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Whither Environmentalism?
In the latest issue of Orion Magazine, environmental activists Derrick Jensen and Paul Kingsnorth both express their frustrations with the current environmental movement.
Jensen takes movement organizers to task for their drift towards actions that are "fun and sexy." "The fact that so many people routinely call for environmentalism to be more fun and more sexy reveals not only the weakness of our movement but also the utter lack of seriousness with which even many activists approach the problems we face,” he says bitterly. “When it comes to stopping the murder of the planet, too many environmentalists act more like they're planning a party than building a movement.”
But let’s face it, there are a lot of people on this planet who find the issues addressed by environmentalism just too scary and depressing to deal with. The environmentalist party-planners are trying to reach these folks, who have been suckled from birth on cheery feel-good media, by presenting environmental action as fun and upbeat, rather than as doom-driven and angst-ridden. It's environmentalism on anti-depressants, and it fits a big swath of our population, who don't want to dwell on anything sad or upsetting, unless maybe it's a movie guaranteed to ultimately have a happy ending.
Paul Kingsnorth, whose long article in Orion, "Confessions of Recovering Environmentalist," will be the subject of an open conference phone call on January 18, is critical of the environmental movement not for being too party-oriented, but for being too "utilitarian."
Kingsnorth deplores environmentalists who have happily jumped on the technological fix bandwagon--the solar farm, wind farm, sustainable energy crowd. He sees these folks as engaged in finding new ways to continue our same old depredation of the environment--just more sustainably.
"Today’s environmentalism," he says, "is...an adjunct to hypercapitalism: the catalytic converter on the silver SUV of the global economy. It is an engineering challenge: a problem-solving device for people to whom the sight of a wild Pennine hilltop on a clear winter day brings not feelings of transcendence but thoughts about the wasted potential for renewable energy. It is about saving civilization from the results of its own actions: a desperate attempt to prevent Gaia from hiccupping and wiping out our coffee shops and broadband connections."
Kingsnorth declares he wants nothing of this "soulless" form of environmentalism. "I can’t make my peace with people who cannibalize the land in the name of saving it. I can’t speak the language of science without a corresponding poetry. I can’t speak with a straight face about saving the planet when what I really mean is saving myself from what is coming."
Kingsnorth ends his article on a disturbing note, telling us he's turning his back on the environmental movement, and striking off on his own. "I am leaving. I am going to go out walking."
I presume he means that he's going to go and quietly reconnect with the land, an important activity for all of us who care about the natural world. But I can't advocate "going out walking" as a strategy for the urgent task of changing human relations with our planet.
Fortunately, Kingsnorth also has a more positive suggestion for us: to recast the environmental movement as "ecocentric” as opposed to its current androcentric fixation.
"The “environment”—that distancing word, that empty concept—does not exist,” Kingsnorth declares. “It is the air, the waters, the creatures we make homeless or lifeless in flocks and legions, and it is us too. We are it; we are in it and of it, we make it and live it, we are fruit and soil and tree, and the things done to the roots and the leaves come back to us."
This is a message that every environmentalist, whatever we call ourselves, needs to hear and reaffirm. We are part of the web of life on this planet, and every tree that falls, every bird that is poisoned, every tree frog that goes extinct, is a leaf on the great tree of life that includes us humans too. Kill all the leaves, and the great tree will die.
We’re all looking for ways to promote a sustainable ecosystem on earth, not just for humans but for all the myriad life forms who share our planet today. I believe there’s room in the movement for everyone who cares, whether their bent is for deadly serious de-industrialization, “fun and sexy” protests, technological innovation, or even, yes, going out walking.
The most important thing is that we wake up, collectively, to the reality of what our species has been doing to the real 99%, the flora and fauna of this planet, and the fact that climate change is upon us, with potentially disastrous consequences for the 100% of us.
What shall we do about it? Don't stand there asking what to do! Look around, roll up your sleeves and get busy! Offer your talents to the task. If you can write, start writing and share your thoughts with ever wider circles of readers. If you can farm, start an organic CSA. If you are an engineer, you should be focusing on renewable energy. If you are a chemical engineer, you should be calling out the Monsantos and the Dows, even if it costs you your job.
We all need to be working on overcoming our media addictions and our socially reinforced tendencies to pull the covers over our heads. We need to be engaging, Occupy-style, with our political system, and sending a clear message that business as usual is no longer acceptable.
There is so much to do, and so little time. Let's get out there, each bearing our own gifts and energies, and turn this Earthship around.
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91 Comments so far
Show AllJim Hansen calls it "greenwash" - and I agree.
Less clear is what to do?
Naomi Klein and Maude Barlow and Lester Brown all have ideas that are not greenwash - but just how are we going to act at the nation state level without functioning democracies - and with, for whatever reasons, mis-informed populaces?
No one has been able to come even close to answering this question, or, what is more to the point - doing, rather than talking.
Manysummits - in Calgary
========
Are you the only green guy in Alberta? Are there trees in Saskatchewan? Just kidding.
