Not In My Backyard

Dr. Munr Kazmir
3 min readMay 18, 2019

Everyone wants to save the environment but no one wants to pay for it.

This march in London on 29 November was held as part of a series of rallies worldwide prior to the Paris climate change talks. Activists want decisive action to limit the rise in average global temperature to 2 degrees celcius above pre-industrial levels. (Alisdare Hickson)

Landfills? Absolutely. Gotta have ’em. Our trash has to go somewhere, right? No question about that. And we sure make a lot of it.

A landfill in the woods behind my house, you say? Blasphemy! Sacrilege! Desiccation! Destruction! Fire! Fever! Murder!

How about your backyard, instead?

Everybody (else)

Most people want to save the environment. Sure, why not? As long as it doesn’t inconvenience them personally.

Higher taxes, fewer hard-earned dollars available for things like rent and food, is certainly an inconvenience. More so for some than for others.

It is an unfortunate irony of the environmental movement that the world’s poorest are the most adversely affected by climate change, and society’s poorest are the most adversely affected by its solutions.

In European countries, even in Canada where the once-beloved Justin Trudeau is now experiencing deep polling trouble, and in other countries that have tried such measures, high carbon-offset taxes have hit the working class, the lower-income, the disadvantaged, the elderly, the differently-abled, and those living at or under the poverty line the hardest.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Cause and Effect

Around the world, the backlash over economically heavy-handed climate change policies that have proven too expensive for the working class in countries across the globe continues unabated.

That these policies have also failed to address climate change, or that climate change can never be addressed globally without the willing cooperation of China and India, isn’t winning any converts either.

From the months-long, well-publicized yellow vest protests in France to today’s Australian election upset, voters are rejecting well-meant but misguided efforts to save the planet from the peril of human beings.

In spite of polls that predicted a victory of Australia’s liberal political party, the conservative party has claimed victory.

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