11 May 2011, 12:01am
environment Politics
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  • Year 2, Month 5, Day 11: Zap.

    It’s May 2, and the world is preoccupied with Osama’s demise. Most of the stories found with the search tag “climate change news” are about OBL, noting that at one point he’d mentioned climate change.

    Eventually I found an article in The Himalayan Times describing a new fund for climate change being set up in Nepal.

    So I used that as the hook for an anti-corporate screed, sent May 2.

    The multinational corporations which control the distribution and consumption of fossil fuels throughout the world are the key factors in the fight against climate change. As long as these inhuman economic giants base their policies on short-term profitability rather than the long-term health of our planet and our civilization, the world’s governments will be able to take only the smallest of palliative steps. The past five decades have shown again and again that popular and governmental initiatives for renewable energy and sustainability can be readily undermined by massive infusions of corporate cash; the private sector is clearly and obviously in the driver’s seat. It remains unclear if it is actually possible to communicate with corporations (after all, they are not flesh and blood, they’re immortal, far larger than humans, and geographically dispersed). Our species’ last hope may rest in somehow convincing these behemoths that their survival is linked with ours.

    Warren Senders

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