What on the face of the Earth have I done to deserve this?

IN A WORLD CONSISTING OF CLOSE TO 7 BILLION INDIVIDUAL FATES, WHOEVER CARES ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS TO ONE MAN?

I seriously don’t know what to make of this. What on the face of the Earth have I done to deserve this? It must be something. It must be the fact that I care too much about other people’s multi billion dollar businesses. Especially in terms of the carbon dioxide emissions that come as a result of other people’s businesses. I should care more about the people whose business is closer to a couple of dollars a day, I guess. This must be it. But not quite it? Because it must be more to it than this? I’m lost for words. It’s a long story, dear lawyer. Are you there?

Darras (my good lawyer, always at rest inside the left part of my brain, stuck inside there, like a microchip implant): “I’m here.”

I’m in instant need of help here. It’s not like I’ve got a good reputation to care for, but still.

“Okay?”  

To tell you the truth, my reputation is a bit so-and-so, and especially as concerns the women.

“The women, eh?”

The women, that’s right. It’s a sad case. It seems as if they love to put me in awkward situations from time to time, and then they invariably decide to hate me forever after. A television loon just said it on the screen. It was a film. “Taxi Driver.” And this fellow said women was like a union, and it freaked him out.

“Okay? How do you take your tea?”

Lots of suger, a slice of lemon, and no salt, if you please?

“Salt?!”

No salt for me.

“Okay. There’ll be tears enough on the top of your cup, is that what you’re telling me?”

No way. Well, possibly not. You see the whole thing started back in 2003. All of a sudden a bunch of young women turned up into my life. I was a happy man back then, as you might expect. Problem was these two young women. Oh shit. Now, I wrote a whole book about them. A long one. And a very angry one, as that. Written in a style that was rather Greek, a little African, and then a little Nordic, too. I had come to conclude that all women were out to get me, and I grew terribly afraid of women. I stayed out of their way for quite some time. Several years, to tell you the truth. This whole shitty situation was all a spiritual thing, and I guess it still is. It has to do with my knowledge of the maths that can explain the population explosion. But that’s a long story indeed, and you shall have to ask God Almighty to explain it for me in detail. But we don’t hold much fate in the decision of Gods, now do we? But Acts of God exist in the American legal system. I read about it once. But this is not America, and therefore I can only conclude that all hope is lost.

“No, you’re wrong. All hope is not lost. Your chance is not exactly fat, though.”

You’re supposed to cheer me up.

“Oh? Am I now? That I did not know. But okay: if you want me to be anything less than loyal to honesty, I can always …”

No, no, no.

“Good. Please proceed.”

I stayed away from women for almost three-and-a-half years, and then a woman named Grønning got me introduced to an Angel named Nunu. She was irresistable. She was indeed quite eager to be with me, and we could talk about everything and she promised to help and take care of me, and everything was just nice and cosy for a couple of weeks, and then I started to think. I know I should have done that for a long time already, but as I said, she came like an Angel. And disappeared.

“She disappeared?”

Oh yes. And, well, the story is too green to be told, really. You see, the name Grønning is a Norwegian word translating to “green thing”, and the woman’s name — Nunu — foreign as it is, can be read as a funny Norwegian term, meaning “Now, now!”

“Eh.”

Yes. Eh. And you see, this is the story of my life, too. There’s too many “eh” instances in this life I am leading, I’m sorry to say. It feels as if the family of humanity just lost me, but that I was ”found” by God Almighty, and for this simple reason I was excommunicated from the society of humans. It’s never going to be easy, I suppose. The story of my life is just too good to be true, that’s all. But as it happens, I can’t believe that it isn’t happening for a reason if you know what I mean?

“So what happened between you and that woman?”

I don’t know.

“You don’t know? Which kind of answer is that?”

I don’t know. She fell for me, then I fell for her, and then one thing led to another, and I could do nothing except think of my family. What my family would think about this. As I had aready been diagnosed with HIV, but I can still remember how this diagnosis was presented to me, by a Swedish doctor named Dickson (funny name), as “good news” in terms of my being advised to apply for a disability pension. It would be much easier to get this pension if I applied for it on account of a physical condition, and not exclusively on account of mental or psychological problems. As a matter of fact, Dr. Dickson had a hard time signing my journal, it looked as if he was afraid of the pen, and as it turned out, he simply had to say this thing to me only in order to become able to lift the pen off the table and sign the paper. He said it very quickly, stared at me, picked up the pen an signed the document. It was a very confusing situation. I told the doctor that he looked as if he was in one hell of a Pontius Pilatus situation, for short. — I was thinking as much on account of the fact that the Easter holidays were recently over and done with.

