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Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet
A black tern weighs barely two ounces. On bodily reserves less than a bag of M&Ms and wings that stretch to cover twelve inches, she’ll fly thousands of miles, searching for the wetlands that will harbor her young. And every year the journey gets longer as the wetlands are desiccated for human demands. Every year the tern, desperate and hungry, loses, while civilization, endless and sanguineous, wins.
A polar bear should weigh 650 pounds. Her biological reserves may have to see her through nine long months of dark, denned gestation, and then lactation, giving up her dwindling stores to the needy mouths of her species’ future. In some areas, the female’s weight has dropped from 650 to 507 pounds.1 Meanwhile, the ice has evaporated like the wetlands. When she wakes, the waters will stretch impassably opened, and there is no Abrahamic god of bears to part them for her.
The Aldabra snail should weigh something, but all that’s left to weigh are their skeletons, bits of orange and indigo shells. The snail has been declared not just extinct, but the first casualty of global warming. In dry periods, the snail hibernated. The young of any species are always more vulnerable. In this case, the adults’ “reproductive success” was a “complete failure.”2 In plain terms, the babies died and kept dying, and a species millions of years old is now a pile of shell fragments.
We are living in a period of mass extinction. What is your personal carrying capacity for grief, rage, despair? The numbers stand at 120 species a day.3 That’s 50,000 a year. This culture is oblivious to their passing, entitled to their every last niche, and there is no roll call on the nightly news.
We already have a name for the tsunami wave of extermination: the Holocene extinction event. There’s no asteroid this time, only human behavior, behavior that we could choose to stop. Adolph Eichman’s excuse was that no one told him that the concentration camps were wrong. We’ve all seen the pictures of the drowning polar bears. Are we so ethically numb that we need to be told this is wrong?
There are voices raised in concern, even anguish, at the plight of the earth, the rending of its species. “Only zero emissions can prevent a warmer planet,” one pair of climatologists declared.4 Or James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia hypothesis, who states bluntly that global warming has passed the tipping point, carbon offsetting is a joke, and that “individual lifestyle adjustments” are “a deluded fantasy.”5 It’s all true. And self–evident. “Simple living” should start with simple observation: if burning fossil fuels will kill the planet, then stop burning them.
But that conclusion, in all its stark clarity, is not the one anyone’s drawing, from the policy makers to the environmental groups. When they start offering solutions is the exact moment when they stop telling the truth, inconvenient or otherwise. Google “global warming solutions.” The first paid sponsor, www.CampaignEarth.org, urges “No doom and gloom!! When was the last time depression got you really motivated? We’re here to inspire realistic action steps and stories of success.” By “realistic” they don’t mean solutions that actually match the scale of the problem. They mean the usual consumer choices—cloth shopping bags, travel mugs, and misguided dietary advice—which will do exactly nothing to disrupt the troika of industrialization, capitalism, and patriarchy that is skinning the planet alive. But since these actions also won’t disrupt anyone’s life, they’re declared both realistic and a success.
The next site offers the ever–crucial Global Warming Bracelets and, more importantly, Flip Flops. Polar bears everywhere are weeping with relief. The site’s Take Action page includes the usual buying light bulbs, inflating tires, filling dishwashers, shortening showers, and rearranging the deck chairs.
The first non–commercial site is the Union of Concerned Scientists. As one might expect, there’s no explanation points but instead a statement that “[t]he burning of fossil fuel (oil, coal, and natural gas) alone counts for about 75 percent of annual CO2 emissions.” This is followed by a list of Five Sensible Steps. Step #1 is—no, not stop burning fossil fuel—but “Make Better Cars and SUVs.” Never mind that the automobile itself is the pollution, with its demands—for space, for speed, for fuel—in complete opposition to the needs of both a viable human community and a living planet. Like all the others, the scientists refuse to call industrial civilization into question. We can have a living planet and the consumption that’s killing the planet, can’t we?
The principle here is very simple. As Derrick has written, “[A]ny social system based on the use of nonrenewable resources is by definition unsustainable.”6 By definition, nonrenewable means it will eventually run out. Once you’ve grasped that intellectual complexity, you can move on to the next level. “Any culture based on the nonrenewable use of renewable resources is just as unsustainable.” Trees are renewable. But if we use them faster than they can grow, the forest will turn to desert. Which is precisely what civilization has been doing for its 10,000 year campaign, running through soil, rivers, and forests as well as metal, coal, and oil. The oceans are almost dead, 90 percent of the large fish devoured, and the plankton populations are collapsing, populations which both feed the life of the oceans and create oxygen for the planet. What will we fill our lungs with when they are gone? The plastics with which that industrial civilization is replacing them? Because in parts of the Pacific, plastic outweighs plankton 48 to 1.7 Imagine your blood, your heart, crammed with toxic materials—not just chemicals but physical gunk—until there was ten times more of it than you. What metaphor would be adequate to the dying oceans? Cancer? Suffocation? Crucifixion?
Meanwhile, the oceans don’t need our metaphors. They need action. They need industrial civilization to stop destroying and devouring; failing that, they need us to make it stop.
Which is why we are writing this book.
*******
The truth is that this culture is insane. When Derrick asks his audiences, “Does anyone here believe that our culture will undergo a voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living?”—and he’s asked it for years, all around the country—no one says yes. That means that most people, or at least most people with a beating heart, have already done the math, added up the arrogance, sadism, stupidity, and denial, and reached the bottom line: a dead planet. Some of us carry that final sum like the weight of a corpse. For others, that conclusion turns the heart to a smoldering coal. But despair and rage have been declared unevolved and unclean, beneath the “spiritual warriors” who insist they will save the planet by “healing” themselves. How this activity will stop the release of carbon and the felling of forests is never actually explained. The answer lies vaguely between being the change we wish to see and a hundredth monkey of hope, a monkey that is frankly more Christmas pony than actual possibility.
