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TechnoratiI'd Rather Be a Hypocrite Than a Cynic Like Julie Burchill
Give me a posh, preachy eco-activist over a narcissist without a moral compass any day
In her new book, Not In My Name, Julie Burchill reserves her grandest fury about hypocrites for environmentalists. We are, she (and her co-author, Chas Newkey-Burden) say, pious, sexless and contemptuous of humankind. We are all are posh and rich, and have found in environmentalism a new excuse for lecturing the poor. We tell other people to live by rules we don't apply to ourselves.
Like all stereotypes, these claims are lazy, familiar and sometimes true. Burchill knows nothing about environmentalism, and, almost as a point of pride, hasn't bothered to find out, but when you use grapeshot you are bound to hit someone. Yes, many prominent greens are posh gits like me. The same can be said of journalists, politicians, artists, academics, business leaders ... in fact, of just about anyone in public life. But it is always the greens who are singled out.
In truth, while the upper middle classes are, as always, over-represented in the media, the movement cuts across the classes. A recent ICM poll found that more people in social classes D and E thought the government should prioritise the environment over the economy (56%) than in classes A and B (47%).
Environmentalism is the most politically diverse movement in history. Here in the Kingsnorth climate camp, I have met anarchists, communists, socialists, liberals, conservatives and, mostly, pragmatists. I remember sitting in a campaign meeting during the Newbury bypass protests and marvelling at the weirdness of our coalition. In the front row sat the local squirearchy: brigadiers in tweeds and enormous moustaches, titled women in twin sets and headscarves. In the middle were local burghers of all shapes and sizes. At the back sat the scuzziest collection of grunge-skunks I have ever laid eyes on. The audience disagreed about every other subject under the sun - if someone had asked us to decide what day of the week it was, the meeting would had descended into fisticuffs - but everyone there recognised that our quality of life depends on the quality of our surroundings.
The environment is inseparable from social justice. Climate change, for example, is primarily about food and water. It threatens the fresh water supplies required to support human life. As continental interiors dry out and the glaciers feeding many of the rivers used for irrigation disappear, climate change presents the greatest of all threats to the future prospects of the poor. The rich will survive for a few decades at least, as they can use their money to insulate themselves from the effects. The poor are being hammered already.
In reality, it is people like Julie Burchill - who is, incidentally, far richer than almost any green I have met - who treats the poor with contempt. So that she can revel in what she calls "reckless romantic modernism", other people must die. But at least you can't accuse her of hypocrisy: she cannot fail to live by her moral code, for the simple reason that she doesn't have one.
Sure, we are hypocrites. Every one of us, almost by definition. Hypocrisy is the gap between your aspirations and your actions. Greens have high aspirations - they want to live more ethically - and they will always fall short. But the alternative to hypocrisy isn't moral purity (no one manages that), but cynicism. Give me hypocrisy any day.
monbiot.com
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
47 Comments so far
Show All'It is becoming increasingly obvious that world turmoil rises with overpopulation and extreme money-power concentration. It doesn't take a tree hugger to figure that one out.'
yes, ezeflyer, the only person who will never figure that one out is the pope.
EconomyJetSetter,
We have to implement these changes because we have no choice. The alternative is too horrible to entertain. Will the Democrats do it? No, change has always come from the grass roots.
The car was commercialized to combat the pollution problem of the late 19th and early 20th centuries which was the incredible filth gnerated by horse feces, horse manure and horse cadavers in our major cities. It wasn't just an untidy mess. This pollutin problem was responsible for the horrible diptheria and typhoid epidemics that plagued our cities in the late 19th century.
The same fight ensued to ban coal fired trains and switch over to diesel-electrics.
Today we have a new challenge and it is we who must fight for it. I will do my part where I can and I intend to get more involved with this. I believe we can do it to because there's nothing to develope. Its off the shelf and we can build it today and not hope for some stellar scientific breakthrough in the future. The only shortage is in political will, not energy or technology, but political will is a renewable resource.
Radio_tec
Thanks for all the time you are taking explaining these different projects and your read on THE LONG EMERGENCY. I realize that not everything Mr. Kunstler projects will happen or happen in his scenarios. I had read a lot of more scholarly sources on each of the individual problems he explores - his book just put everything together in one place. To me, it all boils down to too many people on the planet and a total lack of stewardship for the Earth. I sincerely hope that we can work out or mitigate these problems - I sort of thought that was why we elected the Dems in 2006 here in the US. At the moment, it seems like the answer from Washington is the same one we have been getting for 40 years - "we'll get right on that when we have time!".
observer,
Nuclear fusion is not here not because of lack of funding but because there hasn't been a breakthrough of substantial significance to ramp it up to commercial use.