It's not people and organizations we should believe in, it's ideas. People and organizations will let you down. But not a really good idea.
Well said. Ideas rule... no really. I catch hell for saying this, but it is true. People will sacrifice themselves, if need be, for a really good idea that animates the populace. THIS is why the "zeitgeist" (an actual entity, like a ministering Angel, roaming the countryside, overturning previous governing Ideas) succeeds, where politics & activism fail. Or rather, adds success to that activism, which leads to new policy.
Corporations and politicians know well about what you're calling "zeitgeist." They produce them all the time. One told us lies, that money could buy happiness - your spa bathroom, your new addition - and that the smarter you are the more money you have and the more respect, thus power, you deserve. Another one is that the two major corporate zeitgeist producing political parties are in opposition rather than collusion.
We as environmentalists must work to create a more honorable, proud yet humble - and why not fun!? - grass roots driven, loving Zeitgeist. This Zeitgeist focuses our awareness on all aspects of resource use, from "need," to disposal, to consequences. It focuses on making sometimes awkward alternatives the norm (our "duh" moment). It asks us to imagine that, rather than being the centerpiece of life on earth, we are but one species linked precariously to all others.
We were led astray by the corporate manufactured zeitgeist. It promoted competition for money and power as a way to accumulate superfluous, wasteful goods and services. That zeitgeist MO resulted in terrible harm to our precious planet and its inhabitants - all in he name of what we thought was prosperity and well being.
Our environmental Zeitgeist, on the other hand, has a completely different personality and definition of "prosperity." It focuses our thoughts and imagination on creating a healthier, more generous world - tangible and intangible - that we will pass on to our children's children and the joy and appreciation they will have for our efforts and determination. Our Zeitgeist is both fun and serious, holistic and fully conscious. Imagine our great, great, great grandchildren, frolicking in the clear waters of the Gulf of Mexico, with a full awareness of how it came to be saved: Conscious L-O-V-E, without which we are nothing but pitiful slaves to outmoded, shallow, and ultimately destructive forces.
We Have to have fun be an important part of the environmental movement.
Most of us do these things on a volunteer level - it's our 'hobby' so to say - so if it's overbearingly depressing - well hell we can get that work whether we want it or not -
On the national level we hear all the time about many 'environmental organizations' that end up being cooped by the very corporations they are supposed to the watchdogs over.
Most depressing.
If having 'fun' helps engage the disengaged I'm all for it.
As John Trudell once said - 'Sometimes you gotta laugh cause you get sick of crying'
Because let's admit it they are Still winning over the 99.99999% that is the environment and us humans. They're completely and unabashedly willing to trash the planet for an extra nickel of profit.
We Thoughts things were going to get better after the happenings in the late 60's but the powers sucked up all that energy and is now stronger than before.
That's also damn depressing.
So we might as well have fun if we can in this environmental fight ........
Open your inner Prankster.
mtdon !
Fun is nature's taste bud - so yes - I agree.
Climbing mountains is actually fun - and more -
Nansen's 15 months walking off the Arctic Ice with one companion was likewise fun - and more -
The fun has been beaten out of most of us - you cannot repeatedly lose without consequences -
Marlon Brando, in his autobiography, declared Americans the unhappiest of people -
Mike
They certainly are the most un-adventurous and fearful people.
Much of my difficulty promoting electric motor scooters is simply a sense that riding something with two wheels for day to day transportation is insanely dangerous.
SUV sales are largely driven by parent's concern for their child's safety.
I long ago gave up mentioning my pastime of hang gliding in casual conversation - I just get a look back like I'm crazy.
We laughed! We cried! A good time was had by all, until the end.
"We Have to have fun..."
To be sure. But modern civilization is amusing itself to death.
There comes a time when you have to put away the toys and do the actual heavy lifting.
The old order of the environmental movement, Greepeace(tm) and the Sierra Club(tm) are now run by PR flacks and Corporate friendly business managers who have no problem with cozying up to the very industries and Corporations that are the most egregious polluters, and posing with the Politicians who propose and support legislation that protects the polluters. Very often these 'people' subsequently go to work FOR the Corporations or Politicians they supposedly opposed while working for (and drawing a hefty salary from) said 'green' organizations.
"So we might as well have fun if we can in this environmental fight ..."
Sure. Have fun. Count some coup along the way.
But remember this: While you are 'having fun', the Corporations are playing for keeps. And they play dirty, cheating in the courts and often employing those who will break your face with a pick-ax handle with a smile on theirs.
Also remember this: No environmental protest has changed anything. Ever. And that's a documented fact.
It's only when you are able to drag the offenders into court and cost them either money or good publicity that any (minimal and cosmetic) changes get made.
"no environmental protest has ever changed anything"? Huh? How did the American people drag Congress (often kicking and screaming) into writing CEQA, Clean Air, Clean Water, Endangered Species, etc and then get the courts to rule in their favor. Then there's the Headwaters forest. A lot of it fell under the chainsaw but not all of it. Thank Earth First AND the lawsuits. If we hadn't been out here, gamely doing Earth Day and hundreds of other actions, I don't know why anybody would have paid attention. How did the Sierra Club rally people to stop the corporate water pirates of the West from damming the Grand Canyon? And they at least tried to keep the dam off what became Lake Powell - which is now being considered for demolition.
