Politicians are not bothered about climate change because we are not
The publicity for the Peoples’ Climate March this Sunday, at which hundreds of thousands of people in 150 countries will protest for a positive outcome to the UN Climate Summit in Paris, positions “the people” against “the politicians”.
“We can’t wait for our leaders to solve the problem. Unless they feel serious public pressure, they’ll never go far enough or fast enough”, wrote Ricken Patel, of lobby group, Avaaz, in The Guardian. “Revolutions start with people, not politicians.” Except the problem is that politicians are people. In democracies, they are the people elected by the people. Politicians haven’t prioritised keeping the increase in temperature, which is driven by greenhouse gas emissions, to two degrees above 1990 levels because we haven’t. We, the people.
