You get that a lot these days, especially when it comes to public health and the climate crisis. It comes right after they tell you the latest inferno "wasn't caused entirely by climate change," as if that helps.
They think they've stumped you.
They haven't.
We actually have a pretty good idea of what we need to do. When it comes to public health, we need vaccines. We need clean air. We need masks. This isn't hard. The rich are doing it right in front of us.
There's money for it.
We give bankers and executives hundreds of billions of dollars every year. We pay them to build oil rigs and spaceships. We gave them fortunes in forgivable loans. They used it all to buy yachts.
Look it up.
We know how to stop deadly viruses from spreading. People just won't do it. They don't want to. That's the only reason. They would if more of us would remind everyone every day that it's life and death.
Instead, they make up excuses.
They say, "Well it's in the deer population." Yeah, Taylor Swift spent all summer crooning to herds of wild deer. Millions of wild deer are about to start school. Sure, that's the thing holding us back.
It's those dumbass deer.
They never learn.
We know what to do about climate change, too. We just won't do it. We could halt nonessential air travel. We could halt nonessential drilling. What's essential? Well, it would be a good idea to keep hospitals and fire departments running. We can make exceptions for basic infrastructure, building solar and wind capacity. We don't need a bunch of politicians and billionaires flying to climate summits. They can do that over zoom, can't they?
Here's some other ideas:
Give everyone an electricity allowance. We already know what it's like to have a data plan. Blow your electricity budget, and you pay extra. The same goes for water. Consider it practice. Pretty soon, we won't have a choice. There simply won't be any water or electricity to ration.
No more bottled water.
Let FEMA and the national guard have bottled water. The average person should not be able to walk into a store and buy it.
No more golf courses. No more cheeseburgers.
Say hello to bean burgers.
We have thousands of homes sitting empty across the country. Banks consider them assets. They're not. They're useless. The government should buy them and convert them into affordable sustainable homes.
We should be climate-proofing our cities. We should be treating it like a wartime effort, because that's what we're dealing with. Let's hurry up and get those solar panels and reflective paint on the roofs. Let's hurry up and build those seawalls. Let's hurry up and evacuate those death-trap cities in the desert. Let's get people out of the way of those hurricanes.
Let's pass a climate stimulus bill. Let's pay people to upgrade their windows and insulate their homes. Let's help them build storm shelters and root cellars. Let's teach them energy efficiency. Let's teach them water conservation. Let's teach them a little farming.
Let's ban homeowners' associations.
And golf courses.
Let's stop saber-rattling with China. We need them. Let's stop blaming them for their pollution. They're making our stuff.
We're the ones buying it all.
We're complicit.
The president should be having a fireside chat every night. He should be telling everyone what they can do. I mean, he believes it's the existential threat to humanity, right? He believes it's a genuine emergency, right? Shouldn't he be giving us daily updates on what we're doing and what else needs to be done? Shouldn't there be daily climate briefings?
I mean, that would be nice.
The optimists don't want to hear any of this. They call it naive. They say it's never going to happen. Nobody's going to give up their trucks, their cheeseburgers, their bottled water, their vacations, their golf courses. Nobody's going to plug in a HEPA air purifier and remember to turn it on.
Apparently, that's too hard for everyone.
The optimists want to wait until 2050 to give up oil, which is a polite way of saying never. The optimists want to start planning for the next pandemic while ignoring the current one. They want to pretend they have no idea what's causing all these strokes and heart attacks.
They call us doomers...
You know what?
I see the doomers doing an awful lot to make the world a better place. We're the ones cutting back on our energy. We're the ones enjoying staycations. We're the ones cooking our own meals. We're the ones learning how to be happy without consuming all the time. We're the ones living in smaller homes. We're the ones keeping up with our water usage. We're the ones learning how to build our own solar power systems. We're the ones learning how to grow our own food. We're the ones who install the air purifiers. We're the ones who turn them on. We're the ones who nag everyone about masks and clean air.
We're the ones trying to have the fireside chats.
We're the ones standing up and talking back to corporations. We're the ones forcing the public to pay attention. We're the ones who aren't afraid to show our emotions. We're the ones showing we care.
What exactly makes us so negative?
Is it our honesty, perhaps?
We're doing all the things the optimists say can't be done. We're making progress by inches. It would be great if all these optimists would get off their asses and help us instead of calling us names.