Yeah, you gotta sue 'em and expect them to sue right back, but if it all took place in District and Circuit Appellate Courts, none to the rest of us would know about it or be able to spread awareness and raise money to keep the enviro lawyers in court.
I grew up in southern California in the 60s and 70s. We benefitted immensely by catalytic converters, restrictions on coal-burning, criteria pollutant (including ozone) regulation, etc. when I was a kid you couldn't breath the air in the Pomona Valley or San Fernando Va in summer without having severe broncho-constriction. Bad as it still is sometimes, it's a hell of a lot better than it was. That's victory. Not a total victory but when has anybody had a total victory? Thanks to every enviro in the 60s and 70s who ever attended a rally, for cleaning up the air my 86 year old Mom still has to breathe.
The environmental crisis is at its heart a spiritual crisis - human beings losing touch with their natural connections, those ancient stirrings that make one feel good to sit in the sunshine, or serene by the seashore, or transcendant in the desert. I agree that the environmental movement has succumbed to dryness and technological jargon and totally lost touch with its roots - the Earth.
By the way, I always capitalize "Earth" even though I'm told that is incorrect. Odd, we capitalize Mars, Jupiter, Venus, but our own beloved planet is not even worth a capital letter?
I speak only for myself: My spiritual power comes from the Earth. My very life comes from the Earth. The vital, inextinguishable life force itself is the very essence of what I regard as spiritual. Look around you. What about life, in all its myriad forms, is not sacred consciousness made manifest? Perhaps if you regard nature and creation as just an incoherent collection of inanimate parts, coming together in some big accidental physical and chemical reaction, and deny that the life force itself is spiritual, then you can dryly dismiss Earth spirituality as the stuff of superstitious children.
In that case, if that is correct, then why would I care what lives and what dies? The fact is, I do care. Surely, my day is coming to depart this Earth, but I don't believe any consciousness or life energy is ever lost.
By all means, laugh, have fun, enjoy life. But if there is nothing in this life, or on this Earth, or in this vast universe, that you regard as enduring and truthful and spiritual, I find it hard to believe you will ever have the inner passion to fight for this planet. It is nothing but another bunch of molecules, lifeless, spiritless, and ultimately, of no consequence.
For me, however, I regard this Earth as the very Mother of life, the very fountain of wisdom and truth and power. Perhaps that is why my "environmental" passions got me in so much trouble over the years. I'm just a superstitious looney, imagining that the Earth is alive, imagining that Life is enduring, and imagining that there is anything even worth fighting for.
With regard to capitalizing Earth, if you are referring to the planet, Earth is a proper noun and should be capitalized (as we do for Mars and Venus). If you are referring to soil, etc., earth is aappropriate.
Beautiful...if you wish to contact me directly, go to earthrenewal.org.. You can reach me through the contact page.
Why thank you, I will
I am a hardcore atheist who tries to believe in nothing, but I agree that life is a spiritual affair and Earth is my mother. But in the food chain of life, everything has to eat something to survive.
Wild Raven: Beautiful sentiments. I agree 100%.
Who could possibly think and say that the earth is not alive? Even non-life, minerals, the air we breathe, has intrinsic qualities, atomic vibration, and often links back to organic origins. Nothing is created, nothing destroyed but always devolving through entropy. At last we will be truly one with the universe.
The title of this article was promising, but the text was disappointing. And her concluding statements were also disappointing.
I keep referring, in my posts to CD to an article published in the 1970s by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, a German Marxist Philosopher, who pointed out that the problems are trying to deal with are not the real problems - they are symptoms of the problem.
The problem is the worship of commodities. Our society is based on production, which requires the exploitation of resources and the release of waste products. He noted that Socialist countries are as guilty of this as Capitalist countries.
Until we deal with this problem, which amounts to a religion (economic growth), no solution will work, because our solutions address the symptoms, not the problem.
Agreed. This is something I've been writing about on my blog, Transition Times, from which today's CD post was excerpted.
For example: http://bethechange2012.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/they-dont-play-nice-should-we/
which takes a more explicitly political view.
If everybody saw the light and decided to join the Transition Movement, would it not "grow"? In fact, don't you write about it so it will "grow".
The worship of commodities is definitely the problem which is enshrined in the
"official" measurement of economic progress - the GNP/ GDP.
The perfect example of the deceptions of this way of thinking is the NT Times piece on
Japan's "Lost Decade":
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/the-true-story-of-japans-economic-success.html
With this quote:
"In the 1990s, while Japan was being widely portrayed as an outright “basket case,” its rate of increase in per-capita electricity output was twice that of America, and it continued to outperform into the new century. "
So because Japan is using more electricity does this translate into a better life?