“So you are not infected with the HIV virus, is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

Yes. That’s it. I have every reason to believe that the diagnosis is a hoax. As it happens, after I told Nunu about my diagnosis, and she left straight away, the whole health care system of this wretched country has been acting strangely. They have re-tested me for the HIV virus two times. First in Bergen, then in Haugesund. A Norwegian doctor working in the little town of Haugesund informed me that “if I believed Swedish doctors in particular were out to get me, I might be right about that.” Now, what kind of thing is that? This doctor was absolutely right, of course. Almost all of the doctors that have had anything to do with the HIV diagnosis have been Swedish. A head count leaves me with four Swedish, one Icelandic, and only one Norwegian doctor. And that last doctor informed me that I was free to believe that he lied to me. Another strange thing to say, don’t you think?! I should think so, but hell: whatever happens, happens. Doesn’t it?

“Yeah.”

Now, when I was hospitalized in Bodø in September 2007, one of the nurses told me that “my HIV infection did not appear on my journal” and that the hospital required another test. Having been through this ordeal two times before in the duration of the summer, I declined. After an hour, the nurse came back and told me that the infection was now confirmed. This was back in September 2007, and since then I have been forced to meet with some Swedish doctors working at what used to be called “the infection unit” but has been renamed to “the pain unit” of the local hospital here: doctors who do not hesitate to spend a quarter of an hour lying between their teeth simply in order to protect the integrity of a hospital system which of course is supposed be flawless, keep telling me that my t-cell count is looking great and that I do not need medication, and acting as if I have never been informed about my real condition, which is one of being framed in the most horrific way possible: doomed to live with the fact that there’s an official truth and an unofficial truth in circulation here, as concerns that diagnosis which makes the dream of a future love life appear more like a nightmare than anything else. And I wonder what it feels like, doing the dirty work of a system gone evil. — This is torture. This is grotesque. This macabre. And this is my life, for God’s sake. It sucks bad! And I think if I am the only person who feels that this shit is a bit too strange, then please! Take a moment and think about it. How would you feel about it, if it happened to you?

“Impossible. Hm. I mean: that would be unimaginable.”

Yes. And that’s the thing. There is nothing I can do to prove any of this. The system cares for the people inside the system, and I cannot believe that they are ever going to feel even the slightest bit bad about what the system is doing to me, chronically, methodically, and relentlessly so. But I’ve told my family all that has happened to me here, as concerns the way five different hospitals have treated my HIV diagnosis, and it sure sounds as if I am delusional. So I’ve lost my family to the truth. It was too much to handle, so they now know for certain that I’m permanently insane. I’m starting to think the same. I’m finding it extremely difficult to talk straight. Especially to doctors of medicine, psychiatrists, therapists, nurses, and social workers. I believe they are all in on the same conspiracy. I don’t trust them. And I hate them for of the fact that they’re doing all this to me.

“I see.”

You do? Then please! Tell me what you see.

“It’s impossible. Your story sure sounds like a transcript of a short story written by Franz Kafka. I appreciate that you’re telling the truth though. It’s just that none of this can ever happen in a civilized country like Norway.”

You go it.

“So your story falls on the reasonability criterion. What has happened to you — if at all true — defies all definitions of good reason. So I can easily understand that you’re in trouble, that’s all. But I don’t believe anyone can do anything about that, really. Your story is unreasonable to the point of disbelief.”

I know. And this is my problem. I am not even supposed to stand up for myself. The story is too impossible, so rather than making a big deal out of this, I am expected to swallow it up and just learn to live with it. Learn to live with an HIV diagnosis that is fake, but treated as official health policy on my part, no matter what I might think about it. If you knew what that feels like! My God, I wish they would come and shoot me instead.

“That I can understand.”

Well, here I am, hospitalized with severe psycho-social problems, and feeling like an idiot for the fact that I’m in need of the system’s help to deal with psychological, social, and spiritual problems that the system itself, in close co-operation with my country’s culture, which I have never understood anyway, has caused me to suffer. — So what am I supposed to do? Commit suicide or something?!!

