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Next Mass Extinction an Eyeblink Away: Scientists
Life on Earth is hurtling towards extinction levels comparable to those following the dinosaur-erasing asteroid impact of 65 million years ago, propelled forward by human activities, say scientists.
This week, scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, announced that if current extinction rates continue unabated, and vulnerable species disappear, Earth could lose three-quarters of its species as soon as three centuries from now.
"That's a geological eyeblink," said Nicholas Matzke, a graduate student at UC Berkeley and author of a paper describing the doom-and-gloom scenario.
"Once you lose species, you don't get them back. It takes millions of years to rebound from a mass extinction event."
This means that not, too far in the future, backyards might not be buzzing with bees, bombarded by seagulls or shaded by redwood trees. And while that might seem far off, species are already disappearing on a global scale.
In recent history, we've lost the dodo bird and the passenger pigeon, the Javan tiger and the Japanese sea lion, and now, maybe the eastern cougar - declared extinct by the US Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday.
Amphibians, mammals, plants, fish - none are immune to going the way of the dinosaurs, courtesy of the human impact on fragile ecosystems.
Such enormous losses have occurred only five times in the past half-billion years, during events known as "mass extinctions".
The best-known of these events occurred 65 million years ago - a "really bad day," according to paleontologists - when an asteroid collided with Earth, sending fiery dust into the atmosphere and rapidly cooling the planet.
These "Big Five" events set the extinction bar high: to reach mass wipe-out status, 75 per cent of all species need to disappear within a geologically short time frame, meaning that Earth is currently on the brink of the sixth mass extinction.
To determine whether current losses could equal these mass extinction rates, scientists compared recent rates with species die-offs during the Big Five, taking into account presently endangered species.
They also looked at the number of species lost in recent history, and found that while rates are dramatically higher than expected, the percentage of vanishing species is not elevated - yet.
We already are engaged in a seemingly inexorable march toward barren landscapes and empty seas, a procession fuelled by human population growth, resource consumption and climate change, scientists say.
"The good news is, we still have most of what we want to save," said Berkeley paleobiologist and lead study author Anthony Barnosky. "But things are clearly going extinct too fast today."
The paper, published in this week's issue of Nature, resulted from a graduate seminar Barnosky organised in autumn 2009.
Together, he and students used fossils to compare extinction rates with more modern data, wanting to answer whether we really are seeing the sixth mass extinction.
To make comparisons, scientists used information from well-preserved fossils and modern accounts of disappearing animals, focusing on our milk-bearing relatives: mammals.
Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich, who was not involved in the study, said evidence of the sixth extinction is all around.
For years, he studied the bay checkerspot butterfly on Stanford's campus - but then, the butterfly disappeared from the campus, more than a decade ago.
And, when Ehrlich journeyed to Morocco to sample a different checkerspot species, he found no butterflies, just "sheep droppings and not one blade of grass".
Scientists say habitat destruction, global climate change, introducing invasive species, and population growth are contributing to losses.
"Those four things working in concert are kind of a perfect storm that's setting up a recipe for disaster," Barnosky said. "But people are the ones who are driving this extinction, so we can fix it."
In addition to prioritising species preservation, Ehrlich suggested starting with caps on human population growth and limiting resource consumption.
"We could do something about it, but I don't see that we have the slightest inclination to," he said.
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Show AllComments to a Friend on Climate Change, 3/2/2011
It requires forceful and clear political leadership to address the challenges we face. Obama is not up to the task. Quite frankly- even if 80% of Americans believed that climate change was a serious issue and had dire consequences- in my opinion- that would still not be enough for Obama to act decisively- the man can’t even mention the term climate change in his post 2008 election speeches. Energy SECURITY is the “new” code word for climate security.
The issue is not simply climate change as you know. We are undergoing a level of species extinction only matched a few times in Earth’s history. Food and water supplies are seriously compromised throughout the globe. While inflating food prices are in part related to market manipulation- the underlying cause is ballooning fuel prices and scarcity. Peak oil- that can easily strangulate every “advanced” economy is by some OIL company estimates- less than 20 years away (may already be taking place). Abusing the environment further to feed this oil addiction will only exacerbate the effects of peak oil and environmental destruction.
Unfortunately, unlike government and corporate think tanks- most ordinary citizens cannot couple the notion of climate change and war. Governments that cannot feed their populations- let alone their oil addictions- will if allowed by their citizens- engage in a war for survival. This scenario is not a sci-fi plot- but a likely possibility if current trends continue. Do you understand that these think tanks I just alluded to even see nuclear war/winter as a partial counterbalance to global warming. Can you conceive of how horrific this notion is?
