We need less hot air in politics

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/07/2024 (683 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I have been reluctant to add more words to the torrent of columns on things political. In the midst of our growing global crises, it is irritating to read news that continually implies politics (at whatever level) is the most important topic these days, but here I go, anyway:

As of today, instability rules. Labour has a majority in the U.K., thanks to a vote-split on the right; France has swung both right and left within weeks; and the candidacy of current U.S. President Joe Biden is still in the post-debate wind.

At home, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has wisely avoided having his political pancakes flipped at the Calgary Stampede, leaving the open question as to whether the Liberals should face the electorate a fourth time with him as leader.

Right now, while Premier Wab Kinew is riding a wave of popularity in Manitoba and beyond, the clock is not only ticking on health-care issues. He especially needs to demonstrate a vision for making Manitoba more resilient to the effects of climate change.

Kinew may be a great salesperson, but there is a limit to how far you can go on a grin and a tire change. Regifting gas-tax relief is not a long-term climate strategy — unless it is “burn, baby, burn!” — and if headway has been made on resolving the carbon tax debacle inherited from the Pallister/Stefanson PCs, no one is talking.

Meanwhile, as the planet actually does burn, local pundits keep talking about those Tuxedo-less Manitoba Progressive Conservatives, as though anyone else really cares about a political party without a leader; without intelligent policies; and apparently lacking the collective political integrity it used to have.

It could be rebuilt, from the ground up, into an alternative to the NDP government, but that would require a return to “red Tory” roots the current federal Conservative Party seems to hate — and would take at least eight years, if things went well.

Yet, to the people of the Caribbean islands and the coasts of Texas, just slammed by Hurricane Beryl (the earliest, strongest hurricane on record), none of my words about politics and politicians matter at all.

Actually, you can debate whether anything political makes much of a difference for good these days, when business and industry — and the stupified masses of our consumer society that obediently stumble along behind them — continue to put profits before planet or people.

I do fear we have a sleeping political monster, though, one that is beginning to stir. What will happen, in the midst of disaster, when those same masses realize that it’s not just the weather, bad luck or coincidence — when they realize their suffering is caused by the deliberate actions of an economic elite that thinks it is insulated by privilege from the climate (and other) catastrophes to come?

What happens when the 99 per cent realize their future has been stolen by that one per cent, that their children are suffering and dying because of the selfish choices of a few? I fear the next popular movement will not want to only Occupy Wall Street, but to burn it down, whatever the consequences.

And when things get to that point, how do you argue with a mob that has decided that if their future is going up in flames, that everyone else’s should, too?

The monster would be impossible to control, and the rhetoric of politicians everywhere would be ignored as pathetic efforts to protect the elite that is paying their personal and political bills.

Given the current trajectories of global politics, it would be hard to disagree with such an assessment even now. The only signs of hope I see are the non-violent actions of people, young and old, who are increasing their public engagement with the systems that need to change.

Bill McKibben was one of the group of elders/seniors just arrested during a “die-in” in front of Citibank headquarters in New York City, on a scorching hot 100 F (38 C) day. (Citibank is one of the largest funders of planet-killing fossil fuel industries.) The police said only the people who lay down on the pavement would be arrested — so many of the protesters did just that.

Zip-tied and hauled away to lockup, McKibben and the rest were out on bail within the day, and will likely face fines rather than jail time. Elsewhere, the punishments for this kind of protest can be much worse. In Cambodia, 10 young people non-violently protesting for clean water were recently sentenced to years in jail for “threatening the government.”

In the U.K., judges are handing down stiff consequences for disruptions related to climate protests — and each time this happens, that sleeping political monster is poked with a stick.

Morally, those protesters are in the right. The legal system is protecting the real criminals.

We need to reduce the hot air from both politicians and Mother Nature if we want a different future than what hurricanes and heat waves leave behind.

Peter Denton writes from his home in rural Manitoba.