The Useful Approaches to Climate Change

I initially tried to record this as a podcast but the audio got deleted, so be eternally grateful you didn't hear my weird child voice trying to do a Radio 4 impression.

Essentially, there are 2 useful approaches to climate change:

1. Trying to do something about it
2. Partying while the world ends

You can mix and match these approaches as you wish:

• Go vegan during the week and hold fondue parties on the weekend
• Alternate writing letters to your MP with writing erotic fanfiction
• Stop flying and unicycle to Switzerland

I don't actually know what the most effective way to fight climate change is. I hear going vegan and not flying are the biggest impacts you can have with your lifestyle, and the rest is legislation. Exactly what legislation we need is hotly debated and to be honest you can hotly debate it somewhere else, because what I'm driving at here is: do something, or make the most of doing nothing.

Because the least helpful response is to lie in bed knowing that the world is on fire, and neither enjoying yourself nor doing anything useful. And I say this as someone who just lay in bed not doing anything useful (including resting) for the past 3 hours, because I'd already almost fallen asleep at work. I have now eaten some cereal, which is not a perfect solution but did provide me with enough energy to write a blog post, after which I will change into my pyjamas and let a lovely Irish doctor tell me that I'm in lovely calming place where all I need to do is heal.

Yes, the seas will rise at 2 degrees. And yes, we might be too late to stop ourselves getting there. But limiting ourselves to 3 degrees is better than spiralling into tropical dinosaur hell.

And really, even if we do go full Jurassic (@ me, paleontologists), we can only do so much damage. Extinction events happen regularly, and crocodiles and cyanobacteria don't really give a shit about them. And once the human population dwindles, we'll stop burning as much stuff.

That is the pessimist's view, of course. I like to take the optimist view, which is that the ozone layer fixed itself and the carbon levels can too, so long as we occasionally remind politicians that we don't want cornwall to become the next Atlantis.

I'm now very tired, so I will end this blog post and hit send. Now I've tried to help, I'm going to have a little nap, because that is how grown-ups party.

Abortion is murder but it's still okay

I've been meaning to write this for a while but it looks like the US is tightening abortion laws again so this is topical.

Whenever the abortion debate comes up, I hear people some people talking about murder, and others talking about healthcare. And that makes sense. We on the pro choice side would like to convince people to support abortion access, and people are largely for some access to healthcare. Abortion is provided by healthcare providers, and is sometimes medically necessary. We also talk about "bodily autonomy", as if there was only one body involved.

But I'd be lying if I said I didn't think we were also trying to make ourselves comfortable.

I will tell you two (very short) stories.

A few years ago, my ancient cat developed lymphoma. There is no remission from lymphoma, especially when it's spread as far as hers had. Even chemotherapy is used to give a few extra months, not to achieve a healthy outcome. I loved this cat more than I have ever loved anything. My heart still bursts thinking about her. A few months after diagnosis, she had almost stopped eating entirely. I took her to the vet, and they weighed her to be 1.5kg. She should have been 4kg. They offered to put her down then and there, but I asked to bring her back, still believing there was some hope. That night she fell down the stairs in confusion. She didn't seem to recognise me. She was clearly suffering. A clarity came over me. I called, crying, and asked to schedule an appointment for the next day. To murder my cat.

A few months ago, I had a pregnancy scare. I was only a few days late, and I had used protection, but given I also had a UTI it was not unlikely that there were other unwelcome guests in my tracts. Again, a clarity came over me. I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome that is not yet properly controlled. There is no way I could bring a child into this world and care for it without making us both miserable. For that matter, there was no way I could be pregnant without it taking a serious toll on my health. My thoughts, as I summarised them to a friend later? "Sorry, baby, but you're going to have to die."

Murder is often legal. Murder is often morally acceptable. Or if the definition of murder is specifically immoral killing of a human being, killing is still both of those things. "Thou shalt not kill" has never been a possible commandment to follow.

I indirectly kill all the time. I no longer eat meat, but my egg consumption grinds baby chicks, my medicine has been tested on animals, and my taxes go to the military. I give money to people who ask without checking whether it will go on a potentially lethal drug habit. I kill directly whenever I manage to squash a wasp.

Abortion is a necessity. Freely available abortion is a necessity. Ending the life of a foetus with little nervous system or capacity for emotion in order to not go through pregnancy or birth is much more morally acceptable than killing an animal to have a tastier meal. Way more acceptable than "collateral damage" casualties who will leave behind whole mourning families. If you're pro-life, perhaps these are some places to start before you come for abortion.

I wasn't actually pregnant, it turns out, which was convenient as I was 200 miles from my doctor. And you might be thinking that I would have had a "good reason" to end my pregnancy. But my reason is no better or worse than anyone else's. Pregnancy is tough on any body. You're growing a whole new person in a way that's been developed by trial and error. "I don't want to be pregnant" is a good enough reason from a moral standpoint.

If we don't talk about abortion like it's the same as taking some Nyquil, then we can do a lot of good. I spent many of my teenage and adult years thinking abortion was a simple procedure. That if I got pregnant I could just take a pill, have a heavy period and then forget about it. It was not until I read about the move to take the second abortion pill at home that it clicked that abortion has the same effects as miscarriage. I am now, as a result, much more careful with my birth control and much more unlikely to have an abortion.

If we admit that, yes, we are killing what might be a person, then we can have a debate where we're talking about the same thing. If we insist that we're doing healthcare for our own body, people's entire position starts to hinge on the thorny metaphysical issue of personhood, and quite frankly most people don't have the time or energy to detangle these things.

The one downside is that we have to accept some nuance. We have to accept that something can cause harm and still be the best thing to do at the time. This is hard, and it's why I so often get rejected with "I'm really busy right now", when the more immediately harmful but ultimately better option would be to say "I'm not interested in you". However, I think this kind of moral nuance is not actually optional, so long as you're discussing in good faith.

If you're about to ask whether I agree with this article about "post-birth abortion", I actually think that when the foetus is viable (24 weeks+), then there are enough alternative options that abortion is unnecessary. Adoptable babies are sought-after. You're over halfway through the pregnancy anyway. If you're going to get the baby out it might as well be in one piece. But I'm not entirely convinced on this and willing to hear arguments for abortion past 24 weeks.

Abortion: it should be completely legal and easy to access, because death is inevitable and often better than suffering.