He issue is NOT over population. Even at Europe’s level of consumption- the earth could support up to 11 billion people. At US consumption- the Earth cannot support the current 6 billion. The issue is unnecessary consumption, mass deception of the public and irresponsible manipulation of the environment coupled with spiritual death. The latter permits people to destroy life and busily go on with their daily lives- without much concern- focusing on their own individual needs- the rest of the world be damned. It also relates to the core questions of economic versus spiritual values- and whether GDP is a measure of happiness or there is something else of greater value.
The world is on the precipice of disaster and destruction- like no other period in human history. Collective action is required- it is impossible to address any of the issues I mentioned above in isolation.
Forget Obama. He is a sellout of the first order. Unrecognizable from his campaign speeches of 2007 and 2008. Acutely ambitious and unwilling to separate himself from his DLC leash holders. He is an imperialist and a corporatist and will be of no help at all as we continue on this path to destruction. Here come the energy price hikes and food hikes. Get used to shortages and a lessening of future hopes and dreams thanks to the New Normal that Barry the Liar and his pals on both sides of the aisle represent.
Reading a piece like this one disgusts me. It is bad enough that we have an all out Rethug assault on what is left of the natural world in this country but to realize the profound damage that we are largely responsible for (North Pacific Garbage Patch, anyone?) around the world leads me to despair. Notice how people have largely forgotten the BP oil spill? Tony Hayward isn't in prison like he deserves to be but he is disappointed because he didn't get a bonus this year. Ahhhh! That will be less money to spend on his luxurious racing yacht.
I sometimes believe that we are simply not good enough to solve the various problems that we create and are responsible for. One thing that should be changed is our scientific name - Homo sapiens "wise man". How about Homo sap.
"The reason that they call it the American Dream is that you have to be asleep to believe it." - George Carlin
I suggest "homo sociopathus".
I like, Goofus Erectus.
LJF: Great post. On the basis of the consciousness which expressed it, you demonstrate that you are a friend of all sentient life. Thank you. Wise words.
re: "He issue is NOT over population. Even at Europe’s level of consumption- the earth could support up to 11 billion people. "
I disagree entirely. Where, with all of these people, are the wildernesses supposed to be? Could we survive if the majority of the surface of Earth were an urban, or suburban environment? I don't think so.
Wildlands and old-growth forests are the last remaining macro-organs of the terrestrial biosphere. The only way Earth can sustain its current population is if we decide as a species to grow in only two directions: Up, into the skies, and down, into the Earth. The Earth's surface, easily witnessed through an airplane window, is already covered to over-capacity. And growing upwardly, and downwardly would only be a part of the solution to adapt Earth to greater human capacity: Great unbroken wilderness 'corridors' would have to be established in massive bands stretching from the farthest northern regions of the globe, to the farthest southern regions, with human infrastructure and development limited to narrow corridors of densely inhabited regions near the coasts (and some inland bands). Those choosing to live in the 'wild-zones' would be without social protections, and should be prohibited from using technology surpassing the iron age (more or less).
So perhaps the Earth can maintain a population of 10 billion, with the assistance of technology, and a highly organized, aware and cooperative human populace (as if we can rely on this), but what would the quality of life be like for those alive? How, besides the above scenario, do we limit the destructive tendencies of so many people? These are all very very big 'what ifs', and again, I don't think your argument about population is valid (the rest is excellent though).
The Earth CANNOT support even 7 billion, at least not feasibly, or sustainably.
It should, and can be held as a tenet that the more of something there is, the less valuable each example of that thing is. Who will deny that the value of human life goes down significantly when there are simply endless numbers of us around? Who doubts that we ourselves hold life and our species in greater and greater contempt as our population burgeons out of control? The contempt is thick and heavy right here on CD, right here on this thread.
I'll state it again: The most important fight of the modern era is the education of our fellow humans, and especially the education and empowerment of women.
By guest blogger John Stuart Mill:
There is room in the world, no doubt, and even in old countries, for a great increase in population, supposing the arts of life to go on improving, and capital to increase. But even if innocuous, I confess I see very little reason for desiring it. The density of population necessary to enable mankind to obtain, in the greatest degree, all the advantages both of cooperation and of social intercourse, has, in all the most populous countries, been attained.
A population may be too crowded, though all be amply provided with food and raiment. It is not good for man to be kept perforce at all times in the presence of his species. A world from which solitude is extirpated, is a very poor ideal. Solitude, in the sense of being often alone, is essential to any depth of meditation or of character; and solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur, is the cradle of thoughts and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society could do ill without. Nor is there much satisfaction in contemplating the world with nothing left to the spontaneous activity of nature; with every rood* of land brought into cultivation, which is capable of growing food for human beings; every flowery waste or natural pasture plowed up, all quadrupeds or birds which are not domesticated for man's use exterminated as his rivals for food, every hedgerow or superfluous tree rooted out, and scarcely a place left where a wild shrub or flower could grow without being eradicated as a weed in the name of improved agriculture.