Given that the culture of America is founded on individualism and awash in privilege, it’s no surprise that narcissism is the end result. The social upheavals of the 60s split along fault lines of responsibility and hedonism, of justice and selfishness, of sacrifice and entitlement. What we are left with is an alternative culture that offers workshops on our “scarcity consciousness,” as if poverty were a state of mind and not a structural support of capitalism. This culture leaves us ill–prepared to face the crisis of planetary biocide that greets us daily with its own grim dawn. The facts are not conducive to an open–hearted state of wonder. To confront the truth as adults, not as faux–children, requires an adult fortitude and courage, grounded in our adult responsibilities to the world. It requires those things because the situation is horrific and living with that knowledge will hurt. Meanwhile, I have been to workshops where global warming is treated as an opportunity for personal growth, and no one but me sees a problem with that.
The alternative culture has encouraged a continuum that runs from the narcissistic to the sociopathic. Narcissists don’t change. As one set of experts puts it, “Typically, as narcissism is an ingrained personality trait, rather than a chemical imbalance, medication and therapy are not very effective in treating the disorder.”8 Somewhere unarticulated, we all know that. And sociopaths can’t change. We know that, too. Which is why no one raises a hand when Derrick asks whether the culture will voluntarily transition to a sustainable way of life.
The word sustainable serves as an example of the worst tendencies of the alternative culture. The word has been reduced to the “Praise, Jesus!” of the eco–earnest. It’s a word where the corporate marketers, with their mediated upswell of green sentiment, meshes perfectly with the relentless denial of the privileged. It’s a word I can barely stand to use because it’s been so exsanguinated by the cheerleaders for the technotopic, consumer kingdom come. To doubt the vague promise now firmly embedded in the word — that we can have our cars, our corporations, our consumption, and our planet, too — is both treason and heresy to the emotional well-being of most progressives. But here’s the question: Do we want to feel better or do we want to be effective? Are we sentimentalists or are we warriors?
Because this way of life—devouring, degrading, and insane—cannot continue. For “sustainable” to mean anything, we must embrace and then defend the bare truth: the planet is primary. The life–producing work of a million species are literally the earth, air, and water that we depend on. No human activity—not the vacuous, not the sublime—is worth more than that matrix. Neither, in the end, is any human life. If we use the word “sustainable” and don’t mean that, then we are liars of the worst sort: the kind who let atrocities happen while we stand by and do nothing.
Even if it was theoretically possible to reach an individual or collective narcissist, it would take time. And time is precisely what the planet has run out of. Admitting that might be the exact moment that we step out of the cloying childishness and optimistic white–lite denial of so much of the left, and into our adult knowledge. And with all apologies to Yeats, in knowledge begins responsibilities. It’s to you grown–ups, the grieving and the raging, that we address this book.
*******
Ninety–eight percent of the population will do nothing unless they are led, cajoled, or forced. If the structural determinants are in place for them to live their lives without doing damage—like if they’re hunter–gatherers with respected elders—then that’s what happens. If, on the other hand, the built environment has been arranged for cars, industrial schooling is mandatory, resisting war taxes will land you in jail, food is only available through giant corporate enterprises selling giant corporate degradation, and misogynist pornography is only a click away 24/7, well, welcome to the nightmare. This culture is basically conducting a huge Milgram experiment with us, only the electric shocks aren’t fake—they’re killing off the planet, species by species.
But wherever there is oppression there is resistance: that is true everywhere, forever. The resistance is built body by body from the other two percent, from the stalwart, the brave, the determined, who are willing to stand against both power and social censure. It is our thesis that there will be no mass movement, not in time to save this planet our home. That two percent in other times has been able to shift both the cultural consciousness and the power structures toward justice: Margaret Mead’s small group of thoughtful, committed citizens. It’s valid to long for a movement, no matter how much we rationally know that we’re wishing on a star. Theoretically, the human race as a whole could face our situation and make some decisions—tough decisions, but fair ones, that include an equitable distribution of both resources and justice, that respect and embrace the limits of our planet. But none of the institutions that govern our lives, from the economic to the religious, are on the side of justice or sustainability. Most of them, in fact, are violently on the side of capital–E Evil. And like with the individually destructive, these institutions could be forced to change. The history of every human rights struggle bears witness to how courage and sacrifice can dismantle power and injustice. It takes bravery and persistence, political intelligence and spiritual strength. And it also takes time. If we had a thousand years, even a hundred years, building a movement to transform the dominant institutions around the globe would be the task before us. But the earth is running out of time. The western black rhinoceros is definitely out of time. So is the golden toad, the pygmy rabbit. No one is going to save this planet except us.
So what are our options? The usual approach of long, slow institutional change has been foreclosed, and many of us know that. The default setting for environmentalists has become personal lifestyle “choices.” This should have been predictable as it merges perfectly into the demands of capitalism, especially the condensed corporate version mediating our every impulse into their profit. But we can’t consume our way out of environmental collapse: consumption is the problem. We might be forgiven for initially accepting an exhortation to “simple living” as a solution to that consumption, especially as the major environmental organizations and the media have declared lifestyle change our First Commandment. Have you accepted compact fluorescents as your personal savior? But lifestyle change is not a solution as it doesn’t address the root of the problem. As Derrick has pointed out elsewhere, even if every American took every single action suggested by Al Gore it would only reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 21 percent.9 Aric tells a stark truth: even if through simple living and rigorous recycling you stopped your own average American’s annual one ton of garbage production, “your per capita share of the industrial waste produced in the U.S. is still almost 26 tons. That’s 37 times as much waste as you were able to save by eliminating a full one hundred percent of your personal waste.”10 Industrialism itself is what has to stop. There is no kinder, greener version that will do the trick of leaving us a living planet. In blunt terms, industrialization is a process of taking entire communities of living beings and turning them into commodities and dead zones. Could it be done more “efficiently”? Sure, we could use a little less fossil fuel, but it still ends in the same wastelands of land, water, and sky. We could stretch this endgame out another twenty years but the planet still dies. Trace every industrial artifact back to its source—which isn’t hard as they all leave trails of blood—and you find the same devastation: mining, clear cuts, dams, agriculture. And now tar sands, mountain top removal, windfarms (which might better be called dead bird and bat farms). No amount of renewables is going to make up for the fossil fuel or change the nature of the extraction, both of which are prerequisites for this way of life. Neither fossil fuel nor extracted substances will ever be sustainable: by definition they will run out. And both getting them and using them are literally the destruction of the planet. Bringing a cloth shopping bag to the store, even if you walk there in your global warming flip flops, will not stop the tar sands.
