Light the fuse

Chapter 8

Audacious hope, and happiness

Profligacy of a Climate Polycrisis Wasted: To waste a financial crisis was unfortunate, but it will be beyond-unfortunate for humanity and the natural world on which it is utterly dependent, should civilisation prove to be sufficiently careless to waste the Climate Polycrisis. Lingering disappointment with the man and his aspirations of reclaiming the American Dream possibly means that the world will need to look beyond the United States for the global Climate Polycrisis-mega­mobilisation leadership so sorely needed. cover Rosetta Books

Contents
author Cimino
work-in-progress published 20240909

…and something to hope for.
Norman Kirk, 1969

Audacity to hope burned all-too briefly, in 2008. Barely elected, Barack Obama abjectly failed his followers by cravenly surrounding himself with the suddenly-out-of-a-job, hand-picked neoliberal phalanx poised to run Hillary Clinton’s stillborn administration. Hope, to now be globally reignited, after Obama’s two indifferent terms and another couple even more dispiriting, is arguably a much greater ask.

Hope, however, as Norman Kirk astutely observed, is one of the four things—in addition to food, clothing and shelter—that people need. Kirk actually used the word want, which strangely better categorised the human need for hope. What constituents of a 21st century Kirk want, is still hope, but if hope’s to survive more than mere months beyond any Yes-we-can election, and be Climate Polycrisis fit-for-purpose, that hope has to be a hell-of-lot more than wishful. Hope has to be based on sound science, and the knowledge that Climate Polycrisis mobilisation, when it materialises, is stringently and surgically focused, and mega.

Happiness, in this context, may appear a luxury. But not only happiness, excitement  will be the by-product of Climate Polycrisis-mega­mobilisation, was it to be sufficiently optimised. Amongst other hindrances, what must be overcome is the legacy of the fetishising the economy, ahead of those things that result in healthy economies. Same-same for happiness. Happiness is a by-product of achievement. Happiness pursued for its own sake is likely to prove ephemeral.

It may appear in exceedingly poor taste to admit to feelings of excitement about a fit-for-purpose Climate Polycrisis-mega­mobilisation. Even with an at-scale, global response mobilised, the suffering could still be of unprecedented proportions, world wars and pandemics, existing and historic not excluded. A proportional response calls for humankind to be its best self, and realistically not just for years, or for decades, but for centuries to come. There is literally no time for the pettiness of the world’s plutocrats and oligarchs, nor the prevailing dysfunctionalism of the planet’s putative democracies…

Off to Play with New Zealand Neoliberal Mates: As if determined to eviscerate any lingering respect a man who evoked the audacity to hope for a better, equitable world… photographer David White | Stuff

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