Addendum 3 _ Our planet is like the Titanic

Addendum 3

Planet Titanic

Sometimes it feels like we're all stuck on our very own Titanic. Our ship [our planet] is making water [is heating up], but we’re not really worried. After all, we think and believe this ship can’t sink. Also, there are technicians on board [innovators who develop green technologies] who claim to be able to close the holes in the ship. They are, however, not quite sure about this [many technologies have yet to be developed] and they do not know whether there will be enough time to carry out the repairs before the ship runs full of water and sinks [before the earth warms up more than 2° C]. The captain [politics] thinks that everything will be fine and simply continues to follow the current route [they simply continue the current socio-economic policies].

In the meantime, the band continues to play on deck [we, citizens, continue to be entertained]. The question now is this: what do we, the passengers [the citizens of this world], do? Do we trust that everything will be fine and so, do we continue like before? Or are we going to roll up our sleeves and take action?

For example, we could join hands and make a chain of people to pour water out of the ship’s hold with buckets. We could also throw unnecessary ballast overboard as much as possible so that the ship doesn’t continue to sink that fast. Or do we do nothing and instead go back to sunbathing, trusting the experts [the innovators and politicians] will get the job done in time. But what if we could make the boat lighter by throwing ballast overboard [consume less] and scooping water from the hold [realize new sustainable ideas]? What if the boat began to sink more slowly as a result, which might also give the technicians some extra time to close the cracks...

Perhaps, together, we [citizens and innovators and politicians] can prevent our ship from sinking with all hands. We should also consider that the situation is not the same for everyone. The passengers who have a cabin above the water line [the developed countries], are in more luck: they’ll be able to hold out longer. But the majority of passengers [the developing countries] are far less fortunate: because they can only afford a cabin below the waterline, they’ll be inundated firstly [they’ll experience the consequences of global warming firstly and more fiercely]. The more water our Titanic makes [the more our planet heats up], the less habitable it will become for everyone. Passengers from the lower decks of the ship [the people in the developing countries] will be hit first and hardest. Out of necessity, they will start to move to the upper decks of the ship [to the developed countries]. Because of that, the situation on the upper decks will deteriorate quicker and soon all passengers [all inhabitants of our planet] will be worse off.

We only have one ship [one earth], we can’t dock anywhere else [there is no planet B]. The reality is: we are all in this together [every citizen of the planet, in the developed as well as the developing countries]. If we do not want to perish, or end up in some apocalyptic scenario, we should all to take action.

After all, the challenge is multifaceted: the holes in the hull of the ship [global warming] can sink the ship [make the planet unliveable]. But before that happens, the relocation of large groups of passengers from the lower cabins [flows of refugees and immigrants from the developing countries] will make the situation at the top [the developed countries] less viable at an accelerated pace. Whether we are still on time to prevent large passenger movements or remedy the complete sinking of the ship [whether we can still avoid a catastrophic global warming that turns the planet into an inhospitable environment for just about all life on Earth] is not really relevant.

Doing something is better than doing nothing. Going under while the band continues to play on deck: that’s not who we are or want to be.

Relying solely on the captain [the politicians] and the technicians [the innovators] to lead us to safer waters is too risky. We must all chip in. When each of us picks up a bucket and begins to clear water from the hull according to our capabilities, we – passengers [ordinary citizens], captains [politicians] and technicians [innovators of green technologies] – have a better chance of trying to keep the boat afloat. That could give us the extra time we need to repair what can be repaired and make the ship seaworthy again for the next generations. We need all hands on deck!