Climate Climax
- 8 hours ago
- 5 min read
the plot to save Earth has more than one protagonist
performing a play that isn't a game
Today is Earth Day, and it doesn’t really matter when you are reading this, because every day is Earth Day, whether we honor it or not.
The climate movement has lost its momentum, spinning out of the news cycle somewhere between pandemic and war, but its urgency didn't diminish alongside our attention. The planet is still burning, and if you sweep a fire under the rug, you’re only feeding the fire a rug.
Greta and the whole Fridays for Future gang had a real moment before the pandemic because their activism was young, and with youth comes promise. The hopeful determination those kids and teenagers spread infected millennials and boomers alike—an intergenerational fever that surged through the streets.
But then there was something in the air that year, a microscopic changemaker without agenda, and the metaphorical fever turned literal, those bursting streets turned empty, and the movement turned into stillstand without coming to the screeching halt its loud message would have deserved; instead, it ended up in a silent dead-end bin where nobody cared to recycle it.
When we woke up from that societal coma, the world’s geopolitical landscape had shifted tectonically. A change that could not go unprotested, and so Greta and those young and old and older demonstrators switched their cardboard slogans and chants, and put their activism towards a different common good.
Rightfully so. How could we not assign a higher priority to people dying today than to people potentially dying tomorrow, emphasis on “potentially,” which is a big asterisk attached to the word “dying.”
But those wars came at the worst time. When unity was needed most, division is what we chose, and there was nothing poetic about it. The seasons changed before we could reap the unity we had sowed to cultivate our sustainable survival on this planet, and the only thing left from that failed harvest were deeper furrows between us, and our previous tendency to commit climate arson and civilizational suicide.
Of course, these wars, their deadliness, their migratory flux will be mere footnotes in history books once the big, global climate plot unfolds. Then everything will change for everyone. Our inability and unwillingness to understand the dimensions and gravity of that change, won’t stop the fact from coming into effect. Earth has gone through some unfathomable climate seasons in the past—with the last ice age seeming like a cute little winter compared to the Carnian pluvial episode with its 1-2 million years of rain, which followed an earlier episode of global warming—and it is at least partially up to us, the terraforming semi-Gods we have become as we sculpt the earth and smoke the atmosphere, to shape those future seasons.
But who cares? Who cares now? We only care if everyone cares, and if no one cares, well, no one cares. That no one is all of us, and it matters little whether we point the finger at all of us or at no one—the planet knows no blame, only consequences that follow actions.
We're at a crossroads, and I believe that humanity knows no other place. We live here—at the crossroads between clingy traditions and greedy ambitions—and the time to act is now, nower, nowest, as always, now more than ever. The crossroads is getting louder and busier, more prone to accidents and fatal, planetary consequences.
Unfortunately or fortunately, it takes more than one actor to outfit the plot to save Earth—more than one protagonist, really. Here’s the cast in no specific order:
Civil Society
Government
Private Sector
Each has their part, and has to play it with equal dedication: changing consumerist attitudes and behaviors at the individual level, improving guidance and guardrails at the institutional level, serving the many customers and not just a few stakeholders at the corporate level.
Consumers can reduce their consumption, consume more ethically, and focus their purchase power on necessities while foregoing luxuries.
Governments can inform and regulate societal purchase patterns to make the most sustainable choice the most affordable or attractive choice.
The private sector can pioneer green technologies and products, and prioritize entrepreneurial ethics over stakeholder profits.
If these actors acted together in harmony, it would all play out easy and well, applause all around. But life is no theater and the world not a stage. Reality is messy. Interactions are complex and dynamic, and each actor influences the other:
Politicians rein in the private sector with laws, oversight, and subsidies, while corporations fish for government contracts and favorable policies with lobbyist bait.
The relationship between corporations and consumers is not a one way street either: companies lure customers towards product offerings by creating demand through marketing, but existing consumer demand directs and dictates what's on the shelves at the end of the day.
And the government controls societal compliance with its agenda through directives and education, while voters reign over governments with their ballots.
In the short term, governments and corporations can and must nudge people into the right direction to effectuate urgent changes. In the long term, education is key to raise awareness of sustainability issues and subsequently foster people's willingness to follow that ethical compass once it is calibrated, rather than adhering to imposed guidelines. Educated citizens, in turn, choose their governments and consumption wisely, and hold those accountable who don't represent their values.
Across these three groups, responsibility is shared, but not everyone feels or acts equally responsible at all times. With current political and corporate agendas diverting awareness and investments from sustainable climate solutions, individual civic action becomes the key lever.
While the world's richest man is aiming his rockets at Mars, shooting for an Earth-backup—an illusion at best, a dangerous, distractive delusion more likely—we, the people, must fight to save this here planet by taking a step back, flexing our ethical conscience, and moderating consumption. Poor Mars, if we can't even defend our home world against humanity's invasiveness.
Ironically, flabbergastingly, maddeningly, all it would take to prevent tomorrow's existential crisis, would be a little action today, if we all acted together.
If we all consumed a little less now, if corporations were a little less greedy, and governments a little less focused on populist self-preservation, we could prevent the system from complete collapse.
There is no excuse we can offer future generations for wrecking the planet. And what we have for explanations, seems laughable now, and will seem cruel then: the destruction of this perfectly fine planet is not happening out of necessity or due to an emergency situation—it is happening because we are too lazy to take a bike instead of a car now and then, and because meat is just a little yummier than veggies, so we must have it all the time. The absurdity of manmade climate change is brutal. Humanity is such a letdown for those who count on it.
If we all drove our cars a little less now, we wouldn’t drive them towards extinction. But here we are, headed for a future where cars will be an unthinkable luxury and public transport the only choice, as in no choice. If we all ate a little less meat now, there would be other options but soy on the tables of future generations. If we all forewent the most unnecessary luxuries today, we wouldn’t need to forego absolutely everything that isn’t pure necessity tomorrow.
At the point of no return, choices die, and optional becomes mandatory. Another million years of rain would be pretty restrictive for life as we know it. Can you imagine? A lifetime of rain? Unimaginable. Especially if it's not your own lifetime. But if we could imagine it, and if we would care about those who come after us, maybe we would sacrifice a car or a piece of meat here and there to prevent the apocalypse.
