Nimbus Wedderburne-Snitch
The natural order
It is alarming to think that some of the hard-won victories of the previous century stand to be undone in this era. Looking at young women regress into post-World War II, 1950s-style feminine mystique must have Mrs Pankhurst doing the Charleston in her grave. Hearing an appeal for children to spend more time outdoors and less time in front of gaming consols warms the cockles of the Snitch’s heart. Hearing that appeal uttered in the same breath as a statement berating modern schooling for placing too much emphasis on maths and science makes her blood run to ice. This was a recommendation presented by one working group at the Climate Justice Now! launch workshop in Cape Town at the end of July. Last we heard, Africa was haemorrhaging mathematicians, scientists, engineers, doctors, technologists and the like, going to extraordinary lengths to entice diasporic skills back to the continent. What has changed? We are in Africa, comrades. We want to develop, go forward, progress. The last thing we need is retrogression into a dark age where science and mathematics are othered and ignorance is favoured! By all means, let the children play outside, close to nature—let them also learn how that nature works.
Extracting that pound of flesh
Through the ages, how many wars have been fought over water? A good many, one would venture to guess. Think Gaza. Food riots in Haiti. Squabbles in the Nile basin. Ask yourself, why is Tibet so important to China? With the climate becoming more capricious by the season, the vulnerable in Southern Africa are unlikely to escape threats to their security caused by access to water. Closely linked to the RCCP, production has begun on a documentary to highlight a problem that already exists—one guaranteed to intensify as climate change adds further stress to water resources. If all goes well, the documentary will be completed in time to be screened at COP15 in Copenhagen in December. Given the challenges of travel and logistics in the region, we’re daring to hold our breath.
Claiming the future
One of the sharpest assessments of the modern human condition is to be found in Richard Heinberg’s August Museletter, in which he suggests ways to ‘cure’ the ailing global economy. Heinberg writes:
‘We have justified present borrowing with the irrational belief that perpetual growth is possible, necessary and inevitable. In effect we have borrowed from future generations so that we could gamble away their capital today.’
Mazeltov! Snitch couldn’t have said it better. The concept of ‘perpetual growth’ is on of the more baffling notions the human race has invented in its quest for ‘more’ and ‘better’, ‘richer’ and ‘cushier’.
For the concept to work, one would perpetually need a new ‘need’, because it is the ‘need’ that is the seed from which grows the ‘market’ and without the ‘market’, there would be no need for the manufacturer to manufacture stuff and the consumer to consume stuff. How much do we actually ‘need’ to live, Snitch asks with tears in her baby blues?
It means new markets don’t develop organically, apace with life. No, no, no—what happens, in reality, is that marketeers sit Dilbert-like in their cubicles and shrewdly assess what people are likely to find tantalising in the future and then proceed to invent a new need. How foolish of us to have allowed ourselves to be so spectacularly duped for so long.