There is a way in which wealth makes people feel invincible. But as we see year after year, no one is invincible.

CW: discussion of cancer

Wealthy people get cancer, heart attacks, dementia, age and die just like the rest of us. Well, maybe not "just like" – they certainly seem to do all those things in much more relative comfort than those working class or in poverty. But they are not immune to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune despite their pretense of being immune to the shocks of life.

Why am I talking about wealth?

I've been searching for a way to name what I see. Because as I sit with climate grief, it becomes more and more obvious to me that people who accumulate wealth, extracting resources from the larger body of humanity and the earth, in order to hoard these resources for their own power-over operate in a way very similar to the way cancer operates in the body. Cancer is delineated from normal cells at a basic level because of its tendency to reproduce with no regard for the natural balance of the body, sucking up way more than its fair share of nutrients. These are both literal processes that result in the death of healthy cells, and sometimes in the death of the organism. Before death though, there is often a great deal of pain and suffering.

There is a direct connection between unethical pursuit and hoarding of wealth and resources, including land resources, and the climate crisis. For some reasons this often seems radical to talk about. Perhaps this is only because of who controls the narrative and the resources we need to change the direction of the poly-crises. When the people causing the crises also gate-keep the wealth that climate organizations, foundations, and activists rely on to repair the damage done to our ecosystems and economies, speaking out against the root of the problem becomes almost impossible.

What does this do to a body to have to seek the cure from the person who caused the illness by placating and fawning to obtain and maintain their favor? Surely the despair and moral injury many genuinely caring people who work in conservation and other fields that address societal ills speak about is connected to this contradiction. It's not just business, it's personal– and over time it becomes embodied as a pattern of self-betrayal. I know this pattern intimately. This is not unlike so many vulnerable women and children who are forced to fawn to appease their abusers to maintain access to their basic needs, and end up - like me, with autoimmune, anxiety, depression, and other types of chronic illnesses.

This dynamic gets repeated over and over again, as the small mirrors the large.

While I don't practice organized religion anymore, one of the oft repeated proverbs I still remember and relate to is: "The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil."

For some reason with the advent of the prosperity gospel, the common people have forgotten that those who love money and the power it gives them enough to hoard more than their fair share of resources are the same people who won't get into the proverbial heaven until after a camel has made it through the eye of a needle. Which is to say: they create hell on earth for the rest of us! And what could be a better example of hell on hearth than global warming and mass ecological collapse? This is about as close to literal as it gets folks!

The root is deep, and it thrives most deeply in the countries and people who make up global imperialist nations like the United States. This is one reason I moved away, because reducing my harmful impact is easier if I am not living in a country with one of the largest carbon footprints by population.

In countries like Belize, the local wealthy and tourists consume more of the energy, and the government has had policies that are modeled after US anti-climate policies such as punishing people financially for importing hybrid or electric vehicles, or taxing those who supplement with solar power.

Since 2024, many of these policies are in process of changing because Belize is in an active energy crisis caused by countries like the US and China, so this policy of deterring people from exploring green energy that could take pressure off the grid and reduce fossil fuel use doesn't make any logical sense. But it takes time for these to be implemented and for workers in these government offices to interpret and understand how to apply these new policies. In the meantime, we have load shedding which puts vulnerable people at risk of heat stroke and other heat-related illness. And ultimately, Belize, a tiny country of less than 500,000 people is not responsible for the emissions that cause climate change. So while admirable, Belize greening its energy sector is not going to save the country from ecological collapse.

I will definitely be coming back to this topic before too long. Accountability is something so many wealthy feel immune to facing, but as more of us publicly challenge this mentality in every arena, the tides will turn.

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