We have believed such ridiculous solutions because our perception has been blunted by some portion of denial and despair. And those are legitimate reactions. I’m not persuading anyone out of them. The question is, do we want to develop a strategy to manage our emotional state or to save the planet?
And we’ve believed in these lifestyle solutions because everyone around us insists they’re workable, a collective repeating mantra of “renewables, recycling” that has dulled us into belief. Like Eichmann, no one has told us that it’s wrong.
Until now. So this is the moment when you will have to decide. Do you want to be part of a serious effort to save this planet? Not a serious effort at collective delusion, not a serious effort to feel better, not a serious effort to save you and yours. But an actual strategy to stop the destruction of everything worth loving. If your answer feels as imperative as instinct, then you already know it’s long past time to fight. After that, the only question left is: how? And despite everything you’ve been told by the Eichmanns of despair, that question has an answer. They have insisted that there is no answer, but that’s the lie of cowards. Every system of power can be fought—they’re only human in the end, not supernatural, not sent by god. Industrial civilization is in fact more vulnerable than past empires, dependent as it is on such a fragile infrastructure of pipelines and overhead wires, on binary bits of data encoding its lifeblood of capital. If we would let ourselves think it, a workable strategy is obvious, and in fact is not very different from the actions of partisan resisters across history.
So, will you think it—that one word: resistance? Will you notice that they’ve come for our kin of polar bears and black terns, who are right now being herded into the cattle cars of industrial civilization? Will you join the others who are yearning to action? The train can be derailed, the tracks ripped up, the bridge blown down. There is no metaphor here, as any General Officer could tell us. There is a planet being murdered, and there are also targets that, if taken out relentlessly, could stop it. So think “resistance” with all your aching heart, a word that must become our promise to what is left of this planet. Gather the others: you already know them. The brave, smart, militant, and, most of all, serious, and together take aim. Do it carefully, but do it.
Then fire for all your worth.
References
[1] Mongabay.com, “Two-thirds of polar bears at risk”, September 2007.
[2] Butler, Rhett A. “Climate Change Claims a Snail.” Mongabay.com. August 13, 2007.
[3] Wilson, Edward O. The Future of Life. New York: Vintage, 1992, p. 74. See also Olson, Dan. “Species Extinction Rate Speeding Up.” Minnesota Public Radio, February 1, 2005.
[4] Ravilious, Kate. “Only Zero Emissions Can Prevent a Warmer Planet.” New Scientist, February 29, 2008.
[5] Aitkenhead, Decca. “Enjoy Life While You Can.” The Guardian, March 1, 2008.
[6] Jensen, Derrick. Endgame. New York: Seven Stories, 2006, p. 36.
[7] Leber, Jessica. “Trash Course.” Audubon, NovemberÐDecember 2008.
[8] Wikipedia Contributors, “Narcissism.”
[9] Jensen, Derrick, and Stephanie McMillan. As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Stay in Denial. New York: Seven Stories, 2007, p. 15.
[10] Jensen, Derrick, and Aric McBay. What We Leave Behind. New York: Seven Stories, 2008.
[Note for readers: This essay is an excerpt from the book Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet (New York: Seven Stories Press, April 2011). We’d like to thank the authors and the publisher for preparing this excerpt for ClimateStoryTellers.org.]
Comments
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139 Comments so far
Show AllMy husband and I are in that privileged set. Last year our income was $6000. The year before it was $10,000. Before that, for a couple of years when we were both working, it was more like $34.000, such extreme privilege! So now we live in a house we built ourselves, on a leasehold within a land trust, where we have off-grid solar and gardens and chickens and are working toward self-sufficiency.
Unrealistic? Bullshit. Maybe most people don't WANT that lifestyle, but to say they CAN'T have it unless they're rich is simply false.
Thank you!
And how did you obtain this "leasehold" on a land trust? Privlege takes the form of position, social station, and luck more than money. I assume by "leasehold" you were lucky enough to gat a cheap or free lease on some farm land owned by a rich family or corporation. My old caving club has a similar arrangement, in return for keeping an old family farm house in depopulating Smoke Hole WV, the land baron who bought up the old farms in the area lets us use it and the surrounding couple acres for free for a "field house".
Do you have room on this leasehold for, say, the poor people living in all the distressed neighborhoods of Piittsburgh? To paraphrase the definition of solidarity, a solution for one must be a solution for all.
And, how may miles do you drive per year living in such a rural location? I bet it largely offsets the benefit of the solar panels.
I do beleive in the right of the homeless and poor to take over and squat on vacant homes and land. I know some anarchist squatters of old homes on a hillside that once was a neighborhood but has returned to woods and ruins. Nothing privleged about that. They couldn't begin to afford solar panels though.
Yes . . . I agree.
Only a very small percentage are fortunate enough to have access to land and most of us are among the "privileged" in one way or another.
Those who live in cities are going to constitute some of the biggest atrocities, already do if one considers all the GMOs and other poisons they are consuming daily if only because they are totally ignorant about what is being done to them.
And the PTB who "control" having/not having are obviously not on the boat yet (tho Michele Obama did give it a little shot) . . . most are still in deep denial, power addicts.
Though I respect your efforts, the truth is that you guys just subtracted yourselves from something, that ends up adding to nothing. You are still in the 98%. Get off the cloud of the moral high ground. These and all small acts aren't going to save the planet because in the end they don't add to much, though they make you feel better, hence the article asks: Is that what you are looking for?
"but to replace it with subsistence farming and hinting-gathering is naiive in the exterme."
