Russia and the United States glared at each other, nuclear weapons primed, ready to fire, and the world held its breath.
A friend, imagining a dismal future, paid little attention to learning, while I saw a threat from aliens, a sort of War of the Worlds, being the catalyst to see nations unite and stand as one to confront and deal with this existential hostility.
That 20th century sham war, although except for a couple of serendipitous moments things could have been quite different, has passed into history, but the need for that War of the Worlds has morphed into something else; something few, if anyone, thought of some 60 years ago.
So-called ‘strongmen’ driven by perverted ideologies, hubris, a distorted haughtiness and a misplaced sense of entitlement have their foot on the throat of several nations, bringing death to many, massive discomfort to even more, the destruction of infrastructure and countless properties and homes, and the worsening of climate change.
And so the War of the Worlds I saw decades ago as solution to a common difficulty, uniting humanity to stand as one, has become ‘Our war with the world’ and the solution is no different in that we urgently need the people of Earth to unite — and to understand and accept the problem.
Six university authors, including climate scientists, recently wrote at The Conversation: “This year, Australia has experienced record-breaking floods, tropical cyclones, heatwaves on land and in the ocean, drought, coral bleaching, coastal erosion and devastating algal blooms. Over the past five years, insured losses from extreme events have risen to $45 billion annually — more than double the 30-year average.”
Shepparton’s 2022 floods, which, apparently, weren’t record-breaking, but were catastrophic for many, were a part of that jump in insurance costs.
As we rush about dealing with the tyranny of the immediate, we forget that in the background the Earth continues to warm, worsened by behaviours that chew up irreplaceable resources.
Progressive International, a group set up in 2020 to unite, organise and mobilise the world’s progressive forces, recently noted that Earth Overshoot Day fell on July 24 — the date by which humanity has already used up more resources than the planet can regenerate in an entire year.
It also noted that just two days earlier, the International Court of Justice had issued a historic ruling that states were legally obliged to stop this planetary overshoot, and to hold those responsible to account.
“In effect, the world’s highest court has confirmed what movements across the world have long insisted: the climate crisis is not just a political failure. It is an economic and a legal one. And the system driving it — capitalism — is, by every meaningful measure, illegal,” Progressive International said.
First, I imagined an inter-planetary war as a solution to our troubles but now, second, the solution to the war with our world is even more complex, more demanding, asking more of us, exacting a greater unity, beginning with joining and supporting grassroots groups here in the Goulburn Valley through to taking the demand for change to local, state and federal governments.
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