Ironically Japan's increased electricity use could be a sign of a more sustainable
lifestyle which uses 3 times less energy per capita than the US primarily because
Japan has cut its car ownership by 3/8ths as it has continued to build out its
High speed rail and Green public transit options.
But just having more of anything does not translate into a better life.
A friend of mine has 100 guitars - I have basically 1 very high quality vintage Gibson guitar which has served me for many hours of music over many years.
We need to live sustainably not continue to worship commodities for their own sake.
In that vein the biggest contradiction I see among many Environmentalists is the failure to recognize the critical role of auto addiction in planetary destruction.
The excellent book "Transportation Revolutions: Moving People and Freight without Oil"
( http://www.transportrevlutions.info ) points out that the major factor leading to increased Greenhouse Gas emissions is transportation - first off from cars and trucks
and then from globalized world trade such as cutting the US Northwest forests, shipping them to China, to be painted with lead paint to be shipped back across the Pacific as "Thomas the Tank Engine" poisoned toys..
Environmentalists have to stop pretending that electric cars are going to enable them to evade confronting Auto Addiction which is responsible for almost 70% of US oil usage, directly for 38% of greenhouse emissions, for 30,000 auto deaths, for a
football field of asphalt for every 5 cars resulting in acres and acres of parking lots,
highway lanes, etc.
You wanna stop the demand for Tar sands oil?
Then get Green transit via rail, lightrail, buses, shuttles biking and walking going!
This article is good-hearted but foolish.
Turning people into "ecocentric" not "adrocentric" (i.e. Humanist) thinkers is a quest to start a new RELIGION.
This has been a flaw in efforts to stop pollution and encroachment for almost twice as long as I have been alive!
We MAY need to think and believe differently as individuals and cultures to find a real, sustainable balance between civilization and a healthy ecosphere for the long-term.
But we DO NOT need to do so to stop pollution and encroachment in the here and now.
Hard science on the negative effects to Human health and common sense on the proper use of the commons is sufficient.
The idea that we are going to change the mentality of the vast majority of people on the Globe in time to save civilization or the current biospherical equilibrium (remember the Chinese are going to have to overthrow their government before they are really a part of this) is twice as quixotic -if half as sinister- as the goals of the PC Thought Police.
We do not need to reprogram people into eco-heads, we need to find out why THEY want to cease pollution, and show them how they can.
The call to Save the Planet has failed so far because you first have to radically change your thinking to heed it.
The call to Save the Humans can work NOW, with people just as they are.
It is the difference between a woodland "wilderness area" that only yuppie backpackers with Gortex and GPS can enjoy, and a sustainable forestry operation, providing comparable biodiversity, but also blue- and white- collar jobs, useful construction materials, and even heat and electricity in the form of biomass-burning generators.
If you can't see why the one effort is a dead-end, while the other is the best way forward, then take a careful look around you, you might be living in that fabled "ivory tower". ;)
The truly sickening irony is that efforts to make the "wildeness" into a zone safe from Humans -for example- haven't even ALMOST worked, not on a national scale, and really not on a Global scale, but ideas and efforts to give a portion of the "wilderness" to humans to use as sustainably as possible are derided as somehow doomed to "destroy" the "wilderness" that has ALREADY been destroyed!
It is total madness!
And that's not even getting into the insane, blickered adherence to the Doomsday Scare Strategy in re Global Warming. ;(
"It is the difference between a woodland "wilderness area" that only yuppie backpackers with Gortex and GPS can enjoy, and a sustainable forestry operation, providing comparable biodiversity, but also blue- and white- collar jobs, useful construction materials, and even heat and electricity in the form of biomass-burning generators"
Sustainability sounds good, but how can it be generalized. Forests are one thing, but we cannot engage in sustainable use of petroleum or coal. By the way, burning wood releases carbon to the atmosphere - it's not just coal and petroleum that do that.
However it is done, reducing carbon emissions is the only way to prevent the rise in temperature that willl produce severe effects on society. And to call that a Doomsday scenario is not fear-mongering - it is realism.
Sustainability needs to be seen as along a scale, not an either/or prospect.
So purely market based use of petroleum has been sustained for around a century and looks to have only about a half a century or less left, for about a 150-year sustainability.
But what if some other rationing system could be put in place? If unecessary use could be brought low enough, and efficiency high enough, that sustainability curve could be extended. How far? Really hard to say without expanding this portion beyond all reason, so let's just say between very little and a whole helluva lot. ;)
But that's just in use.
The impact to the ecosphere and local ecosystems of the production, refining, and use of petroleum ranges from significant to very high depending on what and where, the most important being the basic carbon release, the most important of that being the CO2.
Here the point is more clearly made with coal, but -I pinky swear- it applies to petrol as well.
The current system of digging up and burning coal may have hundreds of more years on the sustainability curve from a use-perspective, but in the end, like petroleum, coal is essentially a finite resouce in the time-scale of human civilization.
But what about the curve from an impact-perspective?
That depends on the efforts to mitigate impact.
Worst case, we're looking at an Eocene redux ALREADY, too late, no way to stop it.