The comparison to the growth of the IT industry is a false one. The PC industry is primarily beholden to the invention of the transistor at Bell Laboratories in 1947. When transistors became mass-produced economies of scale through mass production brought the price down. The IT industry built on that through miniaturization and the cramming of transistors on to small silicon wafers. The more transistors that were crammed on the wafer the more powerful the computers became.
No such analogy exists for nuclear fusion. This is a whole new way of generating power. Temperatures approach the temperature of the sun and conventional materials cannot contain the intense energy released by the reaction without using it up to contain the energy released.
As I related in my last post the first test reaction will take place sometime in 2018. Now climate scientist James Hansen says we have 10 years to substantially reduce CO2 emissions or we will live on a different planet assuming we live to see it. Its no world you or I want to live in.
Renewables in the form of wind turbines and solar panels exist today. They can be deployed today. We need to start reducing CO2 emissions today. The only sensible course is to begin greening the grid now. When nuclear fusion is at the point where it can be commercialized and we can evaluate its safety (Because it does produce neutron radiation that irradiates the walls of the Tokomak reactor and the impact of deuterium waste will have to be determined) and environmental impact then it will be time to consider it.
Radio_tec:
"Thomas Edison himself stated that invention was 1 percent inspiration and 99% perspiration."
That is precisely my main point. In our strange anthropic branch of Multiverse Edison's perspiration has numerical measurement in the form of General Murphy Law: an exponential growth of knowhow and technology. Why exponential? Because these processes feed on themselves.
For example, the faster CPUs and bigger memory, the more powerful software and hardware design programs; the more powerful software and hardware design programs the more miniature wires and gates are feasible; the more miniature wires and gates are feasible the faster CPUs and bigger memory become available…
As it turned out, powerful computers, software and precision measurements (of magnetic fields for one) are the core factors in fission development as in every other field.
It follows that your other statement that "Doubling the reaction time to 6 – 7 seconds is a step forward but it's a baby step. The ITER project in Cadarache hopes to increase this reaction time to 6 minutes and 40 seconds or 400 seconds" raises more questions that it gives answers. For to extend 400 seconds to 30 million (1 year) one needs 17 8 months long steps, that is 12 years, provided that previous pace of R&D holds. It follows also that my main question is left unanswered:
1. Why ITER project broke ground only this year in Cadarache when in fact the same stage of the fission development had taken place in Princeton 10 years ago?
2. WHY WE ARE 50 years away of our goal rather than 2 years away. WHY $10 Billion on life sustaining project and $50 Billion (in to-day dollars) on Manhattan suicidal (as it turned out) project?
3. WHY you are the only one of very prolific writers on this forum who at least paid attention to too many whys surrounding one of the cheapest ways to break monopoly of coal and oil?
4. WHY???
BTW, by God I usually mean Almighty Market, which gives solace only chosen folks. But I am, of course, not entitled for my private language.
Biologically based people, and all life forms, are dependent on Gaia. No Gaia no humans.
Corporations are able to ignore the environment (Gaia) because they are in the financial sphere. As long as profits are made corporations will survive. They'll last 500 years longer than humans.
observer,
If Nuclear Fusion generated electricity is around the corner then, by gosh, we should do it. Nothing would make me happier. It would solve our energy problems for a long time to come. The problem is after 50 years of research we have yet to sustain a nuclear fusion reaction that produces more energy than it consumes. But let's address your questions in order.
First it is not widely discussed because, since it started in 1951 at Princeton, nuclear fusion generated energy has always been 50 years out from practical use. When I was getting on a flight at Newark International airport back in 1977 I was confronted by one of these groups hawking money (they could do that in the 1970's) he presented me with this article that Princeton University's physics department was researching nuclear fusion and that it was still 50 years out. Today the International Tokomak Experimental Reactor (ITER) project broke ground this year and it is still about 50 years out. We don't have 50 years anymore. When it can produce more energy than it consumes and can sustain a reaction for more than 3 seconds than the world may stand up, take notice and talk about it. No one, even on C/D, talks about it because it's akin to talking about nuclear fission reactors, the ones we have today, in the age of Jules Vern's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
As to your second point the longest reaction time ever produced at the Princeton PPPL Tokomak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) project was 3 to 3.5 seconds. It was a "test of concept" that produced 10.7 Megawatts of power. It was a precursor to other advanced Tokomak reactors.
Third, if you double the reaction time you are still light years away from practical application of this technology. Doubling the reaction time to 6 – 7 seconds is a step forward but it's a baby step. The ITER project in Cadarache hopes to increase this reaction time to 6 minutes and 40 seconds or 400 seconds. They are spending about $9 Billion dollars on this project. That's still a lot of money even in today's deflated dollars.
As to your fourth point I don't recall mentioning God in any fashion in my points of argument. If you have evidence of conspiracy then produce it.