“Maybe.”

What’s it?

“Maybe. Your story makes you a freak of nature, you see. If I might put it like that. Now, most human beings hate freaks of nature, and do so on account of basic instinct. I don’t know how to say this, to tell you the truth. As a matter of fact, maybe you should have died a couple of years ago, or more, and that you’re already a ghost?”

Or a zombie.

“That’s right. And there is not much anyone can do about that.”

They could try out a policy of being honest to me. Completely honest, I mean. And see what might happen then.

“You’re dreaming.”

I know that. But it’s this dream that makes me not go and lie myself down on the railway line, as will be my method of suicide, if that’s my destiny. Now, the not so funny part is: an old and long gone friend of mine, who lives in the same community as my mother does, told me straight out that I am going to kill myself. He may be in possession of prophetic abilities, who knows?

“You know.”

Yes, I know.

“So what do you know?”

I know that I’m like something out of the Prophecies of Ezechiel, that’s what I know. — And if it is my destiny to play that part, it only means that I’m going to have to tell my true story, if not for any other reason than to warn all the children of this world against taking a walk in my shoes, when their time comes. As that’s damned dangerous. Yes, deadly.

“I see.”

Now, there’s only one question that hugs me. In a country with less than 5 million people, whoever would believe that the Ministry of Health and Social Security would assist in making one man’s life a living hell? In a small country such as this, who would believe that five different hospitals spread across the country would join together in the easy and simple task of driving one man insane? As it is, I can only say that this is the case. As if the HIV diagnosis was not with me, I would certainly live in a loving relationship in Haugesund, together with Nunu, and my entire family would be standing behind me like they should. Now, this is where things are turning fishy, of course. There is no way for me to prove my point. The system has decided to go evil on me, and it only means that these evil doctors will continue to treat me as an HIV/AIDS patient, and that the crazy things they’ve said and otherwise communicated to me remain unofficial and invalid in the real world. This is torture. Psychological torture. But who cares?

“It’s quite complicated, though?”

Oh, it is! Between insanity and sanity there is a thin line. And no one would readily believe that any of this shit might happen, even in theory! So long as this is the case, and what’s actually happening to me simply keeps happening, no matter what I might think about it, I guess I’d better shut up about it, hide it inside myself and greet the world with a solemn smile on my face. And not stand up for myself. And not be the moaning machine that I have been portrayed as. And just accept it, like a fool. But I’m not a fool. I’m an internet idiot, and I have signed a pact with my inner self to always be as honest as I can possibly be. Nothing else seems to work, so. Well. Anyway. The truth is out there.

“It is.”

- — – — – — – — – — – —

If you want to know what it is like to be working under a system that has gone evil on the world, you should definitely read up on Steve Milgram’s psychological experiment, linked below.

– http://home.swbell.net/revscat/perilsOfObedience.html

- — – — – — – — – — – —

This little piece of prose concerning my daily life as a psychiatric patient in Bodø, has been e-mailed to the Government’s Service Center and the Department of Health and Social Security, using these e-mail addresses: redaksjonen@dss.dep.no and postmottak@hod.dep.no

Life as we know it: an American Lifestyle protection and proliferation campaign

Oh yeah! That’s exactly what’s up here, and happening everywhere. This spiritual and practical activity on the part of modern, westernized humanity has nothing what-so-ever to do with the said importance of natural environments protection. To the contrary, this activity — which, I repeat, has to do with a little more than just physical behaviour — works as the guarantee for faster and faster destruction of the life support systems of the planet. Some people may even think that’s good, as now that we are starting to despair here, and contemplating decades and centuries of climate change awareness, we would equally be better off should we all agree to hurry up and get this whole thing over and done with at a more precipitous speed: the general idea being that the human family has a choice here. Thinking ahead, we can either decide to protect the ecosystems of this planet, and end up having to endure several hundred years (a small eternity) of Weltschmerz due to the shared awareness of manmade climate change and other anthropogenically driven forms of biosphere destruction, or, on the other hand, we can choose to forget about it, and simply pursue the best life possible — which would be (as the majority of humans would have it) the American Way of Life, complete with two family cars, a swimming pool and darn costly hobby activities for the children. ‘Cause as it is: don’t we all essentially want what’s best for our children? –