Best-case, the curve is infinite. This is because if the impacts are mitigated sufficiently, the finite use-curve can be absorbed comepletely. This level of mitigation IS technically achievable right now (its just treatment of exhaust gases at generator sites, conversion of dirty coal to clean methonal before burning, and tweeking of forestry and agriculture to up capture rates), the gap is between the technically possible and the socially possible.
BTW, biomass burning can involve controlled and reduced release of exhaust just as much as our petrol burning in cars does. And by the-by the way, burning wood releases only the carbon absorbed by the tree in growing, and not all of that even because of ash and charcoal remains. Burning biomass is only additive to atmospheric carbon levels because the plants aren't being replaced.
Reducing carbon emissions is a great way to lower the impact-curve of the finite use of fossil fuels.
But it is hardly the only way.
Bolstering carbon absorption on land and sea, both directly and indirectly is just as important and may be MUCH more possible.
Remember that what matters here is RESULTS.
The current and past strategies are and have been failures.
This is the objective truth.
Things are worse now after 50 years of environmentalism, not better.
This is the way the Doomsday Scare Strategy is a loser and adherence to it is pathological.
Not because such severe effects are unrealistic, but because the attempt to frighten everyone hasn't done thing one to make them less realistic.
Loser doomsday strategy? Or, looking at the ugly truth? After trying to unravel your comment, my mind is like a ball of yarn after a kitten has played with it.
Maybe the problem was that it was a ball of yarn in the first place? ;)
The STRATEGY is a "loser", see?
Not -necessarily- the scenario itself.
Scaring people with the worst-scenarios it is possible to wring out of computer models of future climatic patterns IS NOT WORKING.
Not enough of them are scared, and not enough of the scared are scared enough.
This combined with the embarrasing cases of scientists fudging numbers to up the severity of effects and the substantial efforts to lull everyone back to sleep by the short-sighted has resulted in a obvious net LOSS in belief in these worst-case scenarios, not a gain.
And this loss has spilled over into the notion of Human impacts having ANY effect at all, which means that it is a big backward step for ecological thinking, sustainability, and environmentalism as a whole, negating decades of previous gain in those areas.
The Doomsday Scare Strategy has been a horrible failure for not just the AGW awareness and mitigation movement, but for ecology, Humanity, and the ecosphere as a whole. This has NOTHING to do with whether the scenario itself is likely or not.
Clearer?
You're a real piece of work masquerading as someone "in the know."
For one thing, you lay out scenarios based on LONG-term adaptation when Hansen has already made it clear that if projects like the Canadia Tar Sands come through, it'll be a "game over" for mankind.
You ignore the methane problem that's recently been tipping plenty of climate change charts.
And instead of attacking the fake think tanks that make it their BUSINESS to look for flaws in the lives, emails, or theories of scientists who studiously study climate change, or speak about the way MEDIA programs people to not think seriously about this issue, or how the fundamentalist Christians are taught to EXPECT End Times, or how no Ethos is in place to teach conservation in our schools... your scapegoat are the doomstay speakers.
That's a holding device, like asking the people in the lower cabins of the Titanic to just remain calm.
Your whole post is nothing but glib sounding obfuscation. I wonder who you work for?
In addition, the claim was that things are worse after 50 years of "environmentalism" when, the correct thing to say is that things are less bad than they would have been if the various aspects of the environmental movement (with its flaws) had not existed. There is nothing "doomsday" about noting that the current ppm for CO2 is about 390 and it has been 40 degrees warmer than normal in the Upper Midwest recently.
Matti, I understand what you are saying. However, we are at a time where things may be too little too late. I cannot speak for other posters but instead of looking at what they say as "scare mongering", the worst case scenario while not all is lost has a higher probability of happening than was the case years ago. Also, I am no scientist; however, I found out that not all scientists are the same and that those who were paid better ended up doing more work of fudging the data to hide the inconvenient truth and reality.
present guns are scarier than future scenarios...
existing infrastructures are required for much of our current society...
these infrastructures may be affected by some, without the consent of the many, resulting in large societal changes...
enlightenment of all is not necessary, as the many will be carried by the tide...
the synchronous enlightenment of some could suffice...
say, on September 22, 2012...
title to land, and earning money for such, is the hurdle...
are we ready to go without title? not much to talk about, if no...
Unfortunately, your last sentences reveal a prejudice. Who is attempting to frighten anyone? If you are frightened, it's your business. But to "frame" realistic discussion of global warming as an agenda (which you are clearly doing) is to join the ranks of the deniers. "It can't *really* be a dispassionate discussion. Must be something else...yes, an attempt to frighten people."
You, of course, used the term "doomsday".
To be clear, it is vital that people know what is happening with the atmosphere, oceans, and climate. Denial of it will be deadly. If we are discussing doomsday, denial is the key, not a clear look at the state of the earth. The fact that global warming is accelerating and likely to be catastrophic will necessarily direct our social and environmental actions.
Does that sound like a "scare strategy" to you?
I have clarified my point twice now, so this third time will be the last, okay?