Nuclear fusion power generation is a difficult technical feat because you have to take a small piece of the sun cause it to react and contain that reaction in a powerful magnetic field, which consumes tremendous amounts of energy, so it doesn't destroy the reactor and still end up with an energy surplus. The fact of the matter is that scientific breakthroughs are hard won and take hard work. Thomas Edison himself stated that invention was 1 percent inspiration and 99% perspiration.
Radio_tec:
All you have said is as it is planned now. But you even did not address my question, which is manifold.
1. Fusion Project (not specific to TOKOMAK or any other particular method to create dense plasma) is one of the most important projects with regard to survival of technological mode of life. Why it is not widely DISSCUSSED in public forums?
2. Product of plasma density and life expectancy has been increased from 10E-19 to 1 since 1955 and up to 1998 approximately, when PPL TOKAMAK run successfully to his projected end. That means doubling of this product every 8 months, year in and year out. Why next doubling will take 17 years rather than another 8 months?
3. Doubling of product from 1 to 2 means 50% efficiency in energy generation (in your terminology Q = 0.5). In the matters of such importance one would expect concerted efforts to speed up rather than to slow down research and development as it happened during WW2 with Manhattan project. Why luck of resources, will and urgency on the part of the US government (on the payroll of powerful industry and geopolitical interests) and its European satellites?
4. Why, Radio_tec, instead of raising swell of questions you provide me with technical details and portray them as work of God, not plot of corrupted politicians and invisible hand of OPEC?
Observer, the ITER Tokamak project in Cadarache, France just started construction this year. The project will be complete sometime around 2015. The project will last 30 years. The first plasm operation is expected to occur sometime around 2018. ITER will be designed to produce approximately 500 MW (500,000,000 watts) of fusion power sustained for up to 400 seconds or 6 minutes and 40 seconds. They expect a Q factor (energy in to energy out ratio) greater than 5. If it pans out, and there is good reason to believe it will, the first demonstration reactor would be built sometime around 2045 and not 2014.
That time scale is far too long to resolve green house gas production and solutions need to be implimented in a 10 year time frame, or as leading climate scientist John Hansen puts it, we will cross so many tipping points and we will no longer be able to halt climate changee no matter what we do.
Sorry, MiMiCcS, I'm still not with you. I'm firmly opposed to most of the corporate ways of dealing with climate change, but if global warming were real, I think the actions taken are just what we would expect from those who have a stake in consolidation of power and can see no alternative but to perpetuate the "system". They do it all the time. Now they are doing it in the matter of climate change.
(So-called markets, of course, are part of the holy writ...not logical at all but sacred.)
"You can't take your profits with you to hell."
You and I know that, but it is a concept clearly outside of the worldview of corporatists. In fact, it's one of the blatant blindspots and most obvious characteristics of cancer, which corporatism clearly is.
(BTW, for the other posters, I also believe "environmentalism" is a retrograde and stulifying term. It is made to look like a special interest and not simply a matter of looking after the conditions of life...which is, of course, a necessary activity of being alive.)
With all environmental glum and doom resulting from coal and oil, there is an alternative source of energy, which was totally blacked out from intelligent discussion for last half a century and which promise energy horn of plenty in observable future.
I am talking about fusion thermonuclear reaction project that goes under radar screen of public and MSM. Even this site of alternatively thinking people is either unaware or ignorant of it, whereas the whole info about TOKOMAKs is widely available on Web. I watch it for all my life and as recently as few weeks ago was informed by one of the leading participants in this long project about phenomenal success in this pivotal to our survival field.
The inevitability of successful completion of fusion project stems from the fact that its development repeated the same pattern as development of computers did: it followed Murphy Law. Starting from 1955 efficiency of fusion reaction doubled almost the same 18 months as efficiency of microcircuits. But if inefficient microcircuit was still good for something, inefficient TOKOMAK was good only for scientists and boy it was good. As a result of concerted efforts in the USA and USSR, its efficiency was improved by 19 orders of magnitude for last 50 years or so. At the end of the last millennium the leading research institution - Princeton Plasma Labs - had reached breakeven point, when energy coming in became equal to energy going out. The next TOKOMAK to be built for measly $10 Billion (Gates-Buffet tandem could afford 4 of such) was planned to deliver some reasonable energy and open flood gates for the commercial design and generation and, thus, permanent solution to our energy needs. But that was not meant to be. After $2 billion spent for preparation to new TOKOMAK the project was closed and scientific group was disbanded and let go to oversee where EU pastures were more promising. The leading figure in closing this project was the same man who closed supercollider in Texas, Senator Phil Gramm, a hit man for oil interests. With that the US lost its advance edge in high science in this particular field. Now EU is planning to complete last experimental stage before commercial generation by 2014. Such a delay may be explained out by the same powerful interests who poised to become irrelevant with the brave new oilless world. Plentiful energy has its own drawbacks for all energy is ending in heat. Heat pollution is what may doom us but such a doom is many orders of magnitude away from the current level of energy consumption and we can hope that humanity will awake finally to live meaningful life.