We will be there regardless of our actions. Jensen argues that it is best to voluntarily go there rather than after the crash. Once oil is gone it's over, period. Oil is needed to produce and transport all the so-called renewable energy solutions everyone loves so much.
One barrel of oil = 12 years of one humans labor. Once it's gone, there is no replacement that is sustainable.
Derailing trains, blowing up dams, "taking out" human beings will not stop capitalism, the base social cause of environmental destruction. Illegal activities only strengthen the resistance of the state to meaningful change, giving justification to state oppression. One cannot create a just and equitable society based on environmental principles by engaging in unjust, inegalitarian and anti-environmental activities.
Jensen has always said, "Here, I'll hold your coat while you blow up things." What dams has Jensen blown up, which trains derailed, which human beings "taken out?"
Let's see some positive personal activity, Derek, toward a future society that lives within its means. Anyone can pontificate. Do something.
Derek tirelessly tries to educate us about the issues. That is personal activity. He has a rap sheet for civil disobedience. What have YOU done except put people down who make you uncomfortable with your carrying on as usual?
Derrick's line has always been, "I am a writer. I am no good with explosives. You wouldn't want me touching them anyways."
How f^%cking convenient, don't ya think?
Look, when Derrick urges young kids still in there teens to blow shit up, it's reckless and and it's stupid. These young folks are gonna spend the rest of their lives in a prison cell cursing the name of Derrick Jensen while he sits in his Lazy Boy chair writing.
There is only one word for that: HYPOCRITE
Having said that, I do agree a lot with what Jensen writes. In fact I love his writings, but I have a real problem with his strategies and tactics. We need a mass movement, not individual heroism.
Derrick's line has always been, "I am a writer. I am no good with explosives. You wouldn't want me touching them anyways."
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Maybe not hypocrisy, but a rational division of labor. The intellectual out in the public limelight legally spreading ideas, and unknown actors doing the illegal deeds.
Again, I think it is a very counterproductive strategy.
Sometimes I wonder why Jensen is allowed to travel all over advocating what actually could be called ecoterrorism--maybe so that They can collect data on everyone who buys his books, sends him email or snailmail or talks to him on the phone, etc?
Yet most of this piece is right-on. Where I disagree is in being sure that a serious World-War-II level mobilization to convert to non-fossil fuel infrastructure could not get us to a sustainable future--perhaps it could. We really ought to try it. It would have to be coupled with population reduction and serious conservation, massive lifestyle change, etc. Unfortunately, the argument is academic since so far nothing is being proposed by those in power but more of the status quo.
And I disagree with the prescription: blow shit up...arrogating to oneself the right to decide which elements are the biggest problem. He sneers at non-violence but it seems to me nonviolent movements have had the most success. This does not mean property destruction is never right: I don't equate that with violence. But most of the time, it's stupid, it just justifies repression. Occasionally it is necessary and the best thing to do.
Mainly, we need to think how to win at memetic warfare despite the other side owning all the media. And now I'm doing what I was going to criticise him for: choosing aggressive military metaphors, though that militaristic mindset is an integral part of the problem. I think Jensen's greatest contribution is drawing the links between environmental destruction, warfare, child abuse, rape, colonialism, slavery...there is a root cause of all these things, and it is the ability to not feel compassion, to imagine that one may benefit from another's pain. But it's important to realize that this ability is not equally shared by humanity--a small precentage of us are sociopaths, completely unable to care at all about others. If they happen to be low in socioeconomic status and IQ they tend to end up in prison, and this is the setting convenient for researchers...but if they happen to have high IQs and to be born into privilege, they tend to end up in Congress or corporate boardrooms, and this group needs our research and focus! Yes, the public as a whole is lazy and self-indulgent--but they have been deliberately led to their beliefs by the corporate interest. We need to disempower the sociopaths and illuminate for the public where the real problems--and solutions--are.
Good post!
RE: Sometimes I wonder why Jensen is allowed to travel all over advocating what actually could be called ecoterrorism...
That's because Jensen doesn't really have any followers (who act on his rhetoric).
RE: Where I disagree is in being sure that a serious World-War-II level mobilization to convert to non-fossil fuel infrastructure could not get us to a sustainable future--perhaps it could. We really ought to try it.
I agree!
RE: And I disagree with the prescription: blow shit up...arrogating to oneself the right to decide which elements are the biggest problem.
I agree as well.
RE: Unfortunately, the argument is academic since so far nothing is being proposed by those in power but more of the status quo.
Don't expect the tiny ruling class who benefit from our highly destructive economic system to push to undo it. That's up to us.
RE: But it's important to realize that this ability is not equally shared by humanity--a small precentage of us are sociopaths, completely unable to care at all about others.
An important point missed by most Jensen enthusiasts.
"RE: But it's important to realize that this ability is not equally shared by humanity--a small precentage of us are sociopaths, completely unable to care at all about others.
An important point missed by most Jensen enthusiasts."
-- I'm not a Jensen 'enthusiast', but I have read his book "Endgame" (all 879 pages). Maybe some of his enthusiasts miss that point... but he certainly doesn't (and I don't). He actually writes in great length about the small percentage of sociopaths in his book.
I'll offer an opinion in spite of the idiots that have already posted and hope some of the 2% read this.
This article is suggesting action, real action,
heartfelt resistance to the destruction of the planet and all the life forms that live on it.
Dave Foreman (co-founder of EarthFirst!) wrote a book many years ago, "Confessions of an Eco-Warrior. He used a term, biophiliac, which translates to love of life, all life. The above posters obviously don't have it. Instead they are filled with vanity and arrogance, exactly the character traits mentioned in this article and are the type that will debate trivia to display their self determined intelligence, while the planet dies. Foreman's message ran parallel with this article.
Key advise from Foreman;
Act alone if possible and tell NO ONE.
Another book from many years ago is
"Economics of Scarcity"
(sorry can't remember the author)
It tells of the exponential increase of speed on the march towards doom as resources run out. Collapse will happen in the blink of an eye.
Yes, but it will continue longer . . . and, from my pt of view, it is a "NATURAL" balance "mechanism" . . . AND, IMO, it is ALREADY happening, one atrocity after another.
