The Murray Andersen Syndrome – of #climate memory-holes, farces and doom (natch)

No, not that Murray Anderson. No, not that one either.
Let me describe it to you, and see if you can figure it out for yourself. Stuff embeds better that way anyhow.

In reverse order. (drum roll please)

Everybody secretly knows that the game is rigged, the war is over, that the fine words and fripperies and fineries describe – nothing, a phantasm. Unless you are a complete imbecilic coward (and they do exist), you have seen it and have to suppress it, for reasons of career/mortgage/the same old story.

That’s bad enough, that in this terminal phase of human history, we are too scared to break out and call it like it is.

But even worse. EVERY DAY WE WAKE UP AND IT IS THE SAME. We have seen this movie before. We saw this movie (the climate movie- it’s always about the climate these days) from 2006 (An Inconvenient Truth) through to the joke of Copenhagen. (2009) We saw it from Hansen to the Senate committee (1988) through to Rio (1992). We saw it (or read about other people seeing it from Santa Barbara (1969) through to Stockholm (1972). And now we are seeing it with Greta and the 1.5 (late 2018) through to… well, probably the Glasgow Shitshow (Nov 2020).

There’s preening, and promising and posturing. There’s hopium pipes being sucked, and a conga line of con artists, throwing out glossy reports, pathways, roadmaps.

We saw this movie. We know how it plays, how it ends. Over and over.

So, “can you tell what it is yet”, as I am no longer allowed to say?

It’s the horror of Groundhog Day (Bill Murray) where every day, instead of Punk-so- tawny Phil we are treated instead to the Freaking Naked Emperor (Hans Christian Andersen), with his zero carbon this and his sustainable that, as he parades through town and everyone looks at each other during the Two Minutes Love (yeah, mixing it up now) and … applauds wildly.  Nothing to see here… move along.

FFS.

This is not a comedy. Or a dramedy. This is a farce.  We could have been better than this.  Instead we’re just a bunch of planet-trashing shaved monkeys with opposable thumbs.