In a century’s time of the History ( if a century could be called History), 2023 will be for France, the time where people revolted against an unacceptable crime committed by authority figures, and that as a result, a few thousand hooligans and professional thugs looted stores, town halls and schools.
Only a few days later, all the media had stopped talking about it, and were instead reporting on the scandal of global warming. Did we see the same young people, or others, in France or elsewhere, demonstrating en masse to denounce this other scandal? Accusing previous generations of leaving them the prospect of living in hell? Have we seen young people, en masse, taking on the streets to demand more laws against waste, against the use of fossil fuels, artificial sugar, all drugs, for the protection of water and biodiversity? And if a few have done it and are doing it, sometimes overwhelmed by professional thugs as in all demonstrations today, we have yet to see the emergence of a real movement in favor of another mode of development. Yet to be seen. No high-level political leader anywhere in the world have such ambition. And those who claim to do, ruined their speeches by adding a pinch of populism, or antisemitism and a third of incompetence. In the same way, nothing is being done to firmly denounce the frightening deviations that come from artificial intelligence and genetics.
Meanwhile, young people continue to be lured into easy and high-paying jobs in the economy of death, whether in the drug or influence markets, and increasingly in the sex trade.
Still, we perfectly know what needs to be done in a timely manner: setup the transition from “the economy of death” to “the economy of life”; in other words, to transform all companies producing and using fossil fuels, artificial sugars, pesticides and all other forms of drugs and poisons. To achieve this, we need to launch a vast program of renewable energies, education, prevention and public awareness. In addition to various moratoria on certain technological aberrations.
The time has come, on a global scale, to see the emergence of a truly legit movement that would take on these ideas. Otherwise, the world’s leaders will continue to lie, to pretend they didn’t know, that nobody warned them. They’ll say that we can’t reinvent the car, the plane, the boat, the way they are. That if we were to elvove one day, letting time pass would be it.
That is a lie. We have to move very rapidly. We need to initiate an economic battle. Certainly, only the legitimate anger coming from the youth, which will most probably experience this nightmare in their adult years, can trigger this movement.
Will it come in time? We don’t think so.
j@attali.com
Image: Wanderer above the Sea of Frog, Caspar David Friedrich, 1818.