In the Shift

Did you ever see or read I Claudius - written by Robert Graves and adapted for TV by Jack Pulman (whose work deserves a lot more than this miserly entry in Wikipedia)?  Claudius the smart idiot who became emperor of Rome looked on during his quiet ascent to power and frequently remarked that if he waited rather than intervened the poison would rise to the top of the cess pool that the empire had become.

Feeling glum and probably not the best company at a party recently, I met someone I really should have avoided.  He was a seasoned climate change denier well prepared with the gamut of arguments from medieval warming period and what about the cold winter we’ve had, to nanny state and the fundamental right to consume.  This on the back of a week when I figured out that if you built an eco-home in Oxfordshire today, not only would it cost you more than the most ungreen house you could plan (no insulation, ash block, high energy boiler, PVA glazing etc), the selling price would actually be less because green technologies are still thought to be risky. Oh, and as there’s only one firm that can build such a building in the county, be prepared to wait and pay a premium when the work is done.

I was not in a happy place.

But the more my party buddy kept rabbiting on (and to be fair he had a hidden supply of good quality tequila that he was happy to share), the more I started to think that given the half baked efforts to tackle climate change, maybe there would be mileage in doing as much damage as possible.  Buy a jet ski, plant a Toyota Sequoia and leave it running in the front garden, triple dry the laundry in the tumble dryer, and only shower in the bathroom farthest away from the power shower pump.  And that’s just a start.  First class airfares as a matter of principle. Or better still buy airplane tickets and don’t use them. Load as many empty containers onto long haul ships from China.  And don’t forget to light up the patio heaters.

Why?

Because if you get drunk enough it’s hard to see what good doing good is doing.  How many times did climate change more than a cursory mention in the UK election campaign? A boiler replacement programme is not going to deliver the goods.

So do bad.  Churn up the cess pool so the poison starts to rise.  Do we need a crisis before we tackle climate change?  If so then let’s start the crisis.  Don’t spend time organising communities to put in renewable energy plants or recycle their rubbish.  Organise them to trash the environment. Do some real damage and provke a response.  Build the dirty homes.  Buy the dirty cars.  Let jet skis rule our canals.

Just a thought.