If the earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger, but not a better or happier population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to be stationary, long before necessity compels them to it.
It is scarcely necessary to remark that a stationary condition of capital and population implies no stationary state of human improvement. There would be as much scope as ever for all kinds of mental culture, and moral and social progress; as much room for improving the Art of Living, and much more likelihood of its being improved, when minds ceased to be engrossed by the art of getting on. Even the industrial arts might be as earnestly and as successfully cultivated, with the sole difference, that instead of serving no purpose but the increase of wealth, industrial improvements would produce their legitimate effect, that of abridging labor.
Hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being. They have enabled a greater population to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment, and an increased number of manufacturers and other to make fortunes. They have increased the comforts of the middle classes. But they have not yet begun to effect those great changes in human destiny, which it is in their nature and in their futurity to accomplish. Only when, in addition to just institutions, the increase of mankind shall be under the deliberate guidance of judicious foresight, can the conquests made from the powers of nature by the intellect and energy of scientific discoverers, become the common property of the species, and the means of improving and elevating the universal lot.
----------------------------
From J. S. Mill's Principles of Political Economy, Book IV, Chapter VI (Of the Stationary State"), Section II (as it first appeared) --published in 1848. (* A rood = 1/4 acre)
LJG100,
Most of your points are valid and accurate. However, you fail to mention divine intervention, which, of course, will save the day - at least for those who will be swept up by the Rapture. [Looking forward to that momentous change!]
However, a cautionary note to those who do not believe in the Rapture (most Africans, most South Americans, most Asians, most Europeans,...actually most of the world)... ya'r gonna lose out!! You will see all those holy (christian, jewish [and some select] islamic, GOP) people uplifted into HEAVEN, while the rest of us will remain to deal with the Hellish problems created by the selfish minority who created them.
And let us no forget the Redman (who got in the way of progress and paid for it with a quick dispatch to meet Mother Earth) who had a great love of and respected nature and the way of life for thousands of years. He relinquished his claim to the land to the delight of the civilized white man, who continues to rape and pillage [frack?] the earth.
Okay, so maybe there won't be a Rapture and the selfish (holy) minority will remain to share the dubious fruits of their rapturous existence here on earth. Will they still be oblivious to the reality of excessive pollution and runaway growth? Probably not, but, oops, maybe it will be too late to change course.
Good luck all!
Capitalism is not able to deal with this problem. Bottom line! no pun intended.
'We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo
I would personally like to thank corporations, and the wealthy; and especially the religions of the world, for your tireless work for the destruction of science, reason and an environmentally sustainable existence!
//"But people are the ones who are driving this extinction, so we can fix it."//
There's a leap of logic here.
Short succinct comments seem much more intelligent at this point. Blathering all the gooba speak just doesn't cut it anymore.
It's dead and there's no turning back cause people don't belong here...TOUGH
Nobody can say now that we are not getting good news.
Heres a video of Derrick Jensen outlining how absurd and ineffective our response has been to the present and future environmental catastrophe "progress" is leading us toward:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8649250863235826256#
I got the same reaction when reading an article here where the author pleads NATO to be careful about civilian casualties, which i likened to asking to the vampire living in the cemetary nearby if he would please stop drinking our blood.
Three centuries from now may be too distant for most people: how about considering everything we do now and how it may affect the next seven generations with each new generation looking ahead as many generations?
Articles by Chris Williams definitely worth reading:
"Hot House Earth: Capitalism, Climate Change, and the Fate of Humanity" part I http://www.isreview.org/issues/62/feat-hothouseearth.shtml
"Hot House Earth: Capitalism, Climate Change, and the Fate of Humanity" part II http://www.isreview.org/issues/64/feat-hothouse2.shtml
"Population, Hunger, and Environmental Degradation" http://www.isreview.org/issues/68/feat-overpopulation.shtml
PERMACULTURE.
Is being human a birth defect? What choice is there but to believe that humans are incompatible with life?
ONE BY ONE,
HUMANS KILL OFF THE ANIMALS,
UNTIL THEY ARE EXTINCT…
SAVING THE WORST FOR LAST…
And the lines to the killing floor in our slaughterhouses get longer and longer. If this is the contempt we hold toward the lives of "livestock" [so-called], what chance do free-living species have in an "all-you-can-eat, top-of-the-food-chain" human-infested world?
I was in a sweat lodge a few decades ago saying just this same thing.And no one but the Shaman seemed to believe we were in the 6th great extintion event.But I can see it.
We must turn it around to the best of our ability.
peace
Lemmings refuse to cancel annual cliff-side parade.
