking roads, and Just Stop Oil and Last Generation splattering priceless art works with tomato soup (Van Gogh), and mash potato (Monet).
The climate disasters we are now experiencing justify these ostensibly extreme actions; ostensibly extreme because they are not actually harming the art works, or anyone in fact. That is as it should be, though activists could perhaps be even more effective if next to the art works they pinned a poster of an oil slick poisoning marine life. The juxtaposition would highlight the irony of feeling outrage over dollops of food momentarily staining priceless works (behind protective glass) instead of feeling existential alarm and doom at the destruction of Nature, which also happens to be our life support system.
Blocking roads is more to the point, because it deals directly with a major cause of climate change (transport, specifically the private car). The message is obvious: use public transport, or cycle and walk.
Though restraining private car use is crucial, it is not enough. The other form of transport that is a major contributor to climate change is air travel, and the proposals for tackling it do not inspire hope. Most proposals rely on development of more fuel efficient aircraft, and aircraft powered by electric batteries. These developments though possible are too far into the future. By then it will be too late and the balance would have tipped from recoverable crisis to irrecoverable catastrophe. It is also disheartening that despite clear alarm bells from respectable sources such as Gutteres, the IPCC, Thunberg, and David Attenborough and an overwhelming global consensus of scientists, airlines are nonetheless busy pushing cheaper air travel and flooding our inboxes with special offers and little weekend get-ways on the other side of the globe.
But where is the surprise? We cannot look to corporate interests to save the world. The corporate world have shown they cannot be trusted, busy subverting climate action and greenwashing themselves rather than the planet. It is because of corporate greed and our willingness to lap up their cheap wares to the point of addiction that we are in the mess we are in now. We are not simply facing a hotter future and decimated biodiversity, but an unlivable world.
We have to save the world ourselves. People are already trying to do that and are voluntarily giving up non-essential air travel, some with great personal sacrifice. Foregoing non-essential air travel means not jetting off for holiday, and ideal not visiting relatives, at least as frequently as we would like perhaps. It would mean taking the train, or if for holiday purposes, going on a so-called staycation or nearcation, a vacation spent close to home and ideally using public transport.
For those who can, an exciting option would be a holiday to a destination that you can in fact walk or cycle to within your holiday period. Conceivably you could travel hundreds of kilometres in a couple weeks, discovering as you go places that are worthy of a visit and which could do with the extra income. In fact, the journey becomes the holiday, partly funded by the money that would otherwise have been spent on stressful, long haul travel and travel insurance. And of course you end up fitter if you walk or bike.
However, though it would be a delightful adventure, it is not possible to get on your bike or walk to a Greek island if you have a job, commitments, and live, say, in Stockholm. But this is the kind of sacrifice now necessary if we are to avoid the catastrophe of non-survivable temperatures, decimation of bio-diversity including essential food pollinators, devastated forests, not to mention water scarcity and ruined harvests causing starvation, displacement and war. Some of these doomsday scenarios are already upon us, others are clearly on the horizon.
I hesitate to suggest it, but an obvious name for this type of holiday would be walkation or bikation. At any rate, such a holiday could turn out more rewarding than enduring stressful transfers and hours at airports with frequent delays and cancellations. At one time air travel was thrilling. Now the unpleasantness of being herded and searched alone argues for abandoning it.
We might sensibly only stick to walking and bikes as modes of transport whenever possible and not just for holidaying, as there is an argument for limiting even electric vehicle travel, including trains. Electric modes still come with a relatively large environmental footprint during manufacture and when in use. But if we were to just cease our air travel addiction alone, the impact would be enormous, boosting our chances of carbon neutrality by 2050.
Radical legislation, if necessary
Along with private car use, there is no longer any doubt that air travel has to be reigned in.
I for one feel it is now justifiable for governments to put in place air travel systems and laws that favour only essential air travel for health reasons, work requiring physical presence (though even surgeons can operate virtually), and, if checks are in place to discourage gaming the system, get-togethers with long-lost or dying relatives on occasion.
This may seem draconian and the sort of thing China would and I boldly predict will bring into force, and exactly the sort of thing neo-liberals would choke on. But climate change is draconian and undemocratic to the nth degree, and we might find that if we do not act voluntarily, then we will need to go the totalitarian route and force ourselves under penalty of law.
There seems to be enough of us by now, likely a critical mass, and if we were to act in unison it would make a significant difference, perhaps the difference. We cannot wait for governments to legislate, though in just a handful of years they may need to once it is non longer possible to ignore the fact that we have already entered into a lethal stage of climate change. By the it will be too late to prevent the decimation of human life such that it will be unrecognisable, and not much fun to be alive. We must act now.
As with Odysseus and the Sirens, we are better off voluntarily tying ourselves to the mast and limiting our addiction, than continuing to wander down the road to destruction. To do it now, before we find that as with COVID lockdowns (still ongoing in China), someone else will tie us down.