Time for one last rant about the UK’s EU Referendum
In the last few days, the CO2 concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide in Antarctica has reached 400 parts per million. This is important. It is probably the first time this level has been reached there in many millions of years. It also means that the last place on earth untouched by climate change in the form of CO2 build-up has been reached. Or breached, if you will.
Also, this past May was globally the hottest on record since the 1880s. Every month for the last year has been the hottest for that month on record. It is very — very — likely that this trend will continue and that summers in UK and Europe will get hotter now year on year.
While this is happening, the UK is preparing for a referendum, which has been called for no valid reason and in which the arguments for leaving, or remaining with, the European Union have descended into xenophobia on the one hand and a hope that things tend to be better when working in a team on the other. The level of debate — and the genuine and provable facts arising from such debate — don’t rise much above pushing and shoving. Unfortunately, the right wing within the UK are using the pushing and shoving as an excuse to be ever more virulently racist and, well, right wing.
The world is crashing around our ears and we are more interested in straight bananas and whether Turkey will join the EU at some later stage. The call from the ‘Leave’ campaign hinges on the notion of taking our country back. If we could take it back to a time before we contributed quite heartily to climate change that might be worth considering.
On the other hand, is it likely that a nation on its own is going to be able to stem the tide — in this case quite literally — of adverse weather conditions when it appears to stump global gatherings? Instead of being worried about fictional waves of immigrants, it is really time to be worried about waves of seawater lapping over Norfolk and Suffolk.
This is not a time for politics as usual. And this referendum is very much about politics as usual. The very fact that politicians from all parties are divided on the issue simply highlights the fact that it is about point scoring within parties rather than anything meaningful. We have become a nation of petty Neros (not the coffee shop) choosing to fiddle a merry tune about our independence as the problems of the world grow exponentially global in scope.
So, who benefits from this unnecessary sideshow? The usual suspects, of course. I sound like a conspiracy theorist. But sometimes you just have to accept that, if it looks like the bastards — and by bastards I’m talking the 1% and their cronies in Sheldon Wolin’s inverted totalitarian paradise of corporate power — are out to put us down (in both literal and metaphorical senses), then it’s probably the case that that is exactly what they are trying to do.
If you’re able to vote in the UK tomorrow, hold your nose and vote Remain.