"In addition to prioritising species preservation, Ehrlich suggested starting with caps on human population growth and limiting resource consumption."
Human population and resource consumption are going to be severely reduced as peak oil kicks in...as it is already. Food shortages, civil unrest, oil wars, and economic collapse- will soon bring with it massive human population die-off in the most vulnerable places. Social chaos elsewhere, if people have not prepared their communities. Peak oil is going to take care of these two problems- not before many species are on their way to extinction, unfortunately.
My main concern is- okay, my TWO main concerns: 1) oil/energy resource wars leading to use of nuclear weapons; and 2) the nuclear waste from nuclear energy that is building up constantly- with no realistic plans for safe, self-maintaining, very very long term, storage.
A Congressman from my state has proposed moving one endangered species to a sanctuary in order to resume the logging industry-- he attributes those job losses to protection of the endangered species. Apparently, he thinks all endangered animals belong in zoos and sanctuaries rather than the wild.
Wes Jackson has a nice analysis of this in his latest book: Consulting the Genius of the Place. He brilliantly dissects the illogic of believing that you can poison and deplete half of the planet and still have the other half be a healthy version of nature. However, in response to his critique, one legislator told Jackson that his problem was that he was not thinking galactically, meaning that when we kill off this planet we can always move to another one!
" he was not thinking galactically, meaning that when we kill off this planet we can always move to another one!"
Yes, and of course who would be able to relocate to these space stations or other planets?
People like the Koch brothers and their spawn.
..
Will humanity come to understand that the Earth, and the life upon it, is far more deserving, far more desperately in need of our care, concern, deference, and WORSHIP...
Far far more than any dominator sky God who could care less about the suffering we cause ourselves?
The male, dominator God enjoys seeing the 'unworthy' punished. But Earth, its plants and animals, and caring humans themselves do not enjoy seeing this collective punishment meted out upon us all.
Praise the Goddess, Praise the Earth, Love Her, Heal Her, Fall To Your Knees and Worship Her...
Or, bear the brunt of our apathy, and incapacity to change, or to care.
"We expect to pass through this world but once; therefore, any good that we can do or any kindness that we can show to any fellow creature, let us do it now; let us not defer or neglect it...for we shall not pass this way again."
--Stephen Grellet
"The heart of Pantheist philosophy is a belief in the sanctity of Nature. This means that we hold reverence for the inconceivable evolutionary processes that created us; for the unfolding of the stars in the Universe and the life on our home planet Earth. In short--we put our faith in our Creator--meaning not only all past events and shapes and patterns, but also the now, for Creation is a continuing process and exists within us and around us this very instant."
--Harold W. Wood
And now for some quotes by actual women.
sigh... *I am a man* after all.. What an insensitive oversight!
"Only if we understand can we care. Only if we care will we help. Only if we help shall they be saved. "
"You may not believe in evolution, and that is all right. How we humans came to be the way we are is far less important than how we should act now to get out of the mess we have made for ourselves."
"The more we learn of the true nature of non-human animals, especially those with complex brains and corresponding complex social behavior, the more ethical concerns are raised regarding their use in the service of man -- whether this be in entertainment, as "pets," for food, in research laboratories, or any of the other uses to which we subject them."
above three quotes –Jane Goodall
* * *
"The control of nature is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man. The concepts and practices of applied entomology for the most part date from that Stone Age of science. It is our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with the most modem and terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insects it has also turned them against the earth. "
"We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road -- the one less traveled by -- offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth. "
"One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, 'What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?'”
"Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. "
— Rachel Carson
* * *
"In nature's economy the currency is not money, it is life."
"Globalized industrialized food is not cheap: it is too costly for the Earth, for the farmers, for our health. The Earth can no longer carry the burden of groundwater mining, pesticide pollution, disappearance of species and destabilization of the climate. Farmers can no longer carry the burden of debt, which is inevitable in industrial farming with its high costs of production... Industrial agriculture uses ten times more energy than it produces. It is thus ten times less efficient."
"You are not Atlas carrying the world on y6our shoulder. It is good to remember that the planet is carrying you"
— Vandana Shiva
"We could do something about it, but I don't see that we have the slightest inclination to," Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich.
" Barnosky said. "But people are the ones who are driving this extinction, so we can fix it."
The Universities must persevere to educate society of the extinction we are living in and are on the brink of. The real things humans can do to minimize our use of energy. It's a way of life. These things need to be taught.
I just remembered why the Universities cannot awaken the people to the crisis we are in. They are underwritten by corporations that are war profiteers, especially the private Stanford. The American military being the World's greatest user of resources and polluter in the extreme on land and water in this World. Ok, we should all go back to sleep now.
It's not about people, it's about the rocks.
