ACTON28: AGAINST THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC

你好/ Ní hǎo / Nín hǎo / Hello / How do / S’mae / Namaste

“Your Country Needs You to Recycle” – imagine of nations and governments out aside differences and used one simple campaign to rid the world of excessive waste. Or do those countries have a vested interest in keeping their pockets lined? Can we defeat the private sector and the laws that protect it? Is there good reason to give a shit about these matters? Are we guilty of following the consumeristic and individualistic ways that some want us to go? Ooh… an Apple iPhone just for me! I. Me. My. All mine. Just for me. My precious…

100 companies account for around 71% of global carbon emissions. So, no matter what local and small changes we make, we’re pissing into the wind until some top dog and a top dog country barks loud enough for others to follow. Will it be P.O.T.U.S.A Donald Trump? Not likely, he fired off his science team studying the harmful air quality effects on human health. As of this month Trump has destroyed more than 85 laws and environmental regulations stopping Big Corporations and their Shitty Friends from making a quick buck. Air pollution and emissions are lies. Drilling and extraction are a priority. Toxic substances and safety? No worries! Emit away!

Xylem are a company campaigning and creating solutions to predicted water shortages. They’re global. Water pollution is also global. The band Muse made a track called Unsustainable for a reason, not because it’d a be a jolly laugh. Or was it to gain an endlessly growing fanbase? I can never tell. Let’s solve water is Xylem’s message but how open to external influence can a corporation dedicated to water shortage solving be? I’m sure they are no Skynet and Terminators won’t come from their offices, but you never know if there is a volcanic lair somewhere on a company portfolio these days. Who benefits and how? Part of me prays to the known Gods, and unknown deities that this company is as pure as the water they aim to distribute. We’ll probably all need it.

Infrastructure and planning when it comes to energy production matters greatly. Now to the world’s second most populated country, having heating in winter and power all year matters. China (Coal) accounts for 14% of global emissions (1988-2015) and China is growing. It doesn’t take a Gazprom OAO (3.91%) scientist to work out that being top of the pollution league is sustainable in an unsustainable world. Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco) with their 4.5% could argue that they do supply a huge swathe of the world. Despite restrictions on their overseas business, National Iranian Oil Co manage 2.28% of the world’s gunky carbon output. Evil ExxonMobil Corp (1.98%) make up the top 5. Coal India, in the most populated country on Earth, scrape a 1.87% output, whilst Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) manage a 1.87% rate. Russia (Coal) and their 1.86% give us more reason to dislike the word coal. It is a keyword is coal. Royal Dutch Shell PLC (1.67%) and China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC)’s 1.56% move us away from the word coal. So, do these top 10 carbon emitters need a rebrand? Should a government spin doctor get in there quick? Or, do they secretly have people behind the scenes plating trees and working on environmentally friendly energy creation methods? Answers on a recyclable postcard to: YOUR MUM, MOTHER NATURE, OUR EARTH. Almost all of the top 100 companies are oil, coal, gas, or fuel related. A few hide their names under green sounding phrases such as Natural Resources, but, overall there are no recycling forms in there.

“There is no such thing as society.” – former oxygen breathing parasitic enemy of the people, Margaret Thatcher

I can only vote leaders in the U.K., and for now Europe (Brexit permitting), and make my tiny influence that way. Or by backing the cool sounding Extinction Rebellion in their quest to make a difference. I follow them on Facebook and Twitter and by doing so, I feel like I have already made a difference. I even tutted when I read about Donald Trump Vadar mocking a 16 year old girl. Greta Thunberg is a brave kid, full of passion and her epeech at the U.N. was proper human kindness and devotion to a cause. Forget Mel Gibson in Braveheart. Here we had a youngster stepping up to a podoim, or rather sitting down, and delivering an impassioned speech as good as, if not better than anything Sir Winston Churchill could muster. How did the world react? “Is Greta Thunberg Really an Actress Named Estella Renee?”, read one headline. Others belittled her as a fantastist or someone with head problems.

“She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!” – Cunt of The Decade, Donald Trump (by twitter, of course)

Non-violent rebellions are underway – and at one in Manchester recently, a lot of attention was given to the petrol generator given to powering the stage equipment. Have you tried getting solar panels to work under Manchester’s pepetual cloud? Ecological justice needs laws and rapid regulations but in a democratic society, that is slow and laborious. The often arduous processes of protracted cmapigning, legislation preparation and strenuous arguments need money. The other side, the oiled and gas rich have money. They have lawyers and they have influence in all the right places. The age of the next mass extinction is with us now – and we will have to battle hard.

This year I have made efforts to reduce my meat intake to 2 meals a week, on average. I’ve carried on the habot of avoiding plastic bottles and as much packaging as possible – although in Dongguan (China) most places chuck things in a bag, despite me having a bag held out waiting and me telling them not to give me a bag. Cutting meat down was difficult but cutting plastic waste is much, much harder! It is everywhere. Pleasingly I am seeing more compostable cups and items out there. I do struggle with not using an air conditioner – and the energy rating seems to be low. Do I believe the packaging advice? Are they entirely eco as per the button labelled eco?

Goverments of the world can change in some places but by and large, we the people, we the masses, we have to be the revolution, we have to be the collective change… but first the trailer of Braveheart 2 on YouTube awaits my attention…

再见/ Zài jiàn / Bài bài / Ta’ra / Goodbye / Hwyl Fawr / Dhanyabaad / Alavidā