Kate Maien

What are we doing? Nothing… or almost nothing, apart from speeches. This country is a country of speeches, from which nothing comes out except solutions designed to make citizens pay more and more taxes and fees: the ecological penalty on cars, the tax on long-distance transport infrastructure (stay at home…), vehicle registration taxes, civil aviation tax (except for government members — citizens pay for it), electricity tax, gas tax, carbon tax, excise duties on energy products, TGAP, water agency fees, taxes on hazardous substances… But what decisions are being made to actually reduce pollution?

If, over the past 20 years, a decision had been made requiring every newly constructed building (housing, industrial buildings, offices, etc.) to be passive, today almost 6 million new homes would be passive… How many solar panels have been installed on the roofs of government offices, hospitals, schools and other public buildings? These buildings have increased energy needs during the daytime, when staff are working. This would also include — apart from the installation cost — the installation of air conditioning, which could have a balanced, or even better, carbon footprint while providing humane working conditions.

How can we expect students to learn effectively when temperatures exceed 24°C? How can patients recover and be properly cared for? The message is “drink water,” but we are in a period of drought where water is scarce… Something doesn’t add up.

Let us note that the National Assembly, the Senate, the Élysée Palace and other institutions are at least partially air-conditioned. Yet some of those who govern this country believe that air conditioning is not the solution for everyone else — while they themselves benefit from it. What hypocrisy. You must suffer, and those who have air conditioning are supposed to feel guilty about it.

The Judeo-Christian tradition is being respected: human beings are on Earth, and in France, to suffer — again and again. Suffering “is indeed presented as a trial and as a punishment inflicted by God in His anger [1].” Suffering “is a legitimate and normal consequence of original sin [2].”

It is on these traditions that France has been built, unable since 1789 to truly establish a separation between the State and the clergy.

KM

[1] Georges Duby, Reflections on Physical Pain in the Middle Ages

[2] Ibid.