ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Natural disasters are unfolding at extreme levels in the northern hemisphere this year. Floods are washing away vast swathes of Asia and Europe. Parts of North America and Europe are on fire. There’s an unprecedented drought event happening in China and in many places of our largest trading partner’s territory, it’s so hot that bodies are slow-cooking in their apartments.
However, a new report by the Inland Oil & Gas Council of Australia (IOGCA) has found that all of the people mentioned above who are impacted by these weather extremes are largely disposable peasants or old people who serve no economic function in society anymore.
“So who gives a shit?” the report asks at the end of its first-page summary.
In developed countries like Australia, weather extremes such as heat and cold can easily be fixed with reverse cycle air-conditioning or even a pool. Keeping warm or keeping cool is easy. You just need to pay for it, which for many Australians is as easy as keeping your commercial property vacant for tax purposes.
Europe is gripped by a heatwave right now, which again is solved by air conditioning and beach holidays. The report from the IOGCA concludes that if you can’t afford to look after yourself and be responsible for your family, nobody cares about you.
The report has suggested that until the effects of our decadent western lifestyles begin to impact the burgeoning and increasingly vocal upper-middle class of wealthy countries like Australia, the US, and Western Europe, what’s the point in stressing about climate change?
When it does, the report explains, it will be too late to save the majority of our species from utter hell. Which will be OK because most people 50 and over now will be dead – so what do they care?
That is the report’s solution to solving the climate change issue: not being on this earth and enjoying it while it lasts.
More to come.