*edited
I'm looking forward to the responses to this essay. It's gonna push some buttons and people are gonna start defending their lifestyles with reactionary zeal. This message will be attacked from both the left and the right. It's almost a guarantee that the two dimensional thinkers, who consumptively and materially inhabit the mainstream left and right divisions of the diseased American bizarro world, will do their best to puff up their little egos and attack this message.
Look, only 20 comments and a few have already thrown their reactionary-rants into the cyber-winds of CD ...
George Orwell had an insight that aptly applied to the left-wing parties of his time, and I think this insight still holds true today. I think the radical authors of this article would appreciate this insight from Orwell because it perfectly describes the mainstream left in this country. The reason he wrote this was because he could see that the right-wing parties of his time we at least honest about their lust to conquer, dominate and steal from the Asiatic coolies. It was the left-wing parties who didn't want to admit that their materially enhanced lifestyles depended on the fact that the robbery of Asiatic coolies (by Empire) was necessary.
"All left-wing parties in the highly industrialized countries are at bottom a sham, because they make it their business to fight against something which they do not really wish to destroy. They have internationalist aims, and at the same time they struggle to keep up a standard of life with which those aims are incompatible. We all live by robbing Asiatic coolies, and those of us who are "enlightened" all maintain that those coolies ought to be set free: but our standard of living, and hence out "enlightenment", demands that the robbery shall continue."
The authors should realise they are suffering from their own deep-rooted form of arrogance. That of the "Planet-saving Warrior!"
The planet doesn't care about us, any of us. Not the birds or bears, you or me. We are like a case of fleas it will tolerate until the annoyance becomes too much. Then it uses increasing tactics to shrug us off until it succeeds.
The plates will shift, lava will flow, rain, wind, fire and extreme weather will transform the earth. All things our planet gave to us, which is all that we have, will return to her. Then someday in what would seem an eternity to us but a mere moment in time for the planet, one of those creatures living in the deep ocean trenches will crawl to the surface.
No one is saving the planet. We are saving ourselves or saying "fuck it"… that's the "enlightened" choice.
You know, your comment reminds me of the George Carlin piece where he talked about the arrogance and conceit of the "save the planet" people. I thought of it when I read the first save the planet phrase in this article. Carlin was right about his point, and so are you. The different reactions that his message provoked was an interesting thing to observe. The left felt insulted, and the right used it as another excuse to justify their parasitic ways of life. And both entirely missed the 'bigger picture' point.
I don't think conceit or arrogance are the authors true motives. If you read more of Jensen's stuff you would see that he truly wants to find a way to save ALL of the life forms that are being destroyed by the system, and his arguments are much more than just about 'saving himself". So, if what he wishes to accomplish is considered arrogant then...yeah... he is arrogant.
IMHO, a mistake that too many people in this world make (myself included) is the way we use language to express our intentions -- lost in translation happens, and this issue is further exacerbated by bad usage of language. I would argue that the left environmentalists need to ditch the horrible phrase, "save the Planet" and find a better way to use language to express their intentions.
How about this: "Save our biosphere - without it we all die." That surely would be the enlightened, intelligent and common sense thing to do - if we want to survive. And underneath the few bad phrases in this article, I think that is the main gist of what they are trying to convey with this article...
The elephant in the room:
Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. The term often refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth.[1] Steve Jones, head of the biology department at University College London, has said, "Humans are 10,000 times more common than we should be, according to the rules of the animal kingdom, and we have agriculture to thank for that. Without farming, the world population would probably have reached half a million by now."[2] The world’s population has significantly increased in the last 50 years, mainly due to medical advancements and substantial increases in agricultural productivity.
The recent rapid increase in human population over the past two centuries has raised concerns that humans are beginning to overpopulate the Earth, and that the planet may not be able to sustain present or larger numbers of inhabitants. The population has been growing continuously since the end of the Black Death, around the year 1400;[3] at the beginning of the 19th century, it had reached roughly 1,000,000,000 (1 billion). Increases in medical technology have led to rapid population growth on a worldwide level.
The scientific consensus is that the current population expansion and accompanying increase in usage of resources is linked to threats to the ecosystem.[citation needed] The InterAcademy Panel Statement on Population Growth, which was ratified by 58 member national academies in 1994, called the growth in human numbers "unprecedented", and stated that many environmental problems, such as rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, global warming, and pollution, were aggravated by the population expansion.[7] At the time, the world population stood at 5.5 billion, and low-bound scenarios predicted a peak of 7.8 billion by 2050, a number that current estimates show will be reached around 2022.[8]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation
Worst Environmental Problem? Overpopulation, Experts Say
ScienceDaily (Apr. 20, 2009) — Overpopulation is the world’s top environmental issue, followed closely by climate change and the need to develop renewable energy resources to replace fossil fuels, according to a survey of the faculty at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF).
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090418075752.htm
Well said
Well said, both ezeflyer and scribe. A one child policy, which would more than halve the population each generation, after some time for it to take effect, could turn our future from catastrophe to Eden.
Ditto;
I think it is worth noting that these brave souls, the authors, like the people they criticize, were too timid to name another, probably primary, cause if the problem: Human Population Growth. It can be argued that industrialization and agriculture both were simply responses to population growth and vice versa. They are synergistic in the way they increase and feed each other. Until they name the other primary source of the problem, population growth, they are simply pissing in the wind. When will people realize all of the problem?
Fear not. Mother Nature will prove the Great Leveler in the end.
this is about as good and clear as the case for action can be made. all that's left to do is for people to decide.
so I say to that two percent: find each other, fast, and go. Now. Let the rest keep typing and equivocating.
See you out there...:)
I have great respect for Derrick Jensen's passion. He is obviously a sensitive human being, since he seems to "feel" the destruction around him. Sensitivity to the suffering of others, including all life, is a noble quality, and something that is required in ALL of us. Without that, our actions will be mostly ego-driven, even while professing to be fighting for justice. Although I recommend Jensen's writing to others, I am troubled by what I see to be some needless confusion and contradictions which he seems to be spreading through his writings and speeches.
