For fifteen years, if someone wanted to be different, it was chic to be an environmentalist, eat organic, and care about nature.
For many of these people, it was and still is a struggle rooted in sincerity; and we can thank them for paving the way for all those who finally recognize the seriousness of the alarm bells today and the importance of radically changing their behaviour, individually and collectively, so that our planet can survive.
For others, however, it was and still is only a trend, unrelated to their own behaviour; a trend for the rich, something to profit from, even if the world is going as badly as they say it is, and though they have already sought refuge, for the most part, in climate or tax havens, they continue to lecture everyone without doing anything concrete to improve the lot of future generations; often in the name of scientific knowledge obtained from old degrees and brief readings, carefully put together on websites specialized in the publication of bad news, often unfortunately as false as the good ones that preceded.
Finally, another group, radical environmentalists, has adopted a totalitarian attitude, which affirms that all is lost, humanity will disappear, and that the only thing we can do is to accelerate its disappearance by no longer having children and no longer caring for the elderly; and other follies.
Today, we find the same scale of behaviour at the other end of the spectrum, among anti-environmentalists.
There are those who say, seriously, that we must keep our heads, we must not despair, and nothing is lost if we invest massively in energy efficiency and new technologies that make it possible to stop spending on energy; change our behaviour, in relation with eating, as well as other social and cultural changes, reduce the madness of suicidal nomadism, without however falling into a desperate fear mongering.
There are also those for whom environmental criticism is a new trend for the rich, for some, to profit from, if the world goes wrong. Having already sought refuge, most of them too, in climate or tax havens, lecturing everyone without doing anything concrete themselves to improve the lot of future generations.
Finally, there are those who have peremptorily asserted that environmentalism is just a new form of dictatorship that we should guard against, mocking all those who try, in their own way, to warn of the dangers of the world.
If environmentalist socialites were often ridiculous and hopeless, it is even worse with anti-environmentalist socialites, who, in the name of scientific knowledge obtained from old degrees and brief readings, carefully put together on websites specialized in the publication of bad news, often unfortunately as false as the good ones that preceded.
The world is in bad shape. If nothing is done, by 2050, it will be unbearable for at least two to three billion people, which will not include the anti-environmentalist socialites of today. We cannot resign ourselves to this. We need to change our behaviour, politics, society, and system. And if it means, in particular, not eating anything fresh that is not produced in season and less than a few hundred kilometres from home, it is not a big deal: no one will die if they were to forego oysters or lobsters, if they are too far from the coast.
j@attali.com