When impotence results from decisions renewed from year to year, with full knowledge of the facts, can we still speak of impotence? No. The authorities are fully aware of what awaits us. The IPCC, whose function is to submit a report to governments every five to seven years on the evolution of scientific knowledge regarding climate change, was created in 1988 by and for governments.
There is even an ad hoc High Council in France. In addition, the rise in extreme weather events, here and internationally, has been dizzying since Macron’s first five-year term. Starting in 2018, we experienced repeated heatwaves in France, with a peak of 46 degrees at the end of June 2019 in a village in Hérault; fires which in 2022 exceeded previous standards in Gironde; repeated droughts and floods. Etc.
Political cynicism
The astonishment of the President of the Republic in 2022 – “Who could have predicted? » – like his announcement during the last presidential campaign – “My second five-year term will be ecological or it will not be” – are a mixture of cynicism and demonetization of public speech.
The facts confirm this. Both the adaptation of our infrastructures and the reduction of our emissions constitute long-term anticipatory actions, covering a gigantic project. Avoiding helplessness would have required acting before disasters struck. But that is neither what we did, nor even what we are doing. France has reduced its carbon emissions by 2% per year over the last two years, whereas it would be appropriate to reduce them annually by 6% to achieve European objectives.
The adaptation of public buildings is being carried out at a snail’s pace and more at the initiative of certain local authorities. Planting vegetation is vital for urban resistance to heat waves, but the longer we delay, the more young trees struggle to survive heatwaves. For the private sector, MaPrimeRénov’ is under severe budgetary constraints.
A destructive supply policy
Macron’s massive tree planting plan is an ecological and climatic disaster: it gives rise not to an increase in forest cover, but to the destruction of old forests in favor of single-species industrial silvicultural plantations, harmful to biodiversity and very sensitive to droughts and fires. The agricultural modernization law is yet another ecological and health disaster, it also flouts the legitimate concern of the French about the rise in cancers on the national territory. Etc.
This is so because the priorities and directions of public action are contradictory with the preservation of the climate, and more generally that of life on Earth. Public support goes to destructive economic activities such as the extractive activities of TotalEnergies or conventional agriculture. More generally, public action under Macron was limited to a supply-side policy encouraging an economic model that is in itself ecologically destructive.
I will remind you that 7 out of 9 planetary boundaries have been crossed. This is indeed an anchored choice, supported in each budget and by the adoption of multiple laws. Macron’s two five-year terms notably gave rise to a weakening of environmental protection and a rise in socio-economic inequalities. No helplessness, but an orientation renewed from year to year.
Failing example
In my eyes, this is primarily a moral fault. Almost ten years of public policies deaf to the “clamors of the poor and those of the Earth”. That millions of people are suffocating in thermal sieves, that hospitals are abandoned and unsuitable for heat waves, that tens of thousands of domestic or wild animals die, that landscapes turn yellow or brown at the end of June, that rivers dry up, will be forgotten during the next electoral elections.
Why would the government care since voters are eyeing a candidate for whom the IPCC “exaggerates” and who has supported all possible anti-ecological and anti-social measures in the European Parliament? We actually have a problem of cynicism and failing exemplary behavior from political and techno-economic elites. Everything is happening a bit as if since the election of Trump 2, everything was permitted.
His own vice-president admits that an affair like Watergate would no longer attract media attention. Trump’s enrichment or use of the judiciary and law enforcement for personal vengeance is astounding. The people and their suffering, the future of life on Earth, have no importance. We can always go with Musk to Mars! It is up to us, people from below, to choose, on the contrary, individually and politically, fragile and “magnificent” humanity, and not moral dregs.
About opinions
This text is signed by a guest author. He expresses his opinion and not that of the editorial staff. Our Live section aims to allow the expression of pluralism on religious, social and current affairs subjects, and to encourage dialogue, according to the criteria set by our editorial charter.
Share your opinion in comments or by writing to us at: readers.lacroix@groupebayard.com