Of course: no politician in his or her right mind would ever dare to make statements such as these, right out, in front of a TV camera and a long row of microphones. Every politician in his or her right mind will certainly be willing to do almost everything that is within his or her powers to address the situation of global warming and climate change. It’s only that the powers of politicians only reach so far, and it is also that these are not things that any sane person would consider doing all at once and not thinking through these things in advance, and that we are still waiting for a lot of future technologies to become available on the market, and, er … yes: the answer is: of course we will do all that we possibly can to reduce carbon dioxide emissions; just not right now. A substantial reduction of all climate gas emissions right now, like, almost overnight, right, would certainly be an overly enthusiastic and rash decision. You know. –

Now, judging from what happened in Bali in December 2007, it is too easy for me to predict the way of thinking of the powers that be, when, in Helsinki, Finland, in April 2008, their diplomats and political cronies are going to restart the negotiations of a new and stricter climate regime, to be implemented after the Kyoto Protocol’s commitment period draws to a close in 2012. As a matter of standard capitalist world civilization philosophy, a simple, straightforward, and well-meaning term like overconsumption is certainly not going to be heard uttered; not in front of TV cameras and microphone rows, for sure. And the same goes for the meetings scheduled to take place in Copenhagen in 2009: none of those words and terms which are forbidden according to the structural laws of globalized capitalism, will be heard. Well, not so long as the growth cult can continue to call all of the shots here. I think that will last a while. As far as I’m concerned it can equally last forever. And I say that, knowing that there can hardly be no stopping the growth machine so long as it is protected by all the political institutions of this planet, all the armies of the planet, all the banks, ensurance companies, stock exchanges, and other financial institutions, all the loyal servants of the mass medias, and all the likewise loyal servants of the workers unions of this planet: all of whom are there to protect the status quo and actually make sure that nothing bad ever happens to any of the big industrial companies and corporations of this world, on which whole societies, whole countries, and whole populations of loyal and hard working individual human beings depend.

It’s all one helluva a Catch 22 situation, for short: “a situation in which multiple probabilistic events exist, and the desireable outcome is an AND join of these events, however there is zero probability of this occurrence.” I’m thinking this is also going to be the sad case of a Murphy’s Law situation. — “If there’s more than one possible outcome of a job or task, and one of those outcomes will result in disaster or an undesirable consequence, then somebody will do it that way.” The simple fact is: even if the politicians wants to do good for a change, there’s no way they can do that if the population in general doesn’t lift a finger to allow anything out of the ordinary to happen. So we allow ourselves to feign ignorance of problems with the atmosphere that we are all well aware of, and of problems concerned with chaotic weather patterns and climate systems that seem to be going crazy; a development that is already felt.

I hear that quite a few people take an interest in what might happen to life as we know it. But what is life as we know it? Isn’t it the everlasting pursuit of happiness, a husband or a wife, three children and a few good friends, plus a good and well paid job, a comfortable house with a garden, a good car in the garage, life, health and property ensurances in order, and the perfect pensions scheme awaiting for idle years to come. And a holiday in the tropics of course. Well, once in a while. If and when you can afford to go. It’s good to have something to dream of.

Does life as we know it have anything much to do with ecosystems protection? Not much. Some of us recycle bits and pieces of thrash, and that’s it really. If at all you own a car, you probably use it more often than you need to. And if, for some reason, you need to travel farther than 500 kilometers and don’t want to go by car, you’ll probably prefer an airline ticket rather than making the trip by train. When you get to your destination you will be going to sleep inside a house or a flat that is fixed up with a refrigerator, airconditioning systems, and burglary proof windows. And all this is if you are a middle class citizen of Dangeria. For the Dangerian working lower class the situation is a bit different, of course. But who’s telling whom to be worried about what, eh? Illiterate people only have themselves to blame, really. Isn’t it?