But awake or not awake, there is no reason for doom anyway. For either humanity awakes to real activity after 6000 years of just talking and it will be save; or it does not awake and Phil Gramms will rule the world then why should cockroaches care about lost human opportunity?
USAn, I checked the bus routes 2 years ago in an effort to keep my car at home. Nothing would have made me happier then to take the bus. I don't like the wear and tear it puts on my car. The problem with the bus is that it takes two connecting buses to get me to work. The first leg though is a dream. It's a park & ride bus that takes me to downtown Houston. Unfortunately I work far out on the northwest side of Houston so I would have only 1 connecting bus to take me directly to work but that changed several years ago and now I have to take a bus to get me the last 5 miles to work. If I take the bus the total time would take me 2 hours and 40 minutes. By car, even though its 22 miles to work and 22 back takes me 50 minutes by car.
When I get home I have to take care of my son. He has autism and it's unfair to ask my wife to take care of him for an extra 2 hours, if you include the trip from park & ride back home, to take car of my son. When my wife goes on her vacation, I stay home to work, I will try it. Just accept that mass-transit doesn't work for everyone.
Whole cities will have to be redesigned and retrofit in order to get us back to a reasonable life style where everything is in walking distance and we use light rail heavy rail and the bus to get to where we need to and on those rare occasions when we need a car we can subscribe to a car club and swipe a card into a reader and use one the way we rent a movie.
And you're quite correct in that it is a very liberating experience to not have to rely on a car. I should know. I spent years in college worrying about the break fix of the month and then fixing the problems with my collection of box wrenches and screwdrivers.
"If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal." –
John Fitzgerald Kennedy - thirty-fifth President of the United States.
genaman: you're right. Environmentalism is a term cobbled together, possibly deliberately by wingnuts who wanted to make fun of the environment movement. At this point I'd call us the Earthcare movement.
The environmental movement has arrived. All of us as a group are now being stereotyped and hated.
We are now in league with Rachel Carson, who was bitterly hated by the pesticide industry in her day.
If you're sexless like me, and posh and rich like me, then I say it's a pleasure to know you!
I'm glad Julie let me know that I'm sexless. I'll have to let my hubby know.
Arry said "Wouldn't the corporate/government complex react to real global warming in precisely the way you postulate it is acting to "promote" the idea of global warming? That is, to maximize profit and gain control? I don't see how your story says much."
No. Because if it were real, they would be doing something to make sure it wasn't going to happen. They want to make sure their bloodlines survive. You can't take your profits with you to hell. We would have a Manhattan Project to come up with a clean energy that would not cause catastrophic global warming rather than letting the "markets" find a solution. In fact, we have clean energy, at least with regard to AWG, and thats nuclear, yet it has been suppressed, to keep us dependent on the oil they say is going to kill us.
The solutions they propose are absurd in any event, so even if it were real, it would happen anyways.
Consider also the other myth of peak oil. Our military machine runs on Oil. On a per capita basis, our military consumes more oil than all but 3 countries. It would take decades to convert the military to another fuel source. This would be a matter of national security. Yet, even under Bush and a Republican Congress, they did not open up offshore drilling. Why? Because we are nowhere close to peak oil. Thats the logical conclusion.
I own a hemp backpack and I think it's the cat's pajamas!
In a properly designed community, car-free living is incredibly fun, low-stress, and convenient. The idea that doing without a car most be some kind of hardship is nonsense. The car is only viewed as a necessity because suburban design purposefully makes it a necessity.
"Washington DC has a very nice light rail system which I regret not taking advantage of when I lived there."
Actually the DC Metro system is heavy-rail subway. Light rail are trolley-like vehicles. But why wait for incredibly expensive rail syatems? Use the bus. We don't bite.
@Montgomery August 6th, 2008 3:03 pm
So... you wont compromise on your way of life. You are not alone.
I too wont just cant give up my car, until everybody else does and
public transport becomes a reality.
But you have illustrated the problem perfectly. Almost nobody is willing
to change. If nobody in the first world will willingly change,
then the change that will eventually forced upon us will be catastrophic.
Samson,
I too just finished reading James Howard Kunstler's "The Long Emergency" but I had a slightly different take on it.
First, just because he has been wrong before doesn't mean he will be wrong this time. The reason he is right may have profound implications on how we wean ourselves off of fossil fuels and move towards a post-carbon society.
When we weaned ourselves off of burning wood to burning whale oil in the 18th century or when we weaned ourselves off of whale oil or coal to using petroleum in the 19th century we had substantial lead time measured in decades because human societies were intensely local and the laborious work in agriculture or transportation was largely driven by muscle power of either man or beast.