Attn: The Age (Australia)
Uh, Dude, we are already IN the largest mass extinction event in 65 million years. What part of "you are so friggin' lame" don't you understand?
there is a tragic theme in this piece, mass extinction over the next three centuries. Gradualism makes the pain somewhat tolerable. Not.
Folks environmental stewardship needs to understand our message is being beaten by the class-sectarian strife that is being sowed in these austere times. The public is being led away from us by fearful rhetoric and marketing campaigns from the fossil fuel and security industries. What must happen now is to not loose opportunities that are handed to us to take the mantle away from crony market forces. Climactic extremes in the past 14 months have devastated Russia, Haiti, Pakistan, Australia, north atlantic Icelandic volcanic ash, NewZealand and the Gulf Mexico.
If Gulf ecocide offenders are not prosecuted, then we deserve loss of biodiversity and extinction. You want to to make a difference, then win small battles before picking up large struggles against climate change.
What a confused post:
RE: If Gulf ecocide offenders are not prosecuted, then we deserve loss of biodiversity and extinction.
Prosecution implies laws. But the laws are made by, and made for, as well as enforced by members of (or agents of) the capitalist class - the class who is causing the environmental degradation and as well as social inequality so pressing today.
RE: You want to to make a difference, then win small battles before picking up large struggles against climate change.
Here you appear to contradict your earlier condemnation of "gradualism". The article is saying that we are running out of time, but in effect you say don't bother with the systemic change that is actually needed to solve the systemic problem (global warming) focus on "small battles" or an issue oriented strategy that has already proven itself to be woefully inadequate.
larsen, you are spearing quixotic windmills.
My point is clear in your repetition. Environmentalists and other progressives are loosing because we fail to take on smaller more winnable battles. Such as demanding prosecution of the Gulf ecocide. You say prosecution involves laws. laws already exist, we have not demanded their application. The public would be willing if lead by the stewards to obstruct BP and KellogBrown. How is it possible, barely 6 months later new permits for Gulf drilling have been issued. The mexican govt never stopped issuing drilling permits, no one stood up to protest them. The Brazilians are building ocean floor communities to exploit coastal shelf oil fields, they are totally unfazed by the Gulf ecocide of 2010. Why, because most stewards are screaming against bigger problems such as specie extinction. Its like attention deficit, unable to fixate on achievable solution.
Yes, bigger battles loom, carbon 350 etc, specie sanctuaries, no doubt they are vital targets. But we live in an infomercial ocean. To affect public policy, you have to focus on a task the public can comprehend ie when they have practical sympathy for our cause.
The Aussies are facing massive floods in Queensland. In good times when their economy prospered despite the recession elsewhere, they failed to prepare. What progress was pushed to help small farmers during a decade of scorching drought. Did they make any headway with surface water reclamation, did they commit to arid specie selection in breeding better seeds, did the stewards demand massive desalination technology. No. We are busy screaming our heads off, the public looks the other way. We need to become relevant.
RE: Environmentalists and other progressives are loosing because we fail to take on smaller more winnable battles.
I disagree. Environmentalists and other progressives are losing because because they are barking up the wrong tree. Most of the largest, most established environmental and progressive groups get support from or are tied to the politics of big corporations and the Democratic Party (in the US). These institutions are vehicles of the capitalist class (those responsible for the environmental degradation this article is about). Advocates for the victim should not turn to the perpetrator for justice.
See my post of 8:32pm below.
We will have a big ecological collapse. Then the 120K year Milankovitch Ice Age Cycle will kick in and we will have plenty of time to chill out. Besides our Sun is going to run out of fuel in 4 billio years.
Maybe in the 'grand scheme of things' Mother Nature is doing what she has to do to get rid of humans - remember humans' perspective of time is greatly different than Mother Nature's.
3 Most important steps to avert a pending pan-ecological disaster:
1. Move decisively away from a petroleum, top-down based world economy, to a bottom-up world economy where the means of 'energy production' is put into the hands of the individual, or under the control of small local administrators, beholden to local economies. The move away from petroleum-based compounds is especially important in regards to phasing out non-biodegradable/non-fully-recyclable plastics, to be replaced by bioplastics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioplastic) and other viable organic compounds.
2. Spreading of secular/social-minded/ecological/scientifically-sound education, especially with the intent of improving the conditions and social status for women. No other strategy more effectively addresses the concerns of the modern era than the educating and empowering of women. Why? Because this has shown to improve on-the-ground quality-of-life for whole communities, but also because this has been shown to be the absolutely most effective way to stem unbridled population growth – perhaps the #1 dilemma facing our planet today.
