Suzanne Harrington: Destroying stuff for war or profit or both — always the same stupid outcome
This satellite image provided by Planet Labs PBC shows an overview of the damage on the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine on Tuesday, June 6, 2023. Ukraine accused Russian forces Tuesday of blowing up the Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power station on the Dnieper River in an area that Moscow controls, while Russian officials blamed Ukrainian bombardment in the contested area. It was not possible to verify the claims. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
“Remind me to never blow up one of your dams,” Daughter says, when she asks why I am slamming pots into cupboards and bashing knives on chopping boards so early in the morning.
It’s those images of the Ukrainian dam, deliberately blown up, all that precious water flooding the land around it, drowning out the houses, the communities. A deliberate ecological disaster, its destruction so much worse than the localised rubble caused by bombs; there is something so gargantuanly criminal, so profligate, so wanton about this latest offensive.
Offensive in every sense. Ten thousand homes flooded. Offensively stupid, offensively wasteful. Enraging. That lunatic Bond villain in the Kremlin and his ridiculous generals, giving orders to blow up water, to wash away land. Men destroying stuff, ruining lives and peace of mind. As usual. Like always. For war or profit or both — always the same stupid, stupid outcome. Destruction.
“Are you triggered,” deadpans Daughter.
Yes, I bloody am.
Bad enough when disastrous floods happen because of manmade climate change, or vast swathes of beautiful landscape burn to a crisp because of manmade climate change — but to deliberately cause a flood, because someone ordered it — I have no words.
“Just don’t think about it,” Daughter says.
She says that if she allowed herself to think about the state of the world and all that’s happening in it, she would go mad; so she blanks it out, and focuses on what’s in front of her. Like what’s for breakfast, or wondering if she will ever be able to afford to move out of home. Or ever dare to have kids herself one day.
It’s all connected, I tell her.
“Thanks,” she eye-rolls. “I know.”
Like most of her peers, Daughter is a card-carrying member of Generation Woke. She went to her first march aged two, protesting the invasion of Iraq with 1.5 million others, and dozens more since, from climate strikes to BLM rallies; she volunteered at the Calais Jungle aged 15, joined Corbyn’s Labour Party aged 16. She’s already disillusioned. Imagine being disillusioned at 22.
“We could go on all the marches and sign all the petitions and nothing will change,” she says. “Nothing. It just gets worse.”
Which is exactly what They, the overlords, want — populations so preoccupied with the price of cheese and unaffordable housing to never have the headspace to get organised and take action. And when people do take action, the media billionaires go into divisive overdrive, presenting climate activists as the enemy of the people, rather than as terrified individuals desperate to wake the rest of us up.
Instead, we sit back and let Greta do it. We put her on magazine covers, erect that Fearless Girl statue on Wall Street. And nothing changes. Botoxed Russian tyrants, orange American narcissists, sportswashing Saudi despots, Australian media billionaires, Space-Karen Twitter billionaires, posh British-Asian billionaires, all the greedy power-crazed men. Unfettered, unchecked. Wrecking the joint, legally stealing everything.
“Look at this hamster eating spaghetti on TikTok,” says Daughter, scrolling.
Because that’s where we are now. Distracting ourselves with online rodents.
