Quote of the Day

Incremental change can never develop the transformation which is required in situations like this. . . . It just does not deliver. The only thing that delivers quickly and effectively is system change.

And while we have been messing about with these ridiculous micro-solutions, the [extreme] right has instituted a global insurgency and has achieved system change. It’s tearing down democracy. It’s tearing down equality before the law. It’s tearing down basic human rights, tearing down regulations, tearing down tax, ripping down everything and changing the system to suit billionaires, to suit oligarchs, to suit predatory corporations. While we’ve been saying, “Oh, yes, we’re worried about asking for too much,” they’ve said, “We’re going to have the lot.” And they’re succeeding.

So, what [the extreme right has proved] is that you can do system change. Unfortunately, [they’ve proved] it in all the most horrible ways. And our timidity, our failure to demand [another form of] system change has been a big part of the reason why we are stuck where we are and why there’s been almost no effective measures to address this greatest of all crises.

– George Monbiot
Excerpted from "Paper Straws Are Not Enough.
Only ‘System Change’ Can Halt Climate Crisis"
Democracy Now!
July 21, 2022

Related Off-site Links:
“It’s Already Happening”: Ugandan Activist Vanessa Nakate on Deadly Climate Crisis in Africa – Democracy Now!) July 21, 2022).
Bill McKibben: Record Heat Wave in Europe Is Latest Warning That Action on Climate Can’t Wait – Democracy Now!) July 18, 2022).
Disappointed by Climate Speech, Activists Say People Are Dying “While Biden Dithers” – Jessica Corbett (Common Dreams, July 20, 2022).
Climate Emergency! – Marianne Williamson in Conversation With Climate Scientist Peter Kalmus – Transform (via YouTube), April 22, 2022.
Activists Blockade Corporate Newspapers Over Inadequate Climate Coverage – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, April 22, 2022).
We Can’t Solve the Climate Crisis With a Broken Democracy – Mark Hertsgaard (The Guardian, January 10, 2022).

UPDATES: The World Burns and the Richest Profit. It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way – Adam Ramsay (Common Dreams, July 24, 2022).
Climate Endgame: Risk of Human Extinction “Dangerously Underexplored” – Damian Carrington (The Guardian, August 1, 2022).
Giant Earth and Half a Million Signatures Demand Biden Declare “Climate Emergency” – Jessica Corbett (Common Dreams, August 2, 2022).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• “It Is in Our Hands”
• Declaration of Interdependence
• Earth Day 2022
• Biophilia, the God Pan, and a Baboon Named Scott
• Bernie Sanders: Quote of the Day – July 1, 2021
• The Stakes Have Shifted
• Examining the Link Between Destruction of Biodiversity and Emerging Infectious Diseases
• The Landscape Is a Mirror
• Something to Think About – February 10, 2020
• In Australia, “the Land As We Know It Is No More”
• Greta Thunberg: Quote of the Day – September 23, 2019
• Five Powerful Responses to the Amazon Fires
• Greta Thunberg: Quote of the Day – March 16, 2019
• As the World Burns, Calls for a “Green New Deal”
• Thomas Moore on the Circling of Nature as the Best Way to Find Our Substance
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – August 29, 2017
• The People’s Climate Solidarity March – Minneapolis, 4/29/17
• “It Is All Connected”
• Standing Together
• Standing in Prayer and Solidarity with the Water Protectors of Standing Rock
• The Paris Climate Talks, Multilateralism, and a “New Approach to Climate Action”
• Earth Day 2015
• Thomas Berry (1914-2009)
• Rachel Smolker: Quote of the Day – September 19, 2014
• Earth Day 2013
• Superstorm Sandy: A “Wake-Up Call” on Climate Change
• Chris Hedges: Quote of the Day – May 31, 2011

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