3. A move away from a meat-centered diet. The burden placed upon the world's ecosystems to provide humanity with the radically unprecedented amounts of meat consumed due to our modern dietary habits is one of the most virulent human transformations of the modern era. The amount of land, energy and resources needed to accommodate this dietary intake equates to almost ten times what is needed to accommodate a non-meat-based diet. Resources are only part of the equation. Compassion and awareness raising are not simply practical – These are life-style enhancements that effect all aspects of our integration with life and the planet.
Acts of kindness spread more kindness, and education passes skills and understanding from one to many, beginning a ball rolling that eventually may benefit countless others as time passes... Similarly, a wide dearth is left by those who never share the wealth of their knowledge or compassion with others.
Ultimately, it only takes *one person* to make the changes the world needs so desperately: YOU.
I think we should talk and type forever about "how we can fix" human-created problems like mass extinctions, global warming that threatens even greater extinctions, perpetual wars that guarantee perpetual death, chaos, destruction, as well as BIG PROFITS for capitalists, but never actually do anything substantive to fix or change a single thing that causes all this madness.
Oh, wait, this is already what's happening and has been happening for several decades. Studies and research have shown the same things for about 50 years now, gradually mounting up into Everests of evidence that all this is going on because of the way we insist on living, sacrificing the earth for our luxury and comfort, or just because we can, and still we don't do anything that really matters, to even so much as slow it down.
Our politicians listen ONLY to corporate mouthpieces, lobbyists who bribe them to permit further destruction and insanity, because that's where the real money is, and we can't stop any of this. So long as money makes these decisions, we can only talk, research, study, write, complain, plead and be abysmally depressed. And within a capitalist culture, nothing BUT money has a voice in these issues. At least not a voice that gets any hearing. So, keep capitalism and watch all the slow-mo extinctions, culminating in our own.
In principle I agree, because without a reversal of our overall attitudes and appetites, and especially without a reversal of our delusion that ample money can fix any and all ills, we are certainly doomed.
I mentioned 3 things I think essentially do effect a tectonic shift in human consciousness, but I did not mention doing away with Capitalism, because essentially imho, and as I've mentioned here on CD many times, this is an abstract and ultimately unworkable proposition. Capitalism in and of itself is not the problem... the problem is the emphasis our that our model of Capitalism promotes: endless profit for endless growth in the pursuit of endless wealth.
In other words, the problem isn't 'free-as-possible' markets, but the blinding glare of greed, and the promise of *limitless opportunity* espoused as the national raison d'etre of America.
This is what must change, not the concept that 'free-as-possible' markets aren't in and of themselves incalculable social goods. The prohibition of the freedom to freely invent, market, sell, invest, save and grow in the 'free-as-possible' market would constitute the substitution of one tyranny simply with another.
The problem is not one of "attitudes and appetites", nor values or morality. The environmental problems like mass-extinction are a direct consequence of the capitalist economic system (as is the attitudes and appetites you decry). The overthrow of capitalism is the "tectonic shift" that needs to happen; this is the most important, not your "3 things". Our "consciousness" will change as we move away from this exploitative system.
From Chris Williams (http://www.isreview.org/issues/62/feat-hothouseearth.shtml):
Solving the problem of global warming requires understanding the relationship between capitalism and the environment, examining the solutions on offer within the framework of the system, and determining whether those solutions are up to the task of preventing a runaway greenhouse effect. The world system of capitalism has been, and will continue to be, largely impotent in the face of climate change, not because there are evil, uneducated, backward individuals in power—though this is arguably true in many cases—but because capitalism’s own social relations prevent effective solutions from being realized. The blind, unplanned drive to accumulate that is the hallmark of capitalist production—the profit motive—has created the problem of climate change, not individuals’ profligate natures or overpopulation. Therefore, the system of economic production and distribution needs to be transformed or we will be living on a much less hospitable planet.
The rapacity of capitalism knows no bounds. Indeed, capitalism, by its very nature is “unbounded”—as soon as a limit or boundary is reached, it must exceed it. Capitalism has reached a point in its development that now threatens the basic biogeochemical processes of the planet as human civilization has come to know them. Ecological devastation is not an accidental outcome of capitalist development, but, as with class exploitation and war, an intrinsic element of the system.
Hi Tom,
Well stated response, I just wanted to revisit a few of my standard caveats.
re: "The problem is not one of "attitudes and appetites", nor values or morality."
Why isn't this the problem? If you ask me, this is exactly why the current expression of Capitalism is so dangerous, right? Because it promotes the wrong attitudes and appetites.... and because it confuses the costs of consumer products with the the value of human needs and wants, i.e. it promotes a skewed moral sensibility.
re: "The environmental problems like mass-extinction are a direct consequence of the capitalist economic system"
Please let me be clear that I agree with you insomuch as I agree that Capitalism can become manifest as a useful tool of humanity, or it can manifest itself as a useful tool of oligarchy and tyranny. I prefer to utilize the term 'free-as-possible' markets over Capitalism to evoke this distinction, but ultimately, the distinction is simply preferential. 'Free-as-possible' markets is just another way to say 'transparently, but well regulated' Capitalism, and it also implies, at least when I employ it, ethical Capitalism.
