On anger

A new creative commons series from Andrew Jaspan’s 360Info and Anthony Klan’s The Klaxon is called The Age of Rage. So apt.

The Fifth Estate has a confession. It was over a silly thing on Thursday morning – a loaf of our favourite bread at the bakery that we thought was clearly from yesterday’s batch. At a large supermarket chain, we’d bought that same brand of bread and sometimes suspected it to be two or even three days old. We can age bread perfectly well in the privacy of our own homes if we choose, we said. Just be transparent and discount it.

But the truth about this annoyance, was that it had nothing to do with the price of bread ($9.00 for the record). It was anger displacement sparked that morning by yet another climate disaster, all in the face of political and corporate insouciance from the people who could overnight change the game should they wish.

The glacier

Thursday morning’s news was of yet another glacier collapse, this time in Nepal, killing hundreds of people, brought to us in vivid Instagram-able high res video thanks to the growing surveillance states. 

The premier who loved coal

This on the same day that Queensland premier David Crisafulli again gave his middle finger to the most disenfranchised people of the world by letting the coal fired power stations rip, in service (and homage) to the data centres that power the catastrophe video porn above. Whether it’s funny cats or the real time disintegration of our beautiful planet, it’s the same net effect. Should we call it suicide porn now?

It sure feels like it.

The Europeans

Especially when you look at what heritage-rich Europe has been living through this summer. Read this piece from The New Yorker called The End of the European Summer to see what the brave souls of Milan, Paris and Barcelona have been working on for a few decades now to green their cities and stem the tide of the climate they knew was on the way.

The piece touches on the economic impacts that are starting to bite from climate’s anger – loss of tourism, as visitors vomit in the streets and refuse to leave their hotels in daylight, falling patronage in bars and restaurants and holiday makers choosing Norway or Iceland instead of the sun-soaked locales.

The economists

Serious economists are starting to voice concern about the likely hits to GDPs from failing food crops, work that can’t be done because it’s simply too hot, and that’s before the costs of weather extremes are taken into account.

The immigrants…or refugees

Then there’s the political “scourge” of immigrants, or climate refugees, that have recently been revealed to be the biggest underlying issue in the anger driving One Nation.

You’ve got to say those immigration fear mongers “ain’t seen nothin’ yet”.

Readers of The Fifth Estate’s early days will recall we cited Defence Department research way back then that said we could expect multiple millions of climate refugees landing on our doorstep before too long.

The bad advice

But many people are in a kind of shock about how fast and furious the climate has turned.

In our view that’s because the forecasts have been dumbed down and the climate deniers handed power in spades.

Partly it’s the sadly emasculated International Panel on Climate Change that was bullied into publishing more politically innocuous climate forecasts, after the nutty professors of climate denial gleefully swooped on a mistake on climate reporting linked to the University of East Anglia, later proved to be unfounded.

See a report about the IPCC from The Club of Rome

The short versions are known as a Summary for Policymakers (SPMs) and are subject to political vetting. In this most recent instance, amongst many examples, Saudi Arabia vetoed a proposal saying that burning fossil fuels was the main cause of human-caused climate warming, despite the overwhelming evidence. Truthfulness was no defence in a room of climate diplomats.

There is a long history of such interventions, so whereas the long or full IPCC reports of research findings are written by scientists, the SPMs are voted and vetoed line-by-line by political delegates appointed by the 195 nations which comprise the IPCC.

The free marketeers

Meanwhile the entire free market world cocks a snook at the same people who will cop the first wave of the avalanches, wildfires, or killer heat waves, probably while they kit out their underground bunkers or hire private armies to keep their food supplies safe.

The prime minister under the bus, along with the rest of us

In Aus, safe, lovely Aus, we’ll grimace and thank our lucky stars it’s not our turn… yet.

Our prime minister Anthony Albanese is not helping us stay that way.

He’s become yet another infuriating politician who’s allowed himself to be tossed under the bus by the same people who did it to Queensland. On the same Thursday morning as the Nepalese disaster, he endorsed Crisafulli’s support for coal to power data centres. Having just kissed the feet of the mining industry with his recent taxpayer windfall handed to Western Australia.

As one person at our Big Debate on Carbon Triggers on Tuesday night put it – he’s swapped 100 votes for 10. Good work Albo.

The Age of Anger

So given all those climate triggers it felt like exactly the right cadence when a new series of creative commons articles dropped into our in box this week – all about anger. They are thanks to a new publishing agreement between Andrew Jaspan who founded The Conversation and investigative journalist Anthony Klan from The Klaxon.

The series is called the Age of Anger.

Among the first batch is a piece by Alan Gamlen, professor and director of the Migration Hub at the Australian National University (ANU). He says, in part, that the anger is driven by “the escalating costs of climate change, widening inequality, trade wars, artificial intelligence and a punishing cost-of-living crunch.

“Against this backdrop of uncertainty, anger and disillusionment, a simple story has taken hold: it is all the fault of immigrants.”

Again.

The solutions

We know it’s not healthy to tip over into anger but now again if you don’t let off steam it will somehow find its way out and become manifest in more destructive methods.

Check what the previously silent majority is doing around the world by unleashing anger on immigrants, regardless of the actual causes of their woes.

What we need now is a counter anger on behalf of the planet, the people in the front line of climate damage, and for every beautiful thing we value.

We are not alone.

There’s hope that in some parts of the world – most importantly in the US – the growing number of people who realise that anger is best extracted with a cool head and along with college educated grads who’ve traditionally skewed right, they’re forming political resistance and starting to elect – hold the front page – people from the left.

See Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class by Noam Scheiber and a podcast with the author here

They’ve been dubbed the “educated, poor and very disappointed” because they are failing to find decent well paying jobs. The Talent Disrupted report found that 45 per cent of grads remained underemployed in poor paying service jobs 10 years after graduation.

They are even stoking a resurgence of labour movements (or unions in Aus).

The hope is those college grads are smart enough to include climate in the crusade for their future.

Because as the world turns increasingly nasty, those immigrants One Nation supporters are so focused on as the root cause of their problems, will be the tip of a melting iceberg.