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Svenson discusses how her sacrifice has not been easy, but is worth it. Priceless quotations:
“I get colder than usual.”
Heh, that ought to be a good thing, what with...er, global warming and all.
“My mind is clear, and I’m focussed and peaceful.”
I think I would be too, if I were in a near-catatonic state from starvation.
Svenson promises paradise on earth as soon as the climate is fixed. Less watching your big screen TV; more dancing the verdant meadows...
“In the sustainable future, we will be happier than today: have more time for family, community and personal relationships. Instead of material consumption, there will be much more creativity and space for healthy activities, like dancing, sports, and leisure time in nature. It will bring us joy and fill us with love, while connecting us more to Mother Earth and to each other.”...just like in all pre-industrial hunter-gatherer societies, where scrounging for food and firewood consumed your daily existence (that is, IF you're allowed to burn wood in the "sustainable future").
“To stop climate change and create a sustainable and just world will require total commitment from every individual on earth.”
Who gets to define “total commitment”? Where do liberty and personal autonomy go out and totalitarianism come in? And do you mean EVERY individual, even climate change delegates to COP15?
Copenhagen climate summit: 1,200 limos, 140 private planes and caviar wedges...
Further to the idea of ending waste and "overconsumption": if the science is indeed "settled" then surely the logical, moral thing to do is stop, immediately, ALL further funding into climate research. Every single scientist and researcher involved in the process should step down and find other employment. We have no further need of your services. Give your grant money to the poor; open your labs and offices to the homeless. You could find sustainable, non-carbon producing jobs like digging ditches and sweeping streets.
“Total shifts in our society and a totally different way of life.” But “this new reality is not at all less desirable.” Says who? Who are you to say what I should desire? Aren’t you imposing your morality on me?
I applaud their sacrificial, self-abnegating ascetism (I'm Catholic, after all). But really, why not go all the way? This would achieve two ends: no more wasted food and resources for those individuals; no more CO2 output. It would decrease not only their individual carbon footprint, but the global the population.
If a climate change credist honestly, truly believes the world is overpopulated and that reducing population is a viable solution to climate change, then the only logical, just and moral action is to put your money where your mouth is and remove yourself from the planet. The cause (like all religions) needs martyrs. (Interesting to note: Climate Justice Fast's homepage motto is "A man who won't die for something is not fit to live." Fair enough. Let me see you lead the way.)
If they are willing to die, then as Scrooge might say, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population." A great many people believe in climate change. If they all died, that would drastically reduce the world's population. And it would free up a lot of jobs in science, the media, government and the arts.
I offer a simple, practical suggestion as to how this might best be achieved: those who believe in overpopulation could take a boat (powered by sail and oar, of course, so as to be carbon-neutral)-- perhaps Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior or they could retrofit a Cruise ship (The Climate Love Boat?)--and just slip naked into the sea--preferably in shark-infested waters, so as to nourish the marine life, and not leave a corpse which someone else would have to deal with. Funerals and graves waste resources and land, after all.
It would be a glorious and poignant way to honour Mother Earth and to return to the primordial soup whence one's forbears orginiated. So who's on board?
(Crickets chirping...)
Just what I thought.
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