I know, an oxy-moron. Well, we can get caught up in definitions, and i know I'll make few friends espousing any type of 'Capitalism'.... but in a similar vein to my question to you from a few days ago – which you answered very satisfactorily – I still need to understand: What is it about 'free-as-possible', well-regulated Capitalism that is so onerous? Keep in mind, as a anti-moderate left-liberal, I see Democratic Socialism as the paradigm that should hold sway over government, so I see an inherent and powerful role for social infrastructure, and social responsibilities to play among our populace.
That being said, if we could free Capitalism of : Monopolies, multinationals more powerful than the agencies/sovereign gov'ts designed to regulate them , derivative and interest-based profit schemes, legal loopholes that shelter tax-evaders and environmental polluters, the outsourcing of risk, lobbying efforts that undercut the ability of government to regulate,
and, through the systematic embracing and promotion of sustainability,
if we could shift our nation's addiction away from limitless growth and profit to social and holistic responsibility... then why couldn't we maintain 'free-as-possible' markets that in all other ways reflect the needs of humans trying to earn/make a living according to their own natural preferences and predilections?
You have a pie-in-the-sky notion of capitalism. Your instincts are good and uplifting, and my general aspirations aren't that far from yours, but you simply aren't going to get there with visionary, "sustainable", "free-as-possible", happy and natural capitalism. Because it doesn't now and has never existed. Dream of it all you want, it won't come into being.
What we have have now is actually existing capitalism, the kind that had no alternative but to develop. Tom Larsen is absolutely right and you're whiling away your time in a dream world. There's isn't anything necessarily onerous about free-as-possible (whatever that means) well-regulated capitalism, except that it isn't remotely possible in the world we actually live in. Capitalists don't care about "holistic" anything. They care about profits, at any and all costs to the environment, to the majority of the world's population, to every living thing that breathes and walks or crawls upon the earth.
I'm surprised you don't quite get this, as a pantheist. You should. Remove thine head from yon clouds.
Great answer.
re: "I'm surprised you don't quite get this, as a pantheist. You should. Remove thine head from yon clouds."
I do get this. But I fail to see that the correction should be something BIG, and 'world changing'. I only want world changing insomuch as I want an end to the insanity. I want a return to 'natural law' with *minimal* human intervention and correction, not an over-arching scheme to once and for-all address and fix 'the problem' of life and human nature. The problem is not people being liberated to be themselves and do as they will, often to make mistakes and 'do what isn't in society's interests' – it is systems that seek to institutionalize false authority over humanity. And almost all human systems institutionalize false authority.
I don't trust an overthrow of many of the ideas that made America a beacon of individual freedom and expression in the mid-20th Century. I believe in a 'restoration' of what has been an incontrovertible good that I experienced growing up among my fellow Americans – that I know has always been here. And like it or not, some aspects of capitalism were the reason why so many came here in the first place. It was the promise of being able to define one's own destiny that drew people here. This is what I so greatly believe. Kill capitalism with a knife in its back face down in a ditch, but preserve all peoples' opportunity to define their own destiny and to 'gently exploit' the world according to their own tradition and understanding, then we can agree wholeheartedly. But this really is the essence of capitalism: an individual exploiting what advantage they can to get ahead in the world. I know that perhaps seems primitive compared to an officially enforced and maintained morality, but its what I prefer.
re: "Tom Larsen is absolutely right and you're whiling away your time in a dream world."
Well, the way I look at it, people who believe in an over-arching socialist revolution are living in a dream world. What I want is social justice, and a solid social infrastructure, not a socialist nanny state that controls and regulates all aspects of existence, or that defines public as more intrinsic than private (I hold them as equal, and dynamically intertwined values). I don't claim that you (or anyone else) is calling for a complete socialist revolution, but that's what I think I and many other reasonable people are worried about when the avid far-left get particularly vociferous at certain crossroads in history.
Social justice, YES. Socialist revolution... I'm not quite buying it.
OK, so you're convinced that social justice can be achieved within some model of capitalism that fits with your nostalgic version, "a 'restoration' of what has been an incontrovertible good that I experienced growing up among my fellow Americans – that I know has always been here." I'm aware that nearly all immigrants to this country were drawn here because they longed for the "freedom" that capitalism seemed to promise, and many of them did find a degree of freedom and independence they'd never known before. Sometimes because of the failures of soviet/eastern European socialism.