Today we have large populations using fossil fuels for agriculture and transportation. Kunstler's contention is that Peal Oil production and decline will occur faster than the economy can react and provide alternatives. The reason for this failure to react in time is several fold. Primarily there is no simple substitute for petroleum because nothing is more energy dense than gasoline and diesel for transportation. We have years to make this change to a post carbon economy and not decades but the current infrastructure is designed for cars and no energy source allows us to maintain this economic arrangement.
The result is that we ride through peak oil production and its decline causes gas and diesel prices to rise and triggers hardships and economic stagnation. This is only a small part of Kunstler's theme and my short treatise doesn't do it half the justice it deserves. I recommend anyone to read it regardless of whether you agree with him or not.
Now where I disagree with him is that we have seen the hardship but we have also seen the cutbacks in miles driven and the move back into the cities. Kunstler does say that there will be a rush out of the suburbs. Well there hasn't been a rush but there has been a noticeable uptick in a shift back to the cities to reduce commuting distance. So I do agree with Kunstler that cities are going to shrink and they will have to in order to phase out petroleum use. Also even here in Houston and in many other cities light rail systems are either in construction or are already in existence. Washington DC has a very nice light rail system which I regret not taking advantage of when I lived there.
Furthermore there is a great untapped Saudi Arabia sized source of wasted energy on the electrical grid at night because of the spare capacity on the grid. We could tap that energy for electric cars that could be charged overnight. These cars do not currently exist in large numbers and you have to be a motivated hobbyist, like myself, to get an electric car but the momentum is moving in that direction.
Even in the last chapter Kunstler does acknowledge that there will be a need for cars for emergency purposes but they will not be available in the numbers that we are accustomed to today. Kunstler also states that because of the their simplicity and their ability to work with what will be the only practical source of electricity available, small hydro-powered generators if you live in the northeast, cottage industries converting gas cars to electric will probably come into existence.
We could accelerate this process with a reasonable buyback program of large gas guzzlers if the owners agreed to buy fuel efficient cars of a fuel mileage rating combined of 32 mpg to start with, EVs from the growing number of companies making professional converted cars to EVs, or plug-in hybrids. Later on when EVs are in production the requirements of the program could be changed to allow for plug-in hybrids and EVs only in order to participate in the gas guzzler buy back program. The cost of maintaining the program, I believe, would certainly be in the black when you compare it to the amount of the trade deficit that goes towards purchasing oil from abroad which by some estimates is around $400 billion.
MiMiCcS -- I'm afraid you are floundering in your little dinghy in the brackish backwaters of knowledge in regard to climate change, but I'm particularly interested in a point of logic.
Wouldn't the corporate/government complex react to real global warming in precisely the way you postulate it is acting to "promote" the idea of global warming? That is, to maximize profit and gain control? I don't see how your story says much.
Samson,
Past trends are no good as future predictors. There is no guarantee humans will be around in any numbers 500 years from now. And, as a geologist, I'd really like to not be collectivly responsible for setting things in motion that will make things very hard on out descendants, even if it is a hundred thousand years from now - a short period of time geologically speaking.
Ted Markow. Environmentalist have been corrupted by the "corporate government", since they control who gets the money to fund research. Remember, corporate and government are one thing now. It's call fascism. The plan is all about making you pay more for what you will continue to do, so long as you can afford it. For those who can not afford it, they will have to give up some things.
Should we be concerned about the environment, of course. But in order to get people to accept stuff like carbon caps and trade, carbon tax, maybe even a carbon dollar, they have to scare you. Thats what the AGW prophets of doom are doing, terrorizing people.
There is GW, it has been moderate, man causes some of it, it has been largely beneficial thus far, and a little more will be more so. Soot and pollutants are unhealthy though, and should be minimized, look at China, the smog is so thick it hangs like a blanket. They have no environmental regulation to speak of. Thats why much of our manufacturing has left. They follow the path of least resistance and lowest wages. The soot from China gets deposited on Arctic ice and melts it, yet they get a free pass, and we focus on CO2 emissions at home which is food for our plants and is not unhealthy.
Thats the middle ground between the extremists, the prophets of doom on the one side, and those against any laws or restraints on corporations related to the environment on the other.
As an ex-rancher you might want to know what the next plan is. read the below link
http://www.gisborneherald.co.nz/Default.aspx?s=3&s1=2&id=4310
"The proposed Emissions Trading Scheme legislation is currently "on ice" while the Government seeks to garner enough support to pass it into law. A website, www.carbonfarming.org.nz allows farmers to enter their own particular statistics, and then gives the amount that farmer has to pay annually.