>>As Derrick has written, “[A]ny social system based on the use of nonrenewable resources is by definition unsustainable.” By definition, nonrenewable means it will eventually run out. Once you’ve grasped that intellectual complexity, you can move on to the next level. “Any culture based on the nonrenewable use of renewable resources is just as unsustainable.”<<
This is elementary. And it should logically lead to questioning everything that we consume. From energy to food to other things considered "necessary" for modern living. But this questioning is pointless unless we are prepared to do whatever is necessary to live within the "the limits of our planet", which, we are told, we must "respect and embrace". This is one place where I notice an inconsistency:
Currently the human population is approaching 7 billion. While the polar bear, black tern and the Aldabra snail all have a right to life, so do these human beings who need time to reduce their population to more sensible, sustainable levels. Which means they have to eat. And that directly leads us to food production. Whether you are a hunter-gatherer or a farmer or someone who buys food, the bottomline is that plants take a certain amount of land area, water and nutrients to grow. And herbivorous animals need to eat a certain amount of plant food, most of which is excreted and used up to provide body heat, and to make other body parts such as skin and bones, and only a small part goes into making their flesh. So if human beings are going to continue eating this animal flesh on a daily basis, there is no friggin' way to produce enough meat for all human beings without using the non-renewable petroleum to replenish soil nutrients. This is elementary.
Unfortunately, Derrick Jensen is hanging out with the wrong crowd here - especially Lierre Keith with her nonsensical book "The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability". Her thesis is that farming destroys forests, so ... then what? Become hunter-gatherers? I hope she has enough hunting ground to feed all human beings. I also hope that she takes time off from writing books and giving lectures to do a bit of hunting and fishing. Or has friends and family to bring her food hunted and fished from the wild.
If all farming destroys nature, as Lierre Keith keeps repeating, and if there isn't enough hunting ground for all 6+ billion people today, what does she propose? I HAVE seen farming communities in Asia and been in them 30+ years ago when they were largely self-sufficient, even though the cities around them were creeping up on them. These people had their basic comforts, but their "luxuries" were limited. But most of all, they were NOT dependent on any centrally-planned and delivered inputs such as electricity, fuel (some of them still used kerosene for their lanterns, but for a short time, and the whole village went quiet at nightfall, and the people went to work at the crack of dawn). And they did NOT rely on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. But they did use animals and they did raise a bit of livestock for food - but only to the extent that could be fed using the agricultural byproducts and the grass that grew around the edges. And they still ate meat - but very infrequently, such as when a guest arrived or when someone got married or something like that. To be honest, I was NOT thrilled at that time by such a lifestyle, but I now realize that these people were self-sufficient and lived with dignity and bought stuff only with the surplus production that could be sold. There was almost 100% recycling and composting without anyone calling them by such names. Things are different today and they are caught up in the money system. They have to produce more, so they have to use synthetic fertilizers and lots of pesticides and they are at the mercy of the system. The cities around them and those far away from them act as mini-empires exploiting the village land and the people.
The authors quote James Lovelock, "originator of the Gaia hypothesis, who states bluntly that global warming has passed the tipping point." This is bad news. I just wish that Lovelock had taken a principled stand and had politely turned down a couple of titles: "Order of the British Empire" (1990) - "order of chivalry established by George V" and "Order of the Companions of Honour" (2003) - "an order of the Commonwealth realms" founded by King George V. For someone who put forth the radical "Gaia hypothesis" as early as the 1960's, the destruction wrought by empires should have been OBVIOUS. And empires do NOT hand out titles only to honor someone's achievement - they do so mostly to gain legitimacy themselves. (For this same reason, I really hope that one of these days someone publicly, and not so politely, turns down the Nobel Peace Prize.)
I also hope that the authors realize that James Lovelock is an ardent supporter of nuclear energy - perhaps out of a realization of the more immediate dangers of increasing CO2 emissions and the premise that electricity demand cannot be reduced sufficiently enough to be met by renewable sources. But this premise needs to be questioned, because we are talking radical here, aren't we? If so much demand for electricity cannot be met by renewable sources, then the radical thing to do would be to drastically reduce the demand and consume ONLY that which can come from renewable sources.
... continued below ...
... continued from above ...
>>"The word sustainable serves as an example of the worst tendencies of the alternative culture. The word has been reduced to the “Praise, Jesus!” of the eco–earnest. It’s a word where the corporate marketers, with their mediated upswell of green sentiment, meshes perfectly with the relentless denial of the privileged. It’s a word I can barely stand to use because it’s been so exsanguinated by the cheerleaders for the technotopic, consumer kingdom come."<<
I too share Jensen's contempt for using such jargon without questioning what the hell it really means. But I would also look for answers that can define sustainability. Or, better yet, numbers. While no such definition or estimates are perfect, it would be foolish to reject such concepts as ecological footprint and its subset, carbon footprint. And water footprint. Especially when someone claims to demand justice and equitable distribution and access to resources. Even putting humans at the top, just for a moment, it should be easy to see how much productive land and forests that each human being can have on the basis of such equitable access. I agree that human population needs to be reduced, and reduced drastically - but I do not see any humane way for this to occur in less than a couple of generations, even starting today. I am all for population reduction, so please do NOT bother to preach me on that. Back to our footprint estimates: it is clear that there is only so much to go around even if we put humans at the top, even without bothering about other animals. Taking climate change into account, it is clear that only so much greenhouse gases can be emitted per capita per year, because forests can absorb only so much CO2 in a year. Oceans have reached their absorption capacity and are already turning acidic. So all such numbers are important to even arrive at some agreement as to how much humans can consume.
That brings us to the question of meat eating. If each human can be allowed to account for only a certain amount of carbon emissions (direct and indirect - to support a certain lifestyle and diet), there is NO WAY that people can eat so much meat on a daily basis. "Eating locally and sustainably", as recommended by Lierre Keith, will also mean eating only so much meat that can be produced - either naturally or in a farm - sustainably and without using synthetic fertilizers. Her estimates on this count have been shown to be way off the mark and for this reason alone she needs to come clean with a revised edition of her book.