But Stalinism and all its twisted, tyrannical permutations are NOT what socialism was ever meant to be about. If Marx had been around during Stalin's reign of terror, he'd probably have organized an assassination team to get rid of the despot. And it probably would have failed just as efforts to eliminate Hitler failed. But I suspect you've internalized the Right's definition of socialism, whether you know it or not. No one seriously espousing socialism today wants any return to Stalinism, Maoism or what you tellingly refer to as a "nanny state." You seem persuaded that any sort of socialism will rob you of your cherished individuality, a key selling point in the marketing of capitalism for over 200 years. And you want to "end the insanity" but don't trust anyone who wants any BIG changes, nothing "world changing," just no more insanity.
I have to wonder how we'd end all the insane practices and behaviors, how we'd rid ourselves of all the insane ideas that have led to endless wars, slow but certain destruction of the planet and a killing off of millions of species, with our own extinction looming not that far ahead, and yet manage to avoid changing the world. I can't think of a more contradictory aspiration than what you propose. But if you're really that wedded to "restoring" the capitalism you remember as a child, when a happy self-confidence, and gentle exploitation of natural resources enabled creative individualism and getting ahead in the world, then you yearn for a romantic capitalism Ayn Rand preached for over 50 years. The same one that led us exactly where we are today. That gentle, caring, compassionate capitalism was peddled by George W. Bush, and his devious daddy before him, BTW, and it was never anything but a lie.
I know your intentions are good, and so are mine. I don't want to ever be in a position of issuing orders to people to follow some blueprint of how to live, everyone doing exactly the same things and reporting back to some governing body--the nanny state. No one who wants to see capitalism ended wants anything that idiotic and stifling. I'm not searching for a dictator. We already have hundreds of them running this government--they're called corporate CEOs, or capitalists.
Since you obviously care about nature, let me recommend the book by Joel Kovel, "The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World?" Published in 2002 by Zed Books, not sure if it's still in print. I can't think of anything that might (gently) challenge your thinking more. Because I am convinced you're not going to find "social justice" if you really want to preserve capitalism. It isn't going to return to what it was in the 1950s or '60s, just by wishing it into being. (Besides, there wasn't a hell of a lot of social justice around back then either, even if the tax code was far more progressive.) The type of socialism I have in mind will only emerge as it's being imagined into reality. I don't have any prescription for what it would finally be. Anyone who claims they do has delusions of granduer. But if we could actually get rid once and for all of capitalism, I think we could CREATE a life-affirming, joyous socialism that would in no way resemble the failed experiments of its brutal past.
Exemplary! Thank you!
Joel's book got the ball rolling. Also worth reading is John Bellamy Foster's "The Ecological Revolution" (I'd add "Marx's Ecology:Materialism and Nature" - it's a bit more academic but it gives a thorough critique of Malthus for example, which I am currently reading) and most recently Chris Williams' "Ecology and Socialism" (a lecture of Chris' with the same title was featured on Alternative Radio a few weeks back too).
Thanks, Tom. I'll look into Foster and Williams both. Good tips. I only wish more folks would start seeing the glaringly obvious connections between the ongoing environmental wreckage and capitalism. Of course, it could still go on under a nominal socialism, as long as it stayed committed to carbon based fuels as energy sources for out-of-control hyperindustrialism and addictions to high tech, earth unfriendly gadgetry. The "ecosocialism" Kovel writes about would avoid such a dead end. I'm sure Foster and Williams have similar, maybe more developed ideas along that line.
RE: I only wish more folks would start seeing the glaringly obvious connections between the ongoing environmental wreckage and capitalism.
I agree. Some important environmentalists have like Bill McKibben, but while he recognizes the systemic nature of the problem, he doesn't yet propose a systemic solution. He's still trapped inside the box of Liberalism.
In a lecture given many years ago, Michael Parenti said that environmentalism was fundamentally subversive (that is, it was on a collision course with capitalism as it supported nature over profits), and the paradox was that most environmentalists didn't seem to be aware of that. That the environmental movement historically has been tied to Liberalism has resulted - not so much in green progress - but more in green washing.
Kovel gives Williams a very supportive plug on the back of my copy of Chris' book. It is interesting that Kovel was writing from the background of anthropology, and Foster writes from the perspective of sociology and Williams from science. I asked Chris about Kovel and Foster, and he said that he was very influenced by their work and that they were very supportive of his book. Williams is refining and substantiating their arguments.
I'll be looking into all the names and authors mentioned in this thread (esp. by you and Ephraim) over the weekend. I sense that most of us post here because we care and are searching for answers to solving our collective dilemma. I'm sure that with some reading I can come more into more harmony and achieve more clarity about the solutions modern socialist activists promote. The last thing I want to do is hold onto worn and outdated prejudices.
Cheers and thanks for sharing the helpful info!