For a typical Gisborne/East Coast property of one thousand hectares, running 5287sheep, and 988 cattle, the annual amount is $144,236, based on the current carbon value of $42.
The carbon price a month ago was $47 per tonne, making the liability $161,398. The economic farm surplus (EFS) of this average farm is only $145,316. (This is what the farmer needs to pay interest and principal on loans, fund further development, replace machinery, and to make a return on his own investment in the property.)
Obviously, this is an unaffordable amount, to finance a very questionable scheme, based on the unproven fantasy of human-induced climate change."
1. I won't adjust my air conditioning to feel superior. It's set on 70 degrees in the summer, and I occasionally run a window unit in my bedroom as well if the mood strikes me.
That's why we need higher elctricity prices - to reflect the environmental impact of the resource. If you quit using AC, you will enjoy the summers better too. I don't use AC at all, It is a perfectly comfortable 80F in my house right now, and I always am eager to get out of over refrigerated commercial buildings and businesses as soon as I can. Air conditioning is a form of unhealthy addiction, like heroin.
3. I'm not going to walk or bike nine miles to work every day, nor am I going to move. I love my house and my job. Nine miles in a Honda Civic isn't going to destroy the atmosphere.
That's why we need much higher gasoline prices.
And what makes you think we don't practice what we preach?
I wouldn't worry much about hypocrite versus cynic, Mr. Monbiot. I'm sure Julie Burchill is a hypocrite as well as a "cynic".
Hypocrisy is the life blood of the corporate capitalism that is destroying the earth. It oozes out of every pore and is the glue that holds the whole thing together, inextricably coupled with greed.
Any hypocrisy in "environmentalism" dwindles to insignificance.
"I've told most "environmentalists" that I've met that I draw the line at certain things that I won't do.
1. I won't adjust my air conditioning to feel superior. It's set on 70 degrees in the summer, and I occasionally run a window unit in my bedroom as well if the mood strikes me.
2. I'm not going to quit eating meat. I grew up on a ranch and I like meat - all kinds of it.
3. I'm not going to walk or bike nine miles to work every day, nor am I going to move. I love my house and my job. Nine miles in a Honda Civic isn't going to destroy the atmosphere."
That's a handy list of "I won'ts" and "I'm not's," Montgomery. Luckily, you still have the choice.
There are some things I have done and am doing to pare down my footprint. However, I'm loathe to list things I won't do for fear of having to eat too much crow. Of course, crow may look good someday.
Man plans and God laughs.
Stay tuned...
There will be humans on earth 500 years from now.
There will be functioning human societies on earth then.
Now, think of about 1507 and the world that existed then. Could someone then picture the world of today and all the changes that have occurred?
Actually, I'd bet there were people screaming that we were all doomed in 1507. That the problems were unsolvable and we were all just doomed. Probably over something like the amount of horse poop in the streets and the growing number of people and horses in the cities and then extrapolating from that how everyone was doomed to be buried in horse poop in just a few years after 1507.
And guess what, the world 500 years from now is likely to have much greater changes from today's world than today's world has from 1507. The one thing that's rather provable is that the rate of change is increasing.
geoff29,
Cindy Sheehan's suggestion isn't quite as unrealistic as you think. I'm not saying it's likely to happen. But how many people over 50 could live for a year on the money they've saved for retirement? How many over 40? How many people could survive on a combination of savings and credit cards for a year?
Probably a significant number of people. It's a desparate act to spend your retirement savings. But what kind of world will we be living in 10 years from now if this system isn't brought down? What would it take?
Some people have to work so we can have food and shelter, etc. The rest of us are just helping to create the demand for jobs. Our current economic system creates jobs making cruise missiles, cluster bombs and cars that we would all be better off without.
BTW, this is also the problem with all the people out here who constantly just scream that we are all doomed and we can't do anything about it. First, I really don't get the point. If you feel that way, what's the point of constantly saying it to others. In fact, if you feel that way, what's the point of even reading or knowing about these issues. Just go watch American Idol or your favorite riot-porn protest video and ignore it. Either way you aren't contributing to a solution.
But, to me they have the same blind spot as Mr. Kunstler. They assume that nothing will change. Yes, there is inertia to change. People prefer to keep doing what's comfortable to them and not expend effort to change. That's true. But what that way of thinking misses is that people are very capable of change when the world forces them to do so. The world has changed many times before, and it will change some more. Anyone who thinks of a static unchanging world is missing the point.
BTW, I read The Long Emergency.
As a book that points out a coming problem, its a good book. But, as a book that tries to predict the future or evaluate alternatives, I thought it was junk. Mr. Kunstler is a fine writer if you want hyperbole to raise attention to an issue. But he'd make a lousy engineer.
The book was full of assumptions. Most that the world was locked in on some course and that many behaviors would never change. Mr. Kunstler completely misses the fact that the world is dynamic, and it changes and people's behavior change as well.
