I think this misses the point1 of the “wrong story” narrative. But it’s a start. We’re not gonig to solve novel problems with old thinking. Consuming our way out of climate change is as dumb as fucking your way to virginity.
The picture Sunak painted was a dishonest one. He argued that ordinary, working people shouldn’t be expected to pay for emissions reductions in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. But the measures he announced – delaying the ban on petrol and diesel cars by five years and scrapping the energy efficiency targets for UK homeowners – did more to pass the buck on to hard-up residents than the government’s original policies ever did. And on 7 November, as part of the King’s Speech, Sunak’s government announced a new round of oil and gas licensing, which it argued will improve the UK’s energy security and make the UK’s ambition to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 all the more unlikely.
Sunak was not the first to pose this kind of argument. And his announcement was symptomatic of the government’s own short-term thinking and lack of responsibility on this issue. Part of this is because the stories we have long told ourselves about climate change are the wrong ones. And that needs to change – fast – if the public is to mobilise sufficiently to tackle the crisis. New Statesman Spotlight spoke to Dr Fredi Otto, senior lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London. Recently, Otto featured alongside the comedian, Nish Kumar, in a combative new video from the new climate education campaign, Climate Science Breakthrough.
- The real con is that consumers are made responsible for the problem, but we’re not given the tools to actually fight the problem. This is on purpose. It distracts us from the 100 or so people & companies actually responsible for the problem. It’s the same mechanism that drives white-supremacy. Get the lower classes fighting so they ignore the sins of the upper classes. ↩︎
Dave5 
Leave a comment