My Bright Friend (MBF) made the “obvious” – but not banal – point that social movements are not used to ticking clocks, to the concept of it being – at some point – Simply Too Late. She means that social justice movements (which have been around quite a while, depending on how you count), as distinct from radical ecological movements (a Novel Thing), know their issues (poverty, homelessness, racisms, sexisms, etc) have been around a very long time, and will in all probability (Millennium Development Goals notwithstanding) will be for a “long time”* to come. So, there will always be another bite at the cherry, another round of policy struggles, movement-buildings…
Ecological activists – who have watched with complacency/impotent horror/everything-else-between these last thirty or so years, while the species has been stomping as hard as it can on the accelerator while ignoring the brake pedal – understand that the scale/speed of desecration, of destruction, is new, and that once something is gone, it doesn’t come back. What’s done is done, as the lady said, it cannot be undone….
But what some individuals understand and what “their” institutions and organisations do are two different things.
We just aren’t smart enough. We’re toast.
* Or not. I’m told the weather on Venus is quite unpleasant at this time of year.
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