On How to Save the Planet

Greta Thunberg

We all know how to save the planet. All of us went through at least a couple of months of lock-down as a result of the pandemic or Covid-19. All of us were in lock-down for a couple of months and all of us saw that the environment started to recover. It was very noticeable to everyone. The oceans started to clear and there were dolphins swimming in the canals of Venice. The air of Los Angeles became so clear the citizens could see the nearby mountains, many for the fist time in their lives. Wildlife became noticeably abundant, or at least seemed more prevalent. Streams and rivers became cleaner and, remarkably, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere not only stopped increasing, it actually decreased. Not by very much, mind you, but it was measurable. And the global temperature levelled off and slightly dipped. Overall, the planet started to heal. And, of course, during that time there was no massive increase in electric vehicle use, oil production was still going on, there was no shut down in coal-fired power plants and no increase in wind or solar power. There was no green technology takeover in any shape or form. All that happened was that the entire planet shut down, or locked down to be more precise, and the planet started to get better very quickly and very noticeably. So it is obvious to us all, and no one wants to talk about it, that we all know how to save the planet. 

So, since no one else wants to talk about the rather obvious elephant in the room, let’s take a look at this. First off, when everyone was locked down, people started working from home and kids were taken out of school. There was a lot of on-line communication through Zoom and, of course, the stock market crashed. There was a massive shift in the economy. The economy didn’t collapse; it just became very different. People ordered groceries on line then picked them up. The ordered groceries had been packed for them then placed into the trunk of their cars when they went to the grocery store. That happened very quickly. Any stuff people needed was also ordered on line and it got delivered to their door. Amazon got rich and their workers became endangered from Covid. In Calgary, people in the oil industry worked from home and since they didn’t have to fight traffic for an hour going to work and another hour coming home, refused to go back to the office when the lock-down was over. Many formed their own companies and became self employed. The entire way of doing work shifted and decentralised. But all in all, none of the proposed solutions to environmental healing saw the light of day during those two months, and yet the environment showed definite signs that it was beginning to heal. This leads me to ask two questions: 

1. What caused the environment to heal? 

2. Why isn’t this being examined? 

To answer the first question I pose the suggestion that the planet started to get better because people stopped consuming everything that moved and didn’t move. So, if we stop consuming everything, the planet gets better. I think that makes sense. We can still eat and have a place to live. We can have a better work environment and we can get out of debt since we are not consuming so much. We can, on a global level, stop personal consumption and thereby save the planet. This is not meant to over simplify the problem of a global environmental catastrophe. It’s more complex than that. Nevertheless, if you can find the principle causing, or is at the root of, a problem, the problem can be solved. Putting the principle of consuming only what you need in order to save the planet into a real and practical solution is a very complex endeavour on a global scale. But it can definitely be done. And it results in a much more desirable lifestyle and better education for our children as we have all experienced for a few short months. We can still go out and see each other and appreciate each other; we just have to do it in a way that doesn’t needlessly consume stuff. 

The second question: Why aren’t we doing the obvious in order to save the planet? deserves some discussion. Not consuming stuff we don’t need has been a major social movement since the sixties and even from the late 1700s. So Boomers and Bohemians alike are very much on board with saving the planet. So why all the red herrings such as COP26, or the Glasgow Climate Change Conference, which is going on now? The conference appears to the world to be a window dressing exercise to cover complete inaction other than political convenience. Greta Thunberg calls the entire sham a “blah, blah, blah” and I personally completely agree with her. It’s nice to see that a teenager is the first public figure to call out world leaders and self appointed experts on the environment. Miss Thunberg has been asked that since she is so smart, what is the solution to the problem of an environmental catastrophe? To which she has responded that actually asking a teenager this question demonstrates the ignorance of world leaders and self appointed experts on the environment. And Miss Thunberg is absolutely correct. So, for the sake of being a self appointed expert, a Boomer who is responsible for this mess, let me say that the environmental catastrophe that is upon us is caused by over consumption of non-renewable resources and the resultant output of waste in both materials and energy. And this over consumption is caused by our economic system known as consumer capitalism. Simply put: We must continue to ever increasingly consume more and more stuff we don’t need in order to keep employed more and more people who make stuff no one needs so they can buy more and more stuff they don’t need either. And all of this is sustained by more and more consumer debt. So, as we all found out during the global lock-down, people stopped consuming so much and paid down their debt. And as a result, the planet got better. This brings us to answer the second question: Why aren’t we using what we know works in order to save the planet? Could it be that by eliminating consumer debt we would save the planet? Could it be that if the stock market crashed or if the global economic system based on international debt were to collapse and result in a different economic system not based on consumerism that the planet would be saved and we would all be out of debt ourselves? Does any of this make sense?

As I pointed out before, we all know how to save the planet. It is not from a lack of knowledge that we are all doomed; it is from a lack of integrity.