So, Mr. Kunstler is great about ranting about the problems of American cities with suburbs full of McMansions and driveways with SUVs. But, he's way too gloom and doom. He basically assumes the only option is for the thing to crash.
Just as a thought experiment, how about this. You've got people with McMansions that have bad energy efficiency and they can't afford to heat. And you've got construction workers who are out of work because the boom of building suburbs of McMansions is ending. Mr. Kunstler is great at pointing out that this is a problem, and screaming gloom and doom about it. But he misses the fact that the world will change.
The rather logical change is that new businesses will sprout up offering to do work to make the McMansions more efficient. And this is what those unemployed construction workers are likely to be doing. They might be splitting those McMansions into duplexes, or just redoing the walls and doors and heating and cooling systems such that only a fraction of the McMansion needs to be heated or cooled at any time. The point is that its this sort of dynamic response that Mr. Kunstler seems to completely miss in his book.
He also spends a chapter trying to demolish every alternative energy. There was one that made me just put the book down and stop reading at that point. He was talking about technology to create hydrogen and oxygen from water. And he dismissed it because he assumed you'd have to built a massive network of pipelines to get the hydrogen out to where people would refuel cars.
But, this is where Mr. Kunstler would not make it as an engineer. The first assumption in his argument is that you'd have to have a central plant making the hydrogen which is then piped out to all the fueling stations where the cars would get the hydrogen. But, why not just get water and electricity to each fueling station, then have the system to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen there. Or even if that didn't work, the problem of building pipelines to move hydrogen around is obviously not beyond our capabilities. After all, we've already built a similar system for natural gas.
It was these sorts of shaky arguments and bad assumptions that finally made me put the book down and stop reading. If you want a book to give to someone who's clueless about the problems facing America, its not a bad book. But don't take either his ideas of where we are heading nor his dismissal of alternatives very seriously. In those areas Mr. Kunstler falls very flat.
simple rule .... anyone talking in simple stereotypes is usually completely full of @#$@#.
I'll hangout with the hypocrites over the big energy propagandizing liars any day. Oh but wait... I don't agree environmentalists are hypocrites... I just believe right wingers are working from an insult dictionary that's a few pages short of 2.
shadowdancer is correct - the chances at this point are slim to none.
We did have a very narrow window of opportunity in the '60s & '70s when the scientists/ecologists first sounded the warnings. Part of the "back to the land" movement was one response.
Unfortunately, few took these early warnings seriously and certainly no one in Washington in power - the folks we elected to make these important long-term plans. Instead of slowly cutting back on pollution, and fossil fuel use, we accelerated their use.
I recommend you read THE LONG EMERGENCY by James Howard Kunstler, written in 2005. When you reach a section you don't agree with, do some research. Mr. Kunstler's conclusions, while not heavily footnoted, is based on a wide range of serious research done by scientists, economists and environmentalists.
I'd like to think there's room for reasonable improvement of lifestyle outside of the two straw-men of hypocrisy and self-loathing. Of course, we're trying to find ways of minimizing our footprint, and to make lifestyle changes when feasible/sustainable. Any positive change is a positive change. Nothing hypocritical about this. Anyone who thinks that it's an all-or-nothing thing either belongs in a cult or is taking money from someone trying to undermine the environmental movements.
The probable odds of the human race solving the environmental problems of the earth at this time are slim & none. Slim does exist but the probable odds are mostly none.
The probable odds are so low of the human race solving the problems of the environment it isn't even worth considering. There are very few ways of living upon the earth that don't result in human beings destroying themselves either through their modern day weapons or through the destruction of the earth. That way would have been to have lived & continued living like the Native Tribes of North America lived, but all people on the earth would have had to have lived that way year in & year out.
While the destruction of the earth may cause considerable problems so can the modern day weapons that Nations have upon the earth.
The planet orbits going nowhere & getting nowhere as the thing called time proceeds from beginning to end.
As a child, my grandfather would take me for long walks across the fields and through the woods, sometimes involving hunting and fishing, and would always stress taking care of the land and the plants and animals on it. I take care of the environment, diligently recycle and reuse, but do not call myself an environmentalist because of the corruption of the movement.
Maybe it goes back to Greenpeace being founded by combining environmentalists with peace activists. The individuals involved had shared interests, but were not necessarily representative of the broader constituency.
I think there are definitely many in the movement who are hypocrites, who I define as telling others to live one way, while living just the opposite (Al Gore), or saying we should not burn fossil fuels because they produce CO2, then say we should not use nuclear power either (which produces zero CO2). Some say we should protect the old growth forests, but refuse to allow fire breaks to be cut, ultimately resulting in the whole forest going up in smoke. Some say we must turn corn to ethanol, then complain that food prices are too high and that we need to do something about the poor people not having enough food to eat. Yes, there are plenty of environmental hypocrites.
