Issue 31 - Climate Change, Covid, and Fascism - Part 1

Welcome to issue 31, the barn burner. This issue is not a light one, although it is about the light. As in the light at the end of the tunnel.

This is the kind of thing one needs at the end of February, where for many of us in the Northern hemisphere, it’s been cold, dark, and miserable. Not just the weather, but politics, economics, and the foreseeable future.

So let’s talk about climate change, covid, and fascism; why these topics are intrinsically linked, and why we need to address them if we want to move forward, if we want to get past them.

Two are crises, two are already with us, two of these we can resist, two we need to adapt to; we cannot ignore any of them. Our ongoing manufactured ignorance of these subjects is fostering a false inevitability that denies our power, our agency, and consequently, debilitates our democracy.

But first, a word from this issue’s sponsor:

Climate Change is Not A Crisis

A crisis is something that has an end. It can be resolved, it can be addressed and overcome. Unfortunately, that’s not climate change. Climate change does not have an end, the way that ageing does not technically end. Even after death, your body continues to age, quite rapidly even, although that is of little concern to the dead.

Climate change is already having a tremendous impact on the living, and we need to be radically rethinking how we live, and how we have to adapt.

This past Sunday it was -15°C on the farm, today the forecast is +13°C. Wednesday night forecasts -10°C. Friday +2°C and Saturday +9°C. The average high here for the end of Feb is -2°C and the average low is -11°C. What we’re seeing is not only wild swings, but swings that are getting hotter and hotter. The impact this has on the animals and forest is notable and significant.

The impact it is having on humans is also substantive. Climate anxiety is real and spreading. The health effects from heat are growing, and 2024 is going to be a year of unprecedented heat, drought, and most likely, forest fires.

So what are we collectively doing about? How are we as a society adapting?

Perhaps we should start by acknowledging this is not a crisis. This is our future, and how difficult it becomes depends on what we, as a society, do now.

Unfortunately our concept of what we can and should do is shrouded in mythology and ignorance. While we may collectively have a sense of what is happening and why, we do not collectively have a sense of what is possible and why. The future doesn’t have to be scary, it doesn’t have to be a dystopia, but if we maintain the status quo, it sure as shit will be.

Covid and the Death of Public Health

Unfortunately our ongoing mismanagement and active ignorance of covid suggests that we’re not going to collectively respond well to climate change. Although, on the brighter side, covid is a crisis. It could have an end. Even if that end is currently nowhere in sight.

Like climate change, we need to adapt to covid, and we haven’t. Not at all. Just like electric vehicles haven’t altered our love of automobiles, a misplaced emphasis on hand washing and sterile surfaces hasn’t impacted the spread of a lethal and highly infectious pathogen.

What covid has accomplished, for better or worse, is the death of public health. The end of the idea that we should not only take care of each other, but that a society benefits from mitigating illness, injury, and disability. In its place has emerged a delusional notion of personal choice which ignores contemporary science and common sense.

The consequence is an active agnotology. This is the scholarly term for manufactured ignorance. The false belief that covid is not a threat, that it is mild, and that our immune systems will be better off from exposure.

Sadly, a more apt analogy is that covid is airborne HIV. A disease that actively erodes your immune system and attacks your organs, but most often silently. Covid induces rapid ageing and overall physical deterioration in the background, until the damage surfaces in recognizable forms: “mysterious” heart attacks, strokes, cancer, autoimmune flare ups, kidney failure, dementia, and more. Now we’re seeing increasing numbers of outbreaks of diseases like measles and TB that most of us didn’t give a second thought to only a few years ago: covid’s fingerprints are everywhere.

On the one hand, the conspiracists won, and the dominant covid narratives are deeply infected with misinformation and conspiracy. On the other hand, this state of affairs makes us conspiracists, since we believe that covid is as much of a threat as it is.

The good news, is that covid is not difficult to resist and ultimately defeat, or at least massively marginalize. Vaccines help, and certainly the innovation around vaccine tech is beneficial to all. However the real focus should be on air. Aggressively cleaning air, but also masking in some instances to ensure the air isn’t contaminated in the first place.

Why are we in year four and still not cleaning the air the way we should? The tech is easy and straight forward. Yet the threat remains invisible. Most people remain fundamentally ignorant of what is happening to them.

We need to adapt to covid. We can’t ignore it. The myths surrounding it are literally killing us.

Why 2024 is about Fascism

The resurgence of fascism is a crisis because it will end. The larger question is how much violence will it inflict before this happens. How much power can the fascists grab before they’re defeated?

Unlike the first two, we should not be adapting to fascism. We need to resist it. Yes, democracy needs to be remade, but fascism cannot be tolerated. We cannot and should not find ways to accommodate or include them in the ongoing democratic experiment.

Democracy cannot include people who do not believe in democracy. It’s a fairly straightforward principle. If you think violence is an acceptable means of making political decisions, you should not be allowed to make political decisions.

Some people think we should listen to or engage fascists. These are the same folks who think climate change deniers and covid conspiracists deserve attention and opportunity to earn credibility.

Yet fascists don’t play fair. They’re not playing fair now, and they never will. Similarly, their role and power is not marginal nor fringe. They’re now the mainstream. They own and control some of the media. They’ve got a candidate for POTUS that actually has a chance to win, either electorally or by force.

So why are we allowing this to happen? What are we collectively doing to stop it? Arguably not enough.

Why?

The Challenge of Mythology

Myths are not inherently bad. They serve a crucial role in our society, especially when it comes to sharing values and offering moral guidance. The challenge with our contemporary myths is that we rarely question or engage them at the level a democratic society requires.

Yet what will happen if we permit the fascists to continue their rise? Climate change and covid will both exist exclusively within the realm of myth. Our responses to them will be ineffective, sabotaging our ability to adapt.

Similarly, when covid and climate change only exist as myths, fascism reigns. Our fears and anxieties flourish when we try to address these threats as individuals. We can’t adapt if we try to do so alone, at least not in a manner that helps us survive these threats.

Which means that all three of these threats are intertwined. They cannot be tackled in isolation, and need to be addressed as a larger political, environmental, and health ecosystem.

How we do so, will be addressed in our next issue.

We need you

However, as an individual, there is something you can do to address these collective threats. Share this issue! Invite your friends and family to sign up. As individuals we are powerless to shape our world, but as punks, there’s nothing we can’t accomplish.