When we were little, there was a bully in our neighborhood. This bully forced us to trade toys that were precious to us for his toys, which we didn't want. And when he got bored with them, he would break them and come and tell us:
“Guys, the toys you gave me are broken. You'll have to replace them with new ones because you let me down.”
If anyone reacted, he, with the help of his supernaturally developed sister, would put him in a very tight headlock until his head turned blue.
At some point, we had reached a point where, instead of our only concern as children being whether the weather would be good on the weekend so we could play soccer in the field, we were anxious about how we would get the games the bully wanted from us. And we did this without arousing our parents' suspicions, because we weren't snitches.
What does this remind me of? Those primarily responsible for this environmental crisis and pandemic, companies responsible for mass environmental degradation, which are currently trying to cover up the damage they themselves are responsible for, with the usual suspects footing the bill: all of us.
With increases in the prices of polluting energy, instead of massive investments and subsidies in green energy. And this, in turn, leads to wave of price increases.Price increases that large corporations selling essential goods and services will be able to impose on the market, to the detriment of all other small and large companies.
And those who create the problem want to profit more and more at our expense from the destruction they continue to cause, creating more and more problems environmental, health, and economic, but of course to continue to profit as if nothing is happening.
At the same time, companies in the financial sector have recently engaged in a relentless Orwellian newspeak: Advertising campaigns use expressions such as “exponential and sustainable growth,” which, for those who understand how exponential functions work, is equivalent to saying, “we will continue to rush you and Nature, but in a good way.”.
In other words, the absurd narrative of the virtual economy of banks, serving the unreasonable demands of companies that cause massive environmental degradation.
All this, of course, seems to betray a sense of panic. A panic that the development doctrine that for decades has rewarded and led to practices such as “I have a single-use plastic container, but it is made to last 1,000 years in the sea” is finally being shaken to its foundations.
But in the meantime, what about all of us? Despite the obviousness of the destruction that is taking place, will we allow them to continue treating us like sheep for slaughter?;
To return to the bully of our childhood.
At some point, all of us, his victims, got together and came up with the following plan: We knew that the bully had an excessive fear of spiders. So, for two weeks, we collected as many spiders as we could catch. We placed them inside toy packages, which we then offered to him.
He was so scared that he never even thought of asking us to give him our toys again.
By Jason Gionis