But I agree that people of all walks of live can care about the environment and do something about it. But as a rule, it is true that wealthier people tend to put more emphasis on the environment than poor people (don't believe me, take a trip to Tijuana, Sao Paulo, or Bombay and see the contrasts). Wealthier people value quality of life. Poor people value eating today. I think it is a mistake to impute our quality of life values onto people who simply don't have enough income to care. They should develop at their own pace.
One correction to the article, continental interiors will NOT dry out with increasing temperatures. Just the opposite will occur. Warmer air can hold, and hence carry more water. Cooler air causes drier conditions. Winter is usually the driest season for continental interiors (and generally the wettest for coastal as the water vapor condenses over cooler land). Even the desert, such as around Tucson, is wetter in July and August than December and January. The rain may not be where it is desired and there are ALWAYS regional variations from year to year, but rainfall will increase with increasing temperatures in summation. That is just the way weather works.
Nice to see Ms. Burchill is still having her tantrums two and a half decades after starting them at the New Musical Express. She knew nothing of music then, now it's ignorance of environmentalism.
"Yes, many prominent greens are posh gits like me."
And from my experience, a good many of them are the ones who want all of us to turn off our air conditioners and swelter as they walk around in their 5000-square feet mansions. Or else they want everyone to subsist on tofu while they jet around and sample from the tray of meats.
I've told most "environmentalists" that I've met that I draw the line at certain things that I won't do.
1. I won't adjust my air conditioning to feel superior. It's set on 70 degrees in the summer, and I occasionally run a window unit in my bedroom as well if the mood strikes me.
2. I'm not going to quit eating meat. I grew up on a ranch and I like meat - all kinds of it.
3. I'm not going to walk or bike nine miles to work every day, nor am I going to move. I love my house and my job. Nine miles in a Honda Civic isn't going to destroy the atmosphere.
Good points mostly.
"In truth, while the upper middle classes are, as always, over-represented in the media,"
Strictly speaking, the upper middle classes (and everybody else) are seen by the oligarchy as consumers and slaves. They're represented when it profits the oligarchy and otherwise led by the nose.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that world turmoil rises with overpopulation and extreme money-power concentration. It doesn't take a tree hugger to figure that one out.
Somebody mention Rush Limbaugh?
All that dear little man does is create situations when Americans can hate some other american.
Lets face it folks our history is full of that thinking we are better then our neighbor.
I know more liberals even complain about me being on their side.
This book this woman wrote?Nothing knew?
The only thing that keeps me going is I know for a fact that humans are destroying the planet and oneday themselves.
i most likely will not be around for MY
I TOLD YOU SO!
Environmentalism is too big of a word.
It should be change to just CARING!
When you're done being a whining loser like the author, you might want to take some time to learn about a plant neither the author nor the rightwing wants you to know about. Ask Ron Paul to give you a very nice education on INDUSTRIAL HEMP and how it's the best thing environmentalists and economists could ever ask for. You'll only regret not having found out earlier.
The reality is things are not going to change overnight, so we have to think in practical terms of what we want to change.
Do we really want to stop fight invader species or is it a waste of time? What are our priorities?
Yeah, I just read Rush Limbaugh's chapter called: "Sorry, The Environment is not Fragile." Full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
I believe that would be a good angle to attack the conservative right: label them nihilists through and through. They hate liberals with a bitterness that could not come from Jesus. Therefore, since they are mostly free market libertarians, they don't really believe in anything but their right to be rich and free. That belief system sounds like Hedonist/Satanic Bible fodder to me.
If everyone is a hypocrite on a continuum let's say 1 being "saintly" all the way to 10 as in "Dick Cheney". Then, the key to a good life might be to humble yourself as much as possible while limiting the extent of your hypocrisy?
Do what you can and stay positive. We cannot avoid hypocrisy. Love your neighbors and believe in everyone's right to a healthy environment.
"Hypocrisy is the gap between your aspirations and your actions."
I'll agree with that.
In that case, how hypocritical are most christians? INCREDIBLY. I'll bet Ms. Burchill fits that bill.
Yes, to rail against the world, as we now do, is to find ourselves up against our own selves, time and time again, shutting the most of us up.
Cindy Sheehan writes today that we should in these times give up our jobs out of moral conscience, what jobs that remain being so systemically connected to the problems that there are, but who can do that but the very wealthy or the very fortunate, and what is there to distinguish between the two? And how cavalier we all are to the suffering of others, but how attentive to what we feel, truly, is there an altruistic gene, or do only the fittest survive?
The brightest environmentalist probably contributes more to the problem than the very least. Our hypocrisy stifles or horrifies the rest of us, but hypocrites seem to rule the day. The rest remains to be seen.