I’ve become addicted to and obsessed with a reality TV show. Yes. My shame should be unutterable, but there it is. I just uttered it.
Naked and Afraid, it’s called. A survival horror show where alpha maniacs are dropped, naked, into the worst places in the world and left to get on with it.
They quickly start killing everything for protein, even the stuff that wants to kill them - especially the stuff that wants to kill them if it has enough protein content.
It feels like the future.
The images of wildfires in Europe, especially the scorched brownfields and burning cities of England, are a long way, thousands of miles, from the Louisiana Bayou where the latest series of Naked unfolds. Still, I can’t help seeing the soot-blackened expressions of shocked English fire-fighters mirrored in the filthy, mud-caked faces of the naked neo-barbarians in the swamp.
Something terrible has happened to them all.
And yes, insert the usual disclaimers here about the artifice of TV and the moral hazard of framing extreme duress as entertainment, but it’s the eyes I can’t unsee.
The eyes of reawakened apex predators and the eyes of survivors blinking out of the ash-blackened faces.
The eyes are windows to the human soul; if we keep going this way, our souls will be lost in the fire and horror.
I didn’t even read the nightmare environmental report Tanya Plibersek released this week. Do we really need more words?
I guess, yes, we do. If only to record our downfall.
But we need more to do something about it, not just performatively hopeless individual actions – although Kylie Jenner could probably do her bit.
The coalition was smashed flat a few weeks ago because of their ongoing denial of grim reality. The planet’s had enough of our shit, so it’s decided to kill us. Some will burn, some will drown, and most will starve. Enough people have woken up to that now that denying it for the sake of a few backhanders from the fossil fuel industry is no longer a viable political strategy.
It’s good, in a way, that the coalition denies this, too. It will keep them out of power for a long time.
But the ALP will go down to its own version of a teal rebellion if it doesn’t get its shit together over expanding the coal and gas industry.
Nobody is demanding the government shut down every coal and gas project in the country by the close of business today. (Well, nobody except my Twitter feed, but they’ve been busy this week with birthing parenthood). When the only planet you’ve got is burning all around you, however, you should probably think about whether you want to throw a couple of giga-tonnes of super-splodey dead dinosaur goo on that apocalyptic hellfire. Seriously, Albo, mate, just think about it for a bit.
Maybe you’ll decide, yes, that’s totally what we should do.
Or maybe, you’ll decide to channel that investment capital into building out this whole renewables superpower thing you keep banging on about.
What you can’t do—because it’s fucking crazy—is to dig the stuff up, send it overseas, and pretend you’re not responsible for what happens when it burns.
Thanks John. And there's the reliable mystery again - a harsh, unwelcome truth, but the writing's so well aimed and makes so many complicated things cohere, that I feel better and more hopeful for reading it. Surely facing up to what's happening is the start of doing of our best to deal with it. X
JB: Blunt and stark - and Lord Turner - come on, AA - listen to the Greens and the TEAL cross-benchers - up your targets - and then make them happen. Outlaw big coal/big mining export lobbyists. Fund and nationalise if it helps - all the solar and wind power developers in Australia - no foreign shareholders - all for the nation!
"my Twitter feed, but they’ve been busy this week with birthing parenthood..." HEY I resemble that remark, I just sent a scathing SCATHING email to services Australia about this issue and you know what I meant it to sting. I confess after this weeks news about the heatwave I have been watching and rewatching that scene from The Hunger Games - Mockingjay "You can torture us and bomb and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that?" One of the cameras follows where I point to the planes burning on the roof of a warehouse across from us. "Fire is catching!" I am shouting now, determined he will not miss a word of it, "And if we burn, you burn with us!”
As a volunteer firefighter in Australian bushfires I have seen people watching the approaching flames while we scream at them to "LEAVE NOW !!!! GET OUT!!!!"
They just stare in shock and disbelief, this cannot be happening to them in their quiet safe comfortable life, they are frozen and just say "We will wait and see what happens"
The ALP won't be worrying about the teal independents. There is already a group on their heels and that is the Greens. Personally I wonder how the Northern Hemisphere will adapt to Australian like summers. If you feel like watching denial in practice lower your standards and watch the GBN people talking to a meteorologist.
It's Australians that need to stop pretending. Not just politicians. My guess is that, if Australians were to be told what effect the cessation of Australia's second biggest export would have on their standard of living, they would scream blue murder. We're dumb and greedy and generally couldn't give a fuck about anyone else especially future generations. Why else would we send iron ore to China and buy shit steel back off them and think we're clever? High iron ore prices translate into high steel prices. Where's the gain in that?
Thanks John. And there's the reliable mystery again - a harsh, unwelcome truth, but the writing's so well aimed and makes so many complicated things cohere, that I feel better and more hopeful for reading it. Surely facing up to what's happening is the start of doing of our best to deal with it. X
JB: Blunt and stark - and Lord Turner - come on, AA - listen to the Greens and the TEAL cross-benchers - up your targets - and then make them happen. Outlaw big coal/big mining export lobbyists. Fund and nationalise if it helps - all the solar and wind power developers in Australia - no foreign shareholders - all for the nation!
I'm not looking forward to Summer.
"my Twitter feed, but they’ve been busy this week with birthing parenthood..." HEY I resemble that remark, I just sent a scathing SCATHING email to services Australia about this issue and you know what I meant it to sting. I confess after this weeks news about the heatwave I have been watching and rewatching that scene from The Hunger Games - Mockingjay "You can torture us and bomb and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that?" One of the cameras follows where I point to the planes burning on the roof of a warehouse across from us. "Fire is catching!" I am shouting now, determined he will not miss a word of it, "And if we burn, you burn with us!”
The deniers are still denying
As a volunteer firefighter in Australian bushfires I have seen people watching the approaching flames while we scream at them to "LEAVE NOW !!!! GET OUT!!!!"
They just stare in shock and disbelief, this cannot be happening to them in their quiet safe comfortable life, they are frozen and just say "We will wait and see what happens"
The ALP won't be worrying about the teal independents. There is already a group on their heels and that is the Greens. Personally I wonder how the Northern Hemisphere will adapt to Australian like summers. If you feel like watching denial in practice lower your standards and watch the GBN people talking to a meteorologist.
And if the ground's not cold, everything is gonna burn
We'll all take turns
I'll get mine too
It's Australians that need to stop pretending. Not just politicians. My guess is that, if Australians were to be told what effect the cessation of Australia's second biggest export would have on their standard of living, they would scream blue murder. We're dumb and greedy and generally couldn't give a fuck about anyone else especially future generations. Why else would we send iron ore to China and buy shit steel back off them and think we're clever? High iron ore prices translate into high steel prices. Where's the gain in that?
Grow a set Albo and leave it in the ground..