LIVING IN A DREAM  

Last year, while at COP19, I wrote the following. It’s still applicable, and since it’s COP-times again (even if I’m not participating on the ground in Lima this year) I though I’ll repost it here.

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you are half awake, and sort of aware of everything that is happening, but still have no control of what you’re doing?

Maybe walking around town with no clothes on, or eating something really weird, or driving a train closer and closer to a concrete wall without ever hitting it. You are powerless and have to just let things happen, even though you are the one acting and you feel the consequences as if you’re in control. Sort of like being a remote controlled robot, with someone else deciding your every move.

That’s how I feel about the world today. Everything keeps turning faster and faster, and I’m undeniably a part of the system. I keep causing carbon dioxide emissions. I keep living in a town that has it’s own coal fired power plant, even though there’s hydroelectric and nuclear power in abundance. I keep wanting to take an aeroplane whenever I go somewhere, even if I have time to take a fast train. I keep living the western developed country dream.

Climate negotiations are sort of the same way. Politicians keep meeting every year, and their progress is barely measurable. In almost every democratic election in the world, climate change is a key issue. Politicians compete about making statements on climate change mitigation being the most important issue in the history of humanity, and how they’ll do wonders if they get elected. Once they are, they start going to climate conferences once per year, move money from one project to another and pretend to be doing great things. All the while, we keep emitting CO2 into the atmosphere, introducing more and more energy into the climate system.

Like one of those dreams. We try to act and no matter how much our brain tells our body to go home fast since we’re naked, we keep wandering aimlessly around town.