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Two problems with that. Firstly: climate change is only one of the problems caused by a culture based almost entirely on the ecocidal fantasy of stolen-from-th
by crispinb 9y ago
Two problems with that.
Firstly: climate change is only one of the problems caused by a culture based almost entirely on the ecocidal fantasy of stolen-from-the-future 'economic growth'. We are losing topsoil at a dizzying pace. Fresh water is disappearing. The habitats on which natural systems depend are being ripped apart. Novel substances are being created and released into our air, water and land with unknown consequences. Climate change is a single crisis piled upon multiple others. Case in point: Australia's Queensland inner reefs are almost completely gone, and the outer reefs have only a few decades left. Causes: multiple, from nutrient-rich agricultural runoff (largely from pointless vanity sugar cane production), to wholesale destruction of coastal ecosystems including mangroves, which are crucial nurseries for many reef fish. Increasing ocean temperatures deal the final blow to already critically weakened ecosystems. This is our planet in miniature. Climate change isn't the problem. It's yet another symptom of the same fundamental dynamic, delivered as just the latest and largest of a series of blows many ecosystems will not survive.
Secondly: the changes needed are not only (and perhaps not primarily) technological. They require planetary coordination and cooperation to handle on political and social levels, and the defeat of a crazed unthinking ideology of unhindered 'economic growth'. Fundamental changes of attitude and societal organisation need to be agreed upon in the next few decades, and implemented without delay. Yet we can't even agree on obvious tiny measures like removing nuclear weapons, and rogue wealthy nations resist nearly every attempt to do anything meaningful about any of the critical issues. We just don't know how to do what's needed, and there are no solutions on the horizon. And we are still locked into fantasies of national government and sovereignty, despite being (factually & physically) a global civilisation.
Look at the political convulsions happening now as a consequence of current worldwide refugee crises. But that's minuscule compared to what's coming. Imagine what happens when ocean level rises cause two billion refugees to seek somewhere to live. Given our level of global immaturity, what do you think will happen? It will be all wars and walls. And our capability, in the midst of such convulsions, to make (and keep) difficult international agreements? Nil.
I'd absolutely love to be wrong. But all physical and social indicators are pointing in the same direction.
- anigbrowl 9y agoSo start doing something. What have you got to lose if you're already doomed? Get yourself a copy of Deep Green resistance and join an aboveground affiliate group. It's easy to manufacture excuses not to do something because it looks impossible. So what? Better than saying you sat there and did nothing and watched it all disintegrate.
- crispinb 9y agoIt's not about me. [edit: by which I mean we were talking about the phenomenon of ecological collapse here. I said nothing about my personal response, and don't intend to]
- usrusr 9y agoCutting down our per head footprint is nice and laudable, but it's really just a minor tweak to the "O" in an exponential "Big Oh". I suspect that crispinb deems something much more paradigmatic necessary than just a bit of reprorization in economic policies and everybody using less plastic bags. Some paradigm shifts are so big that it is very difficult to even think about them loudly without getting universally shunned. What if, for example, you are convinced that for long term planetary survival (on a level that can support the human species), individualistic basic human rights will have to occasionally take a second place? That's what tyranny is made of, but that's also what desperate measures are made of. You won't win any popularity contests with that...
- anigbrowl 9y agoNo disagreement on any of that. I don't want to scare people off with inflammatory suggestions (which is why I suggest aboveground activism rather than taking up pipeline sabotage, but I am absolutely for paradigmatic change despite the inevitability of violent opposition.
- kiliantics 9y agoDeep green resistance advocate for blowing up power plants and other kinds of monkey wrenching. I don't think they're just trying to "cut down the per head footprint"... > individualistic basic human rights will have to occasionally take a second place? One could argue that this is the case right now. That the lack of protection of individual human rights is what got us into this mess. It wasn't individuals in communities that asked for their lands to be taken by a wealthy few or by corporations, to be used for generating profit through environmental destruction. Many people actively struggled against the acquisition and destruction of local ecological habitats. They were a majority opposing a small few powerful people or businesses. But the "individual rights" of those few were valued more and now the many must suffer the consequences...