That I couldn't push last week because of Donald Trump.
Hundreds of deaths in Valencia following dramatic floods which ravaged the city. Scenes of desolation. Families who have lost everything. Billions of euros in damage. Realize it. The region is asking 31.4 billion in aid from the Spanish government to rebuild housing, buy back vehicles, etc. 30 billion is more than the region's annual budget.
How many deaths and disasters will it take for us to wake up collectively? So that we stop accepting the unacceptable in a kind of limp lethargy?
Because the scale of these floods does not come from nowhere. The link is proven, established with global warming. Yes but who said it? And above all who heard it?
Can you imagine what reaction the news channels and political leaders would have had if a terrorist attack had left more than 220 dead? For the record, the abject massacre at the Bataclan left 130 victims. The one against Charlie Hebdo, 12.
Yes, but you will tell me it had nothing to do with it. We were attacked.
Certainly.
And, in this specific case, it was easy to designate an enemy, an attacker, to mobilize popular emotion. To construct a story hammered out hundreds of times in all media, for days and days. Our freedom of expression, our way of life was threatened by dangerous Islamist radicals. Madmen of God ready to kill in cold blood. We had to defend ourselves, unite behind our political representatives. All over the world, countries have raised French flags and lit up their buildings in our colors. Thus, 4 million people took to the streets of France (including me) to demonstrate their anger, their solidarity with the victims and their loved ones, their attachment to a free press, to the values of tolerance and secularism.
And for Valencia?
For Valencia nothing, or almost.
For what ?
Do the Bataclan deaths deserve more consideration?
Non.
But in this case, another narrative is at work.
It's a natural disaster. So. Natural. It's bad luck.
So of course, in Valencia anger is growing, against the authorities who underestimated the violence of the phenomenon. Who refused foreign aid (that of French firefighters for example). Who were not sufficiently prepared to withstand these torrential rains. The king received stones during his official visit. Of course, thousands of people came to help the victims armed with brooms and rubber boots (and it was heartwarming). But are we mobilizing collectively against those responsible for this situation? No. Because in the account given of the events, no culprit is designated.
However, we could consider, here too, that we are attacked.
By an organized gang that is disrupting the climate.
Which threatens our ways of life.
Which plunges us into a future where these tragic floods will be infinitely more frequent and will cause deaths. As they are already causing deaths today.
Where heatwaves will regularly cause extreme and potentially fatal heat waves. As they are already causing victims today. (For the record, thousands of people have been killed in India, Pakistan, Mexico and Mecca in recent months, due to the consequences of global warming). Where people will die from lack of food. Because climate disruption will disrupt our agricultural systems.
And not temporarily. Forever.
But you already know all that.
So isn't it time for millions to say stop?
Isn't it time to mobilize to stop these criminals?
Starting by naming them: the fossil fuel multinationals who have lied for years, falsified studies to sow doubt on the reality of climate change and protect their financial interests, the big banks which finance them, the governments which continue to favor their deadly activities, the giants of petrochemicals, plastics, extraction and so on.
Yes, it's time.
To stop voting for them.
To stop working for them.
To stop giving them our money.
To disarm them.
And to build a world where we will no longer need them.