These days, every people and every nation state of the whole wide world wants to be a little bit more like the United States of America. And all the people of this world are quite ready for such a development, to say the least. Now, the ruling upper classes of all the kingdoms and republics of this world are promising their people to make good progress in the duration of the next few years in order to facilitate for gross Americanization of their societies. There is going to be food for all, of course, but also electricity for all, and also safe water supply, new sewers, new roads, and new airports, and international broadcasting systems available to the people in the countryside. New schools, for God’s sake! And new shopping malls which are going to take over for the outdoor market places. And, of course, new hospitals. New hospitals everywhere. – A guaranteed vote winner, for sure. — And if anybody’s worried about the who’s and how’s all developments payments, they should just shut their mouths up and mind their own business, as the entrepreneurs are indeed talking seriously big business here, alright?! So don’t ask questions. Enjoy.

And all the while the population keeps growing. More and more people are searching to buy scarcer and scarcer plots of land. The land price is sky-rocketing, and the scarcity of fresh water is not somewhere in the horizon. It’s simply to be discovered as you find that you need to buy water from a tank and store it in the backyard. And the city air is filled with smoke. With smog. With all sorts of particles, toxic or not, but smelling. And the open sewers systems crisscrossing all around the slums. Have you seen the canals and do you know the stench?! The kingsize rats and the mosquitos and the flies, big like fowls!! You’ll need to take a bath at least two times every day. And as the population keeps exploding, so does the pollution of the air and the rivers; not only in the towns and the cities, but in the countrysides as well. The “population” of cars and airline companies also grows. The need for modern highways appear where once (not a long time ago) a dirt track covered the distance the old road is now made to pass. A new road is urgently needed. Useless politicians has made that same promise for years already! And hospitals. New hospitals are needed. The children are suffering from malaria, typhoid fever, sleeping sickness, and what have you? New schools are certainly in demand. The old schools are now crammed with pupils! And in the villages, the erosion of the soil has for a very long time created havoc! There’s crisis all around. Nobody knows what to do about it. And the politicians are all cruel military people and corrupt bastards (just don’t talk all that loudly about it, remember the night has ears), so what on Earth do you expect? Progress? Well, yeah. But slow. Very slow. Too slow. It’s not fair. Just look at this country (hush! hush!): rich with oil and all sorts of minerals, but stinking poor no matter what. This country should have been like America, I’m telling you. — If only our politicians would hear!

How about a boomerang future marked by ecosystems destruction acceptance?

Would it be possible that our common future might come to be one of ecosystems destruction acceptance? I mean: a future in which every adult has finally come to acknowledge the fact that runaway global warming and manmade climate change are developments that are real, but that the social and lifestyle changes that humanity would have to undertake in order to avert catastrophy and minimize the effects of global warming (along with a whole lot of other most problematic environmental and ecological themes) make it impossible to believe in a change for the better, so we stop thinking about it while we just continue doing the detrimental things we’ve grown used to doing over the past 150 years or more, and try not to think about all possible end results of such behaviour?

The possibility of such a social development can’t be ruled out. — I’m thinking about a future in which everybody’s going to know about the fact of ecosystems destruction, and be damned to talk about how much time it is going to take us to finally do away with all life support systems of this planet? Some centuries or some decades, eh? Depending on where you live or whatever? There can be no stopping this, baby, so go crazy. — I say this in recognition of the undisputable fact that absolutely nothing is happening in the area of emissions reductions anywhere, no matter what all sorts of politicians are saying. They are putting it off. We’ll start doing dsomething about these damn emissions some twenty years from now, maybe? As right now we do not yet have technological means to do it in such a way that it is not going to be felt, and that’s importnat. And doing something about these emissions, hell: it’s an undertaking far too costly to even imagine. Makes me wonder: just too costly, eh? The obvious fact that nothing could ever be more costly than putting the future of all the life support systems of this planet in jeopardy, does not mean that the growth cult will ever decide to hinder or stop it. Doing so would be far too costly in the short term, and it is the nature of growth cult members to be living like there ain’t no tomorrow beyond the next quarterly report on last year’s gains and losses.

Knowing that the ruling political classes of our societies are all kept in place and supported by the same growth cult which is in complete control of all the financial markets of this world, and have their powers backed up by the complete control of armies as well as legislators, I can see no reason to hope that the exponential revenue growth insistence of the mighty few (which is the demand that all ordinary workers of this world are well aware of and in agreement with) will take a hike any time soon enough to avert catastrophic levels of ecosystems destruction. The next couple of years are likely to provide the answers to many questions. It is my fear that all that I’ve been dreaming of over the past few years will come to nothing, because humanity — as a functional whole — proves to be absolutely growth crazy, to the extent of being quite ready to embark on the last lap of this planet’s human habitability, but poised to destroy all ecosystems, knowingly and willingly, and slowly but certainly, and with no regard of science. Why, because this would be the true and rather devilish make-up of the contemporary world culture, and the first basic truth concerning modern human existence: the fact that we thrive on destroying the biosphere on which we do not recognize that human life depends, since that would be a truth way too inconvenent to swallow.