You can deny the fact that there has been an active effort -led by Lovelock and Hansen- to paint the worst possible picture of what current observations and current modeling are showing us about both Human impact and GW in general in order to bring about the greatest swing in public opinion -I'll just let their published explanations of this refute you, thanks. ;)
But denying that the AGW as understood by the bulk of people is not a "Doomsday" scenario is just ludicrous!
I mean, just read ONE article in a mass-circulation magazaine on the subject, and you will see this is true.
The reason I draw attention to this is make a point about the public mind, why it thinks the way it does, and why blithe notions of changing it before we can mitigate Human impacts are naive.
The People are largely Humanist in understanding of the world (even if they couldn't articulate it this way), and when they are not, they are largely understanding in some equally "androcentric" religious manner.
To this understanding, the question of sudden, drastic climate change will always be filtered through or wound around the Apocaplyse visions that underly many religious and underly the Humanism that grew from Christian Theology.
This is the point.
Yes, YOU get it as a "likely" scenario of "catastrophic" change in a great big ecosphere system that will stabilize someday with or without us. But that does not mean that most other people do -they do not.
They see their lives, their possibilities, an extension of their lives to all or a portion of Humanity, and an extension of their lives to some degree of their ancestors and descendents.
For them, the question of whether the climate is changing drastically enough to be a problem for Gaia is secondary to whether it is changing drastically enough to make their lives or their children's significantly worse than their grandparent's lives were, AND is so much more of a factor in their lives being good or bad than the many other things (war, Empire, economics, other people, etc.) that they need to make it their prime focus.
Beyond this, the fact that AGW folks always seem to present the only way out as a objective lowering of living standards (instead of a subjective one), means that people have to believe that the impacts of AGW are WORSE than making their lives crappy on purpose.
This is all way too much of an uphill battle for the strategy and so it has been a dismal failure.
The alternative that I am offering is NOT denial.
It is acceptance both of the current observations and the educated guesses of worst-case futures AND the fact that to people who believe -no matter how secretly- that they will live better after death -and forever- Doomsday is less scary than today AND that RESULTS matter more here than ideals.
I don't give a crap about ideals.
And I don't give a crap whether people like you like me or make a proper effort to see me as an ally.
I give a crap about Humanity and the ecosphere.
And the current way -and the above article's pseudo-new way- is NOT WORKING.
Your posts are all over the place. They contain a bit of truth merged with all kinds of ridiculous assertions. When you are called to the plate, you turn the question around on the person asking it.
Hansen and Lovelock are the ones telling the truth. To you, that truth is an alarm. It SHOULD be an alarm. Yet your motive is to turn off the alarm clock and blame those who are alarming the public with their "doomsday," as YOU call it, scenarios. Your cavalier disregard for the truth, by inverting it into a condemnation of the scientists sharing it, shows that YOU do not want to take these truths to heart. Nor do you want others to recognize them, or you would not POLLUTE the thread with so many posts full of your half-truths. Here you chatter on about the next potential 150 years of coal use as if that's even a remotely viable option, as methane levels and CO2 levels rise catastrophically!
The only person who talks in more convoluted circles, using tautologies in lieu of actual Truth is Leea. Are you related?
Wow, matti...You thought I was talking about ideals?
"Things are worse now after 50 years of environmentalism"... you are WRONG if you are trying to insinuate that environmentalism has been a main driver of ecologic history over the last 50 years, because it sure has not been, and wrong if you are insinuating that it has been worse than useless. And you blithely state this as if NOTHING ELSE BUT THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT HAPPENED to affect the ecology of the planet, when in fact, much more has happened, including the rise to power of trans-national Capitalism, and the addition of BILLIONS MORE people to the Earth over the last decades, flooding out and rendering moot much of the good work done over this time!
However, the very fact that more people are alive on the planet is itself a mark that the environment was much improved by environmental awareness and efforts from the environment's former trajectory, wherein environmentalism did not even exist, most people died earlier and pollution was rampant and ignored, and this indicates that still much work can be done now to improve the current ecological trajectory. But one of the real concerns of the first Earth Day was overpopulation. Anything done on that front? Nope, in fact it is still religiously ignored... by religions as well as politicians.
Anything done on ANY front? Well, yes, there has certainly been enough done that environmentalism has become a major irritation toindustry, fueling a vicious conservative backlash which has labeled any environmentalist an "eco-terrorist" who is "more friendly to the spotted-owl than to humans"... of course, the TRUE Secret Meaning is, "more friendly to the spotted-owl than to MONEY!" But, hey, Republican Spinmeister Frank Luntz must have said that phrase didn't really test well with people.
And as if corporations cared about employees or about nature! For example, the magnificent thousand-year-life redwoods of California have been logged until only about 2% of the original stands are left - yes, that's 98% of the origlnal stand has already been logged-off! But logging continues, to pay off corporate-debt banksters, and supposedly the excuse is "creating jobs"... however, the raw logs are mainly shipped to mills outside the country, in Mexico and elsewhere, "creating jobs" alright... OFFSHORE... until the big trees are ALL gone... then, hey, NO JOBS! Get lost, ex-employees!
