Parents “Must Go Political” To Solve Climate Doom Or Something

Must they? This sounds rather authoritarian

Parenting must be political in the shadow of climate change and the planet our children will inherit

In 2016, I became a mother for the first time. Many first-time mothers experience a profound shift in perspective and concern for the health and wellbeing of their new baby, which can become an intense focus on their child’s health, safety and nutrition.

My “new mother” anxiety became fixated on climate change and the degradation of the planet she would inherit. I spent the first few years of her life becoming increasingly preoccupied with the subject, endeavouring to change every aspect of my lifestyle to limit the impact I believed I was having on her future and on the planet.

Sounds like she went full cult and probably ignored her child and husband

Those years were a desperately anxious time for me, but in the process I became increasingly knowledgeable about the subject. I soon realised whatever individual changes I made would have virtually no impact on a planetary phenomenon of this scale.

Through deep dives into the science, I came to understand climate change was itself a symptom of the way we have organised our societies and economies. What was required was change at a societal, economic and global level.

Why, because you say so? Get f*cked

As a result, I turned my focus towards politics, because I saw political action as one of the principal means through which change could happen at national and international level.

My growing awareness coincided with the emergence of Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion, and the rise of Green parties across Europe in the latter part of the 2010s. There seemed to be a rapidly growing public awareness of the climate crisis, reflected in the ‘Green Wave’ in Irish politics at the time.

So, wackos being wackos

Too often, people are presented with the absurdity of small individual behavioural changes as an adequate response to a crisis they are simultaneously told is structural, economic and global in scale.

Ultimately, one of the most effective things any of us can do is engage in our communities and political system, and push relentlessly for change at national and international level.

As we strive for meaningful change, we should be attuned to our concerns being mocked, dismissed or shamed. Shame is one of the most powerful and corrosive emotions for a socially attuned species. It can be an extraordinarily effective and manipulative weapon.

Really, this kind of crap is pre-COVID thought, where fewer people want government involved in forcing them to live a certain life, drive certain vehicles, eat certain things, etc. People may Believe in theory, but, these days people are backing away from the cult in government

There is nothing shameful about demanding that governments act quickly and effectively in response to climate change. There is nothing irrational about being frightened by what the science is telling us. And there is nothing extreme about demanding that the scale of the political response reflect the scale of the threat.

I’m not sure how many times I have written and said it, but, why is it that the cult members always want government to force Everyone Else to live a certain life while never talking about how they’ve changed their own lives?