Cegos pela luz

The disconnect between the global elite and the real world is growing by the day. Most people are worn down by the pandemic, food and energy price hikes and general inflation, and worried about recession. Yet the chattering classes are jetting into conferences at Davos or Aspen to declare that our biggest and most immediate threats are climate change, environmental disasters and biodiversity loss.

Many delegates here at the Paris climate conference must have leapt with joy when actor and former Californian governor Arnold Schwarzenegger published a Facebook post this week that went viral, titled “I don’t give a **** if we agree about climate change.”

The politicians and bureaucrats meeting here – now in extra time – must speak in measured language, seldom saying what they really think. Former politicians, on the other hand, get a lot more leeway.

As it is becoming obvious that political responses to global warming such as the Paris treaty are not working, environmentalists are urging us to consider the climate impact of our personal actions. Don’t eat meat, don’t drive a gasoline-powered car and don’t fly, they say. But these individual actions won’t make a substantial difference to our planet, and such demands divert attention away from the solutions that are needed.