And to say we have to utilize or co-use every inch of land "for people" is to miss the point altogether. Actually, we need vast areas of NO-GO nature protected against any human encroachment, in order for the climate system to work and in order for the biological support system to work FOR human life to be sustained. Because once one big company is let in, they will all go in. It's just like the wise old Arab proverb, 'once the camel has his nose in the tent, the rest of him soon follows.'
Nature is NOT built for humans, and has in fact survived 99.99% of time without humans, but humans obviously cannot live without nature. The rock that is this planet will survive humankind, as we are mayflies upon it, but will life, and humans, on this planet survive us? Not if humans use it all up, trash it, and destroy its life-support systems in the process.
By the way, the first thing that should be on the environmental agenda, for the U.S. anyway, is to find another name for it. The French-sounding Environ-ment is a word many Americans do not understand or can even pronounce, and for so-called Conservatives it is suspiciously way-too Frenchy-sounding. Sadly, the label of Conservative is perfect, but obviously has been taken for a cause with the exact-opposite meaning. Naturist (nudist) and naturalist are also taken. Tree-hugger hs been vilified. Pro-lifer... see Conservative above.
How about Pro-Earthers? For who is crazy enough to declare themselves to be an Anti-Earther?
Well, maybe Palin, Bachmann, Coulter, Beck, Rush, Gingrich...oh, I guess there's plenty.
>>Actually, we need vast areas of NO-GO nature protected against any human encroachment, in order for the climate system to work and in order for the biological support system to work FOR human life to be sustained. Because once one big company is let in, they will all go in. It's just like the wise old Arab proverb, 'once the camel has his nose in the tent, the rest of him soon follows.'
This is precisely what is needed. There seems to be a whole group of people who believe a back to the land approach will save the environment. This being people leaving their cities to small communities to build local economies.
Nothing would be worse.
IMHO what is needed is the opposite, that is man abanding all those areas to the wild and retreating to cities (more densely populated) so as to allow the wilderness to recover.
It can not recover as long as we are building roads and pipelines and power lines and towns and farms throughout them.
Seven billion people go to bed each night lying next to something akin to a campfire, whether it is an ipad or a burning cow dung paddy. They stare into the glowing light and dream of a better day. They can't all be right.
INteresting.
Thank you...I think. ;)
The article would have been appropriate in 1973. It's way too late now. Preparation for survival is what should be focused on now.
I suggest a series of"climate survival conferences" of non-politicians held high on mountain tops around the world where attendees are obligated to travel there on foot. Information between conferences should be shared directly by elected representatives.
"Occupy" the forests and mountains. Learn to live.
Your call to occupy the forests and hilltops will soon be answered by more people than you care to admit -- hundreds of millions of ecological refugees.
Lately the crucial issue of birth control seems to have been subverted by accusations about the NWO cabal "depopulating" the planet.
And lest I underestimated the oligarchy's coercive powers, a conservative friend gave me a subscription to "Foreign Affairs", the periodical of the Council on Foreign Relations that guides many of our politicians. I guess I'll have to read it.
I believe in the unvarnished truth. The truth is we live in a world on the brink of destruction. Unless there is radical change to our economic, political and social systems, they will implode and self destruct. This is no more evident than in the twin threats of eco and nuclear holocaust. There is no longer any time left for piecemeal change. Changes that are now taking place to the ecosystem are irreversible over the scale of thousands of years. Technology does not exist to reverse these changes- without the likely potential of even greater destruction. Eco destruction is mirrored by spiritual destruction.
The systems of power and exploitation that have created this mess must be replaced. All forms of disempowerment must end. True democracy must take hold. Selfish individualism is a tool for social control- not personal freedom. There is no evolutionary model in nature that is not predicated on cooperation. No system can survive in nature that is rigidly controlled to the point that it cannot adapt. All systems, to survive must adapt to the inevitability of change.
We live in a world where the price of comfort is to great. We need to all feel uncomfortable and find our hope in what is true and real- our common humanity. We are the offshoot of 5 billion years of evolution- yet we collectively act as a species as if we were selfish children who cannot see beyond our selfish needs. It is about time we remembered who we are- and that we are coevolutionaries with life that is equally conscious and I might add, fully aware of our folly. Aware, but still filled with love.
Hear hear! The question is, how to get people to HEAR these truths and then ACT on them?
Oh but it is really so simple!
To get them to HEAR, we just need to overthrow the anti-democratic regimes that rule over them and stifle communication. No prob right? I'll do all of Africa if you do China, deal?
To get them to ACT may be a bit trickier. Because to get them to a place where they finally realize that they need to be uncomfortable to help save an inaccurate view of how the ecosphere works, we're going to need to upgrade their dirt-floor, tin-roof shacks and bowl-of-rice-for-five-kids-to-eat-with-dirty-hands-squatting-on-the-dirt-floor diets first.
