Copenhagen Dreaming

As I write this the headline on the BBC website reads, ‘Climate Talks Stall Amid Protests.’ It has certainly been an enlightening week for those who doubted our (world) leaders ability to come to any form of consensus regarding a united effort to combat climate change. It has been even more enlightening for those who anticipated the corporate footsoldiers that are the Danish police to be as repressive, if not more so, than their counterparts in Britain.

However, it is interesting to compare the events in Copenhagen (or Hopenhagen as it has been so optimistically named,) with the themes put forward by this weeks Torah portion. http://www.chabad.org/parshah/torahreading_cdo/aid/15556

This weeks Parsha deals with dreams, specifically the dreams of Pharoah that come to be interpreted by Josef as a prediction of an impending famine. However, unlike Pharoah, we do not need to rely on the supernatural influence of dreams to predict the potential ecological downfall that awaits us. Let us for the sake of this blog, assume that climate change is a real threat, not some left-wing conspiracy inducted in order to usher in the one-world socialist government as so many would care to argue.

If the threat of climate change is real then we can look to the actions undertaken by Pharoah as a loose guide on how to react. World leaders seem to be arguing that the threat of climate change is not worth sacrificing economic viability for, however, as Shakespeare famously suggested, ‘all the world is a stage and all the men and women merely players.’ We cannot expect to continue this production, currently running in its 5770th season if the theatre has been closed down due to the stage falling through.

Pharoah’s first act after hearing Josef’s interpretation of the dream is to ‘appoint officials to prepare the land of Egypt during the seven years of plenty.’ The key word in this sentence is ‘prepare.’ They say that prevention is better than the cure and although the time to prevent climate change seems to have passed, (possibly decades or centuries ago,) preparation comes in as a close second. Unfortunately, with the world experiencing an economic downturn it seems that the proverbial ‘seven years of plenty,’ may also have passed too soon.

The fact is that the transition to a cleaner economy will not be easy. The parsha states that ‘in the seven years of plenty, the inhabitants gathered food by handfuls.’ The work here was not mechanized, it was arduous and manual. Likewise, our transition to a cleaner, carbon-free economy will require cutbacks and a genuine effort. Anything any politician says will not help a jot if individuals and nations are not prepared to put in the work required. To refer back to the Shakespeare, money, industry and consumerism as a whole become worthless if there is no place left to enjoy it.

Furthermore, the potential for opportunity cannot be overstated. Josef, at the beginning of the Parshah has no stake in society, he is the lowest of the low, imprisoned and forgotten in the bowels of Egypt’s jails. Yet he becomes second in Egypt only to Pharoah himself. Likewise, we as a planet, now have the opportunity and motivation to remake our world in a cleaner, more sustainable fashion. Many, many years ago at primary school, we were lucky enough to have a weekly singing assembly, where the entire infant school would sing along (accompanied by a teacher on the piano,) to songs including the classic ‘you are my sunshine,’ Simon and Garfunkels ‘bright eyes’ and the song of ‘the Banyan tree.’ The lyrics for these songs I have mostly forgotten however one tune still hangs clear in my mind.

The lyrics went something like this;

‘Milk bottle tops and paper bags
Iron bedsteads, dirty old rags,
litter on the pavement
paper in the park
Is this what we (CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP)
want to see? (clap clap clap clap)
No ! No! No!

Old plastic bottles, silver foil ,
chocolate wrapping , Engine oil,
rubbish in the gutter, junk upon the beach,
Is this what we
(CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP)
want to see?
(CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP)
NO! NO! NO!

Help us , lord , to find each day
Ways to help to keep away
That litter off the pavement,
That rubbish off the beach.
For this is what we
(CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP)
want to see.
(CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP)
Yes! Yes! Yes!’

Ultimately, this song sums up the crux of the matter. To most of the protesters currently standing out in the Copenhagen cold, the threat of total planetary destruction is a million miles away. Far more pressing is a desire to simply clean up the planet, to reel in the boundless and immoral capitalist force that has desecrated so many of the planet’s beautiful places and creatures. Now that the political will for a green future has begun to emerge, the public have seized upon it because it is the first genuine potential for a change in direction and ideology since the 1960’s. Two centuries of constantly accelerating consumerism have spawned a devil far more dangerous than the carbon emissions themselves and that is the apathy of the public up until recent years regarding their own connection to this planet. Now, people are beginning to question the consumerist mantra of man over nature. We are realising, like Pharoah had to accept, that we are not Ra, Lord of Creation. In fact, we are a highly fragile part of that creation and as such we must work with it, and not continue to try and dominate it. We all have the potential to be Josef, to remake our own kingdom of the sun in such a manner that the heat of the sun will not destroy our wonderful kingdom.

Like Pharoah did, we must realize that we already have the answers to deal with impending ecological disaster, these ideas just need to be drawn forth from the vast wealth that drives our dreams and imagination. Even if the climate change argument turned out to be a carefully orchestrated conspiracy, would it not be simply nicer to live in this world if it was a little bit cleaner? Climate skepticism simply masks a laziness to commit to a better, more sustainable future.