Dystopian Billionaires Are Riding the Climate Tiger!

My column in Illuminem: January 19, 2023

https://illuminem.com/illuminemvoices/c8f9d9e8-3452-4f9b-b5c0-decdfc362168

Threatened by their own actions the new breed of billionaires now wish to burrow where they can sustain themselves and the progeny. The prospects of a doomsday haunts them.

When Bezos announced he was going to space, many people joked that he should stay there. The problems of the world that he is working towards escaping were created by rich people just like him. I draw these excerpts from Hamilton Nolan‘s excellent feature for The Guardian.

It is not a coincidence that the richest people in America are funding a new space race. They are not motivated by a love of technology, or even a belief in the universe as a business opportunity. Let’s call this what it is: they are making plans to get the hell out of here, says Hamilton. In the same way that every good billionaire has an armored escape room in each home and a helicopter on call to whisk them away from any sinking yacht, so too do they expect to have a way off Earth if things go bad here. It may sound absurd to us, the little people without an Ultra Success Mindstate, who have accepted that our fate is bound to the fate of this planet. But it is perfectly in line with the sort of thinking that drives men to become billionaires in the first place.

Looming climate change disaster – he says – is not a reason to come together and recognize that our destinies are linked with those of all living things; rather, it is a sign that the time has come to build the escape vehicle.

The very behaviour and lifestyle that gets them the billions, also ensures their dystopic ways. They seem to be good at sensing what next. Ain’t it a self fulfilling prophecy, afterall?