We need eloquent, charismatic and courageous leadership to avoid climate change

Leadership that is eloquent, charismatic and courageous is critical, especially if humanity is to avoid the worst of climate change.

Nature abhors a vacuum and at local, state, federal and national levels we have just that, a vacuum (mostly) of leadership that ascribes to the science that articulates the damage done by humans to Earth’s atmosphere and along with that the certain resultant catastrophic consequences.

Those who understand climate science and call for action may well be leaders in their respective fields, but are not emboldened sufficiently to step into the political arena and impress populist values with their views. It’s in colloquial terms, “not their bag”.

Leaders at most levels are simply too addicted to values and ideas that are a consequence of the energy-rich fossil fuel era and so with thinking hobbled to thoughts that humanity’s future security is unquestionably linked to profit and growth, they are unable to see that human life on Earth can be done differently.

Some leaders, of course, would like to do much more. but faced with populist opinion reinforced by myths propagated by those addicted to and entrenched in 20^th Century values and ideas, among them and primarily the fossil fuels industry and the infrastructure it has spawned, find their positions tenuous and personal political survival threatened.

“Populist” equates with democracy and although many believe we live in a democracy, it is, in fact, something else, maybe an oligarchy that sees just a few corporations (less than 150 trans-national corporations) with sophisticated public relations departments (read propaganda) that have convinced the world that what they are offering is democracy, when it is something else; something that ensures their profit and growth.

It was the Zurich-based Swiss Federal Institute of Technology that looked at 37 million companies and investors worldwide and analyzed all 43,060 transnational corporations and share ownerships linking them.

They built a model of who owns what and what their revenues are and mapped the whole edifice of economic power; a power that in reality will have be challenged and unseated if the world is to ever address climate change.

Those 147 trans-national corporations have pulled some remarkably effective and influential strings, but they have overlooked one, and probably the most important, nature.

It’s a power they can not control and unless they are prepared to listen to the “eloquent, charismatic and courageous” the edifice they have built on fossil fuels will soon come crashing down.