France is standing still. Guesstimates number the protesters, dubbed the ‘Gilets Jaunes’ for their yellow vestments, in the hundreds of thousands. All having been rallied through the great imbecile networks of social media for one singular purpose: To protest the rise in petrol and diesel taxes.
As of Sunday, over two hundred people have been injured. One protester was even killed on Saturday, following a driver panicking as protesters swarmed her car. Coming on a hundred people have been arrested.
No one protests quite like the French, do they?
Aside from French malcontent, I’ve had this conversation before. People complaining every time they drive past a petrol station. Lamenting that back in their day, or their parents’ day, prices were reasonable. And even accounting for the cost of living adjustment, they’re right. Taxes were much lower when we didn’t have an ecological Sword of Damocles above our heads. But now we do. But complaints are never levied against the situation at hand, or our own implicit guilt in creating it, but rather at the taxmen; the politicians that in a rare moment of clarity have imposed the imposition upon mere mortals. Upon ordinary folk in rural areas, just trying to get from house to job.
When these fossil fuel dependent people are called upon to include the environment in their reflections, one type of response repeats: “But what else am I to do? How else am I to live, to work, to thrive? Am I to relinquish my freedom of movement simply because the sky is choking?”
When we map greenhouse gas emissions, we can conclude that over a quarter of them come from the transportation sector. Out of which over half comes from personal vehicles and light-duty trucks. This has been true for years. Decades even. Showing no sign of change.
And yet these malignant organisms think it unfair to raise the prices of their malevolent habits of cooking dinosaur-carcasses in our shared environment.
Time and time again it has been proven that the only way to shift a population’s behaviour is to incentivise change. Either by the carrot or by the stick. Preferably both. But you can never trust the droning masses to change their habits simply by asking if they kindly would. Not even in the face of looming and publicized disaster can they manage the change necessary for continued survival. For when you grant the broad population the choice between comfortable habit and radical change, they will chose comfortable habit every time.
So, are these countryfolk and Yellow Vests just simply wrong? Entitled and stubborn? Unenlightened and regressive? Some; surely. Most; maybe. All; no. For even though the rise in petrol and diesel prices is a justified Stick, what’s lacking is a Carrot. Options and alternatives need to be provided. And they’re quite simply not being offered in any feasible regard. It is not reasonable to ask people to bike forty kilometres to work every day. Public transportation is more often than not a poor joke in rural areas. And ignoring the valid environmental criticisms of ”green” car options, such as the controversial Tesla for example, even those aren’t realistic due to either price, range, or availability.
But make no mistake: That does not mean that the price hike for fossil fuels is wrong. It only means more needs to be done. That more change is required. Not less.
So, what’s a country resident to do? What if living outside of urban areas becomes prohibitively expensive? Would that be fair? No, maybe it wouldn’t. But maybe your rural carbon footprint is just as inexcusable as the rest of them. Maybe your right to live where you please, in a place where you can actually see the lit night sky in lieu of light pollution, isn’t a privilege that stands higher than our need to reign in our wanton putrefaction of our habitat. Maybe, if you don’t have the means to be clean about it, you shouldn’t consider it your right to set up shop in whatever remote corner you please.
Because whining about a necessary Stick, because closing down countries with your childish temper tantrums, only paints you as a spoilt villain and an enemy to sustainability.
/Sebastian Lindberg 19/11-2018
WastedWords 