Home
independent minds

Time is not of the essence

Posted by [info]barncactus
  • Friday, 19 June 2009 at 04:18 am
I know this is not 'on message', but 2080 is a long way off. Around 70 years. Most of the people now alive on the planet will not be by then. Our politicians, used to a short term 5 year cycle of responsibility and concentration on social dogma are simply not set up for climatic considerations on a 70 year time frame, or a 50 year one or even 10 years. They may say they care, and some probably do on a visceral level. But they care much less about what seems to be quite a minor change (perhaps evan an improvement for many in northern latitudes) than they do about their day-to-day political survival. 'Yes, I know that the world will warm up but the voters will kick me out if I tax them too heavily to change their behaviour'. Quite, and that's where the problem lies. Changes we are making are occurring at a glacial speed (sorry, the speed that glaciers used to exhibit when there were glaciers) and the political priorities remain (a) keep my parliamentary/EU seat (b) do nothing to rock the party boat so that I gain promotion (c) make as much money as I can while I am in parliament.
We need better than this, but the system is not set up to allow for longer term thinking. Like the City, all is short-term, next week, next month, next year. Never next decade or half century.