Myths of "The Vegetarian Myth":
http://skepticalvegan.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/myths-of-the-vegetarian-myth
PDF:
www.indybay.org/uploads/2010/03/15/correcting_the_vegetarian_myth.pdf
While on the subject, I would also recommend "Livestock's long shadow: environmental issues and options":
www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM
For someone who berates the "system" to no end, the irony of having to rely on this very system to even propagate his ideas should have been obvious. I am not defending the current system for one minute. But I am also not going to volunteer to join any resistance or revolution unless those calling for it are clear on what it is they are proposing in the aftermath. And that goes for all the Marxists and the Maoists too!
Summary rejection and ridiculing of any attempt at lifestyle choices is also stupid, to be polite here. My short response here has always been "necessary but not sufficient". Al Gore lacks credibility among some people precisely because of his lifestyle. Imagine how much more credible and effective he could have been if he had combined the personal integrity and frugality of a Ralph Nader with the intellect and articulating ability of an Al Gore. And the passion of a Derrick Jensen.
"Being the change we wish to see" is NOT some vague notion. It is only the first, but essential step. That does not mean being perfect, but it does mean **trying** to be perfect, to the extent possible, even as the fight is waged to change the system.
I suppose Jensen uses the "hundredth monkey" to refer to talk about change in consciousness and how that can have an effect on the rest of humanity. Here again, I would point out that it is the human mind, the human ego if you will, that has been the number one culprit all through the ages. The biggest mischief-maker. Movements and revolutions that seek to continuously disregard the individual as insignificant will continue to produce disastrous results. Ideological movements, like religious movements, including the crusades, are reactions to the effects brought about by a dysfunctional human psyche. So any fight to bring about external change, at the very least, should NOT frown upon attempts to bring the biggest mischief-maker - the human ego - under control. Otherwise these revolutions will continue to be shallow, despite using high-sounding words as their basis.
The other author here is Aric McBay, who has written the book "Peak Oil Survival: Preparation for Life After Gridcrash". So I assume that these people are not just calling for breaking down things, and that they do care about what happens in the aftermath. In a review of this book, Richard Heinberg, author of "The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies" says
>>“Efforts like Peak Oil Survival will serve as lifeboats. Generally speaking, it's better to build a lifeboat before the ship starts to list precariously, rather than wait for universal acknowledgment that it is in fact sinking”.<<
I agree. Building lifeboats should be the urgent task at hand, since the ship may be sinking and we don't know it yet. But lifeboats, to be fair, should necessarily have to accommodate ALL the passengers, and therefore a lot of non-essential stuff and activities simply have to go. Otherwise it would lead to the despicable behavior of some of the "first class passengers" shown in the movie "Titanic". And that is why lifestyles are important - so as NOT to be one of those arrogant, selfish a**holes!
You obviously did NOT read the whole thing, which, admittedly is long. My point was about certain inconsistencies and a needless tendency to alienate potential allies in the fight.
And who are these "1.6 or so Chinese along with 1.2 Hindus"? I guess you mean the billions, but "Hindus"?
>>Western 21st century capitalism is where it's at, and what we should all focus our energies on.<<
And everything will automatically fall into place and become sustainable? That is surely ONE target, but that is not all.
I wasn't referring to your English, and in any case you seem to know enough English to declare "attending to the wart on it's arse ain't going to do squat".
If you were referring to the people of India, they are "Indians", btw, and they are NOT all Hindus. There are Muslims (the 2nd largest Muslim population in the world, after Indonesia), Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, even Jews (for almost 2000 years).
Thank you for your thoughtful analysis. I'm glad you took the time and effort to share it with us.
Bravo, excellent sense of perspective. Thanks.
Alcyon, I have a comment concerning your words regarding personal lifestyle choices,
"Summary rejection and ridiculing of any attempt at lifestyle choices is also stupid, to be polite here. My short response here has always been "necessary but not sufficient". "
I have read many of Derrick Jensen's books and from what I can tell, he is in agreement with your statement. He seems to be saying that personal lifestyle changes are necessary, but not enough in themselves. We can't stop the destruction of the world by lifestyle changes alone. We can change our habits, and that is good, but it doesn't stop the big corporations from continuing the damage, it only makes us feel good. We need more than just good feelings. We need to use every tool possible to change our way of life.
Thank you for your analysis, I agree with much of what you say. I agree that we need lifeboats and a plan for the future after oil and technology. I think this goes in hand with stopping the destruction. I myself am open to all ideas, and greatly look forward to reading this book.
nosurrender, alsmusic, SonoranDreamer:
Thanks for the kind words.
"I also hope that the authors realize that James Lovelock is an ardent supporter of nuclear energy - perhaps out of a realization of the more immediate dangers of increasing CO2 emissions and the premise that electricity demand cannot be reduced sufficiently enough to be met by renewable sources."
Lovelock's support of nuclear energy seems to be based, as you say, on the inadequacy of alternative sources of energy. But it is hard to be sure. He is a maverick, and could have some other reason. He certainly has no sympathy for the environmental movement, which he sees as a bunch of no-nothings.
I agree. That James Lovelock is the foremost "expert" accepted by the MSM and its nuke subsidiaries should give pause.
Right, ezeflier, overpopulation either causes or exacerbates nearly every other ecological problem. The World Scientists are saying that you cannot "save the enviroment" when your population keeps growing. Sure, I'd like to tell all those billions to change their lifestyles, but we've been trying that for fifty years.
According to statistics published by the World Health organization, air and water pollution cause about 2.5 million deaths a year. Now, if that has been true for the last decade, 21 million people have died from ecological destruction in that period.
And this number does not include those who have died from the effects of global warming, and these deaths undoubtedly number in the hundreds of thousands.
Saving the planet would improve human health also, if we could do it. Many species are killed or threatened by industrial and other human activity, including our own.
