Everyone, I need you to drop whatever you are doing and listen to what I am about to say. For what I bring to you today is news of an extremely important, heretofore unthinkable revelation. I hope you are ready, and that you are sitting down or otherwise properly secured so as to prevent shock induced fainting.
Ok, here we go.
According to this new report, if the problems caused by climate change get as bad as a lot of smart people say they could, rich people will look after themselves and basically say to hell with everyone else. Have you got that? People with the ability to do so are going to save their own skins and leave the rest of us to starve and burn and die.
I know, I know. I am as shocked as you are. But I can assure you that this is absolutely true. This report was paid for. With Money. Money that surely could have been better spent planting some trees or on any number of other things that might actually be kinda helpful if shit ever goes down. I mean come on. Anyone with an honest bone in his body and two brain cells to rub together knows this. Wealthy business people, by and large, are not looking out for you and I. Never have, never will.
The world is on course for “climate apartheid,” where the rich buy their way out of the worst effects of global warming while the poor bear the brunt, a UN human rights report said on Tuesday.
The report, submitted to the UN Human Rights Council by its special rapporteur on extreme poverty, Philip Alston, said business was supposed to play a vital role in coping with climate change, but could not be relied on to look after the poor.
“An over-reliance on the private sector could lead to a climate apartheid scenario in which the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger, and conflict, while the rest of the world is left to suffer,” he wrote.
He cited vulnerable New Yorkers being stranded without power or healthcare when Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012, while “the Goldman Sachs headquarters was protected by tens of thousands of its own sandbags and power from its generator.”
Relying exclusively on the private sector to protect against extreme weather and rising seas “would almost guarantee massive human rights violations, with the wealthy catered to and the poorest left behind,” he wrote.