In an overpopulated world, the selfish choice is to reproduce. This is especially so in the US, where the resources used per person are so high.
By deciding not to have children, I gained the opportunity to put my effort into something that would make the world better.
Even eliminating tariffs and quotas is harmful. Past “free trade” treaties have undermined democracy: by making it easy for companies to switch production from one country to another, they enable companies to threaten governments. Companies say, “Protect the environment, the climate, public health, workers’ rights, or the general standard of living, and we will move to another country.”
To make it easier to protect those important things, we need to make it harder for companies to shift production. Any further “free trade” policies are a step in the wrong direction.
I suggest that climate defense protesters disregard the ban and march in Paris anyway, defying the state to arrest them.
The French state has banned the rallies in the name of “safety” from a hypothetical terrorist attack that might hurt, at worst, a tiny fraction of the protesters. Climate mayhem is expected to kill hundreds of MILLIONS of people. (See http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/25/climate-inaction-idINDEE88O0HH20120925.)
Climate defense protests aim to prevent some of those deaths. What folly it is, to abandon millions to impending doom so as to block thousands from voluntarily taking a small risk!
I suggest that protesters say, “We have a sense of proportion even if the French state does not. We recognize that the purely hypothetical danger to a few of us is insignificant compared with the hundreds of millions of killings that global heating is on track to cause. It is our duty to march, and as we do our duty, it is the French state’s duty to cooperate.”
If you rally in Paris on Nov 29, you may strengthen your resolve by singing the chant du 29 November, stallman.org/articles/chant-du-29-novembre.html.