Narrowing one's thoughts to fit the situation of a small minority of a population is so far from ecological thinking that the fact that this is the habit of most enviromentalists has gone all the way past not-funny-anymore to become funny once again. ;(
POINTLESS IDIOTIC RAMBLINGS
Electronics are the result of some of the most destructive practices on earth. The solvents, heavy metals and conflict minerals cause misery and destruction for untold millions. At least several million have died in the Congo since 1998 (the main source for conflict minerals used in computer devices) as a result of our obsession with electronics. And yet hundreds of millions of us sit for hours with our eyes glued to monitor typing about some romantic notion of getting back to nature. We leave these electronic things on 24 hours a day in case someone texts or email us.
We talk of being plugged in or connected while totally divorced from reality and nature. We dream of a techno-sustainable nirvana while at the same time we are already running short of the rare-earth minerals needed for wind turbines, solar cells and electric cars etc. In short, we live in a narcissistic secular holier than thou fantasy.
I remember reading about a small child who thought a coffee table magazine was an Ipad that didn't work properly. There are environmentalists who fly all around the world staying in fancy hotels speaking at huge convention centers to speak of saving the earth to a huge crowd who also flew in to attend. I read that cars have gotten 15% more fuel efficient over the last 15 years while at the same time they got 26% heavier.
We might as well double down on technology and hope that it will save at least a small percent of us. This will mean letting several billion people suffer. This is what will happen anyway, whether you like it or not.
There are a couple of notions that have been trotted out here which I dispute. One, that "wilderness" is some kind of elitist playground for pampered yuppies, and two, that people who believe in changing course and protecting the Earth are some kind of elitists with lots of bucks to throw around.
I've heard both arguments used to try to justify everything from clear cutting the national forests to drilling for oil and gas inside the national parks. Trust me, I am no elitist, either by nature or by finances. But I'll take my chances out in the wilderness, unadorned, honest - brutally honest at times - Mother nature. She don't lie, she don't bullshit, she don't play games.
Not one acre of land in Montana has been added to the national wilderness system in some three decades, though there is still plenty of roadless land deserving of such designation, and support for such protection cuts across all political boundaries here in my native state.
I would argue, however, that more important than designating areas on a map (which is important) as wilderness, is to try to stir the collective memories of humanity about its roots. Those who think humans are somehow separate from nature, and can tinker with it like some old washing machine, must live an incredibly sterile life.
Me, I'll die in the wilderness someday, if that is my destined fate, because at least there I am truly at home - be it ever so deadly and dangerous, it is far less so than a man-made world where everyone's hearts and souls have been reduced to so many numbers in some computer.
Well, it doesn't help that you are misreading, does it?
"One, that "wilderness" is some kind of elitist playground for pampered yuppies..."
Not what I wrote, go back and read my post again if you doubt me. :)
I was using the difference between a designated "wilderness" area and an area designated as for longest sustainability curve practical use in part, and for no direct use in part as an example of the differences between a "Save the Planet" and "Save the Humans" approach.
The fact that in the latter far more people directly (and first or second degree indirectly) benefit is just one of the reasons why "Save the Humans" may have greater utility.
The other was that your attempt to "...try to stir the collective memories of humanity about its roots." ISN'T WORKING!!
"Wilderness" is more encroached upon today than ever before, even on a national scale. But on a Global scale, absolutely every arguable gain here in the States or in Europe has been countered several times over by resultant losses in other countries.
Simpson barely logs at all in Washington and Oregon anymore, and the blue-collar folks of those States suffer for it, while the woodland ecosystems make som real gains.
But Simpson hasn't stopped logging.
Now they do it in Madagascar or Malaysia, and the workers there suffer even though they have jobs, and the woodlands there die horrible deaths, and the total vegetative coverage of the Earth is reduced by more than if every tree in Washington and Oregon was gone.
And lastly, the reason I put "wilderness" in quotes is because it doesn't exist, not anywhere but in the imagination at least.
It is a false concept of how things work based on a combination of cultural chauvinism, Indian/indigenous die-offs, and early scientific misunderstandings.
Check out William Denevan for the evidence and argument.
Your "wilderness" was "man-made".
Just by smarter men than we. ;)
>>>> It is the difference between a woodland "wilderness area" that only yuppie backpackers with Gortex and GPS can enjoy,
Wildraven was exactly right in calling out your incredibly stupid statement.
Well, with that sort of painfully-worked-out argument in my face, how can I possibly respond? ;)
I think it should be clear to all now that I have posted further explanation that wildraven and you have misread my statement.
It was merely an example of how the current aproach and the emerging new approach that I am attempting to give name to differ in results.
Was ther in that a bit of rhetorical flourish?
Of course!
But I was assuming that people of adult age would have learned what that is by now and be able to see past it's technical flaws to the point.
Obviously I was wrong!
So, to clarify:
Yuppies aren't the only ones who enjoy our "wilderness areas". There's also retirees in land-yacht RVs, rednecks on ATVs, and many other good uses that we should all be proud of.
That better? ;)
Wilderness is for wildlife and native ecosystems, not Wise-Users with their destructive machines.