We have bullshit jobs.

To my friend who works as a receptionist in a convent-come-hotel in the city center

to my friend engineer friend whose job is to receive and welcome tourists into Airbnb's

to my fifty-year-old friend who rides a tuk tuk

to my friend's date who repairs electric scooters 

                                                        for young tourists' convenience in the hilly Lisbon

to my friend with a PhD who does morning bike tours

                                                        whenever his employee calls him

I say

    their jobs are bullshit.

They should never have needed to get those jobs,

    and their jobs shouldn't have existed.

Their jobs are not socially useful

    and their jobs destroy the city,

                                            the social fabric

                                            and the local economy,

                            and promote a hypermobile

                                                            ultraconsumerist

                                                                planet-wretching

                                                    lifestyle for the few

                                                and record breaking profits

                                                                    for the few of the few.

My friends know and agree.

They saw the impacts.

    First the poor had to leave the city

    then the elderly

    then middle-class families

    - they themselves also either left already or about to leave.

They also know

    that this is the exact same process

    that created the "exotic holiday spots"

                        in Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas.

There were people there,

    now there are hotels instead.

There were communities there,

    now there are business opportunities instead.

I tell my friends

    to march with me

        for housing rights and an end to touristification

    to campaign with me

        to ban Airbnb's in our cities.

I recruit my friends

    to fight with me

        for the destruction of their jobs.

I admit;

    that neither the housing march

        nor the anti-Airbnb campaign

        have any proposals to give my friends any income security

    that the city's entire economy will have to be transformed.

I admit

    that we'll have to talk

        and figure things out together.

They march and campaign with me. I march and campaign with them.

*

Also

To my high-school friend who works as a flight attendant

to my childhood friend who works in logistics in an international airport

to my recent friend who works in a gas terminal

to my friend who emigrated during the crisis to work

                                                                in a transnational oil company

I say

    their jobs are weapons of mass destruction.

Their jobs shouldn't have existed

    and must cease to exist immediately.

The business they participate in

    destroys livelihoods

    disintegrates communities

    burns entire ecosystems

    floods entire cities

    makes countries disappear

    and collapses the physical-chemical conditions of a livable planet

        while making record profits for the few.

My friends know about the climate emergency.

    They see it now,

        and they have a sense of what is to come.

I tell my friends

    to march with me

    to take direct action with me

    with rage and solidarity

    for climate justice.

I admit

    that

        while we do have a plan to secure them jobs and income

    they will have to effectively fight against their current jobs

    if we want to have a chance to win,

    and that

    the entire economy will have to be transformed.

I admit

    that we'll have to talk

        and figure things out together.

*

 I must tell them the truth

    because they are my friends

    and because they are my class.

They will have to join me

    because of their friends

    and because of their class.

*

In short

A nuclear weapons factory worker

a soldier in a colonial army

a technician in an oil refinery

a real estate agent in the occupied West Bank

an administrator in a slave trading enterprise

a marketing consultant for SUVs

have a human right to not have these jobs

    and a class obligation  to fight against them.

Climate crisis means

    exponential growth in human suffering

    and run-away climate crisis means

            unstoppable exponential growth in human suffering;

is what I must tell my friends

    without hiding any bit of the meaning of it.