Yes. Imagine if all those trillions going to a few fat oligarch war profiteers, bankers and theocrats were spent instead in a war to save the planet.
I agree!!!!!!!! . . . I think we need to keep repeating this over and over and over, ad nauseum, like a broken record. It might not do any good, but then again, who knows?
With what has already been dumped down the black-hole of military spending, we could have already been well on the way to National Sustainable Energy.
I think the turning point was when McGovern lost to Nixon
I look at over-population as containing - in less than three generations - displacement of billions of people to urban areas - with profound cultural roots adapted to agrarian life. This is something that tends to be dismissed. Reproduction is not a simply an act. Deeply embedded in the USA psyche is the agrarian mythos, strong catholic influence and in the same two generations - introduction of technocracy displacing social balances. Time is money-line.
A child in the process of individuation is now saturated with the marketing 'norm' virtually from birth. Parents under hyperconsumption pressures transmit those anxieties in daily life. Constant pressure of a disconnected and enforced consumption 'desire' displaces and short circuits the rooting of parent-child growth, socialization, with increased competition - the combination of these being the addiction of hyperindustrialization and auto-intoxication. Ritalin/pharmaceuticals
'Vacation' is a recent phenomenon - the need to vacate to the 'exotic' (read the externalized cost/ resource locations) which thanks to the 'resort' (resort to what? perpetuation of blinders about externalized peoples, and the effluence of the system) recharges the energizer bunny slave.
In short, we have a situation (I hesitate to qualify it with the honorable term 'society') saturated, addicted, congested and exploited by desire. Identifying what we DO value as society, shedding what is extraneous to that and slowing down, loving beauty and simplifying is beginning to happen. The more it is done the more it happens.
As noted in the article, the gift offerings of the websites and pandering to the addiction and long lost identity of pre-individuation subsumed by marketing is not a solution. Standing against hyperindustrialization will probably become the highest art form of this era. I think this is one reason I love the poetry that folks post.
Nothing we see of the system will be the solution - it will be different. I would also submit that the open-hearted wonder noted in the article fortifies patience and the very human capacity for love, contemplation and true affection for mother earth - these strengthen skills and disciplines in the truest sense. This is part of the profound respect for letting go of fear of not knowing and asking why it is considered irrelevant to seek to be in utter and complete love and growing re-familiarization with mother earth.
We're called to be militant mystics in everyday life; firm but not violent, resistant and listening to one's heart in encounter with ancient societies, agrarian societies, the poor and their calls to LISTEN and stand in solidarity. A good way to develop new language and conceptual skills - and we have nothing but the present to engage and set roots for the generations that will indeed follow.
A hyper shift to appreciating that myth is a reality - the art of articulating what exists but is not seen, not static and that the stories arising from all different peoples is also an indispensable part of our future. We might not know how these function in depth in any given people but to absolutely respect - as will be the case of strengthening our own resilience as compassionate 'fit' human beings.
I'm reminded that the word 'genius' is etymologically rooted in 'spirit' - cultivating ways of sensitizing ourselves to ways of being and seeing/hearing/feeling.
None of it will be perfect - despite our conditioning to expect that. To shift from exclusionary product/goal to process and content in unending maturation rather than constant material expansion.
Beautiful, well said!
"Vacation' is a recent phenomenon - the need to vacate to the 'exotic'..."
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Better a "vision quest" than a vacation.
Children are not necessities.
Children are not necessities.
Children are not necessities.
Children are not necessities.
Children are not necessities.
Children are not necessities.
So then why does the Government subsidize them buy providing Medicaid etc. to pregnant girls.
Actually the government did a remarkably good job of torturing a pregnant acquaintance. No food, no home.
Neither is posting on CD.
Mr. Pro-Nuke himself uses psy-ops to purposely reinforce a false association between principled pro-ecology ACTION and "murderous terrorism."
Mark Abram, who probably uses other names in this forum, YOU ARE AN EMBED and/or informer. For shame, sir... for shame!
I missed the psy-ops... It seemed Mr. Abrams was making a straightforward argument, whether you agree with it or not.
As I understood it it, he wasn't "'reinforcing a false association between principled pro-ecology ACTION and 'murderous terrorism'", but was suggesting that others, the propagandists for industrial capitalism, would indeed make such an association, and that it would be extremely counterproductive to give them the opportunity to do so.
"Advocating acts of violence which will provoke even greater violent repression and conflate the image of the worldwide Green movement with that of murderous terrorism is no way to help."
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Probably true.
Individual acts of sabotage against the industrial system ("targeted monkeywrenching") certainly seems like a futile, counterproductive tactic.
The fact is there is no easy way out of industrial civilization's death spiral. Dramatic climatic change is almost a certainty as is the annihilation of many life forms.
Equating the extinctions that we are currently causing (and the vastly more that we will cause in the future) to previous extinctions caused by Mother Nature is like confusing accidental death with murder -- or someone falling out of a window with someone being pushed out of that same window.
RE: Ninety–eight percent of the population will do nothing unless they are led, cajoled, or forced.
This is really an argument for authoritarianism.
RE: This culture is... killing off the planet, species by species.
That less than 2% of the world's population is driving, and profiting from, an ecocidal economic system, this is a problem of the "culture"? Like (98% of) the world population wants to be exploited? They want to be attacked by neo-liberal policies, invaded by the US military or their proxies? They want to eat Frankenfood, they want the contamination of their own DNA? The majority wants the destruction of the commons, of natural systems? What BS. The exigencies of capitalism are IMPOSED, not voted upon, not chosen. It is not a cultural problem; it comes from the logic of capitalism: maximize profits, externalize costs. Privatize the gain, socialize the pain.
RE: It is our thesis that there will be no mass movement, not in time to save this planet our home.
This attitude is a big problem. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. The only force that has ever changed the world for the better is when militant mass movements have been active. We need a revolution from below (the many), not a revolution from above (by the few) by some crazed anarcho-primitivists who want to impose their elitist and contradictory "anti-authoritarian" authoritarianism upon the rest (98%) of us dimwits.