So they’re going to say that global warming is only good for us. When the polar icecap of the Arctic Ocean melts away, it only means that new areas are opened up for further oil and gas explorations and new economic adventures will soon be in the making. Tomorrow will never be of much interest as we shall all have to live to seize the day. Whether we like it or not, that is. As there is nothing anyone can do with the fact that humankind is an exponentially growing species of paracitic apes who can no longer remember what it once meant to depend on nature in order to survive. Modern humanity is in need of food, that’s all, and will try to at least prove me right in one aspect: namely the fact that I actually believe that human beings are quite capable of adapting to a warming planet and a future marked by extreme weather events and widespread climate chaos. — If not forever then at least for long enough to please the oldest (and traditionally most powerful) members of the human race.  What our children will think about it, well, that’s of no interest to our democratic political class who can never dream of thinking any longer ahead than the next four or five years. As for the interest of our children: who gives a damn? Not the 70-year-old CEOs of the multinational corporations of this world: influential interest groups paying their way through the political systems of this planet as a matter of long standing habit and daily routine.

I mean: if it is going to be our common goal to at least make it through the next hundred years without any change of attitudes towards our current disconnectedness with nature, my guess is that the species will succeed. Sure enough: there will be a lot of sorrow, tears and blood, but hell, looking at the history of mankind there is nothing new in that, so. — It’s business-as-usual anyway, and that’s what most of us seem to want, no matter what might be the price.

Now, on another note, I’m worried about the mental health of the millions of people who are in the habit of thinking about the probable end result of the human overgrowth activites of our times. I know they’re out there. Not to worry. A lot of people do in fact believe like I do, that “the human family” ought to change its ways. Not just a little, but a lot. But okay: as I can readily understand that the best thing for us to do would be to make a clean break with the industrial society and start to live a little too much like red indians, heh! I can see why we are most probably going to get our minds fixed on that boomerang which is returning from its roundtrip only to hit us in the scull. And here we stand waiting, ready to head the wretched thing as if it was a football. –

The answer is blowing in the wind

Listening to people, huh!? Previously today I overheard a very short conversation between two Norwegian women. It died off as abruptly as it started.

- –

The first woman said: “Take a look, the weather is too strange, it is February, and it’s almost like spring outside.”

The second woman responded gladly: “Yes. Isn’t that just lovely?”

The first woman said: “Nah, I don’t know about that.”

The second woman brought the weather conversation to an end by repeating herself in this matter-of-factual manner known to people who think they’ve said enough about whatever it was they were just heard saying: “It’s just lovely.” –

The first woman didn’t talk no more about the weather.

Albert Bandura: Dissecting group psychological and socio-moral mechanisms

Yesterday, I spent the entire evening reading a long article by Dr. Albert Bandura, in which he “argues that we can disguise environmentally harmful practices and dress them up in words to help ease our consciences, but such practices will have a negative impact on the planet and the quality of life of future generations, no matter how we label them,” and that “we must stop attempting to disguise our actions and switch on our environmental conscience to save the world.”

I shall advise everyone who reads this blog post to do the same thing: spend an entire evening reading this article, and do so for no other reason than try to get a hang on what it really is that is keeping us here. We have the IPCC science on global warming and manmade climate change, but still we allow ourselves to not worry too much about the rising CO2 and methane levels in the atmosphere, but keep at it, polluting the air relentlessly. What is more, we have all the knowledge which is needed in order to realize that the planet is in dire need of rainforests, yet we continue to allow forestry, mining, and agricultural companies to join forces in cutting down and destroying the rainforests of this world. We have all the knowledge which is needed in order to understand that the world’s fish resources are being depleted at record pace, but allow the owners of whole fleets of trawlers to keep at it. These are just a couple of problems that all sincere adults ought to the very least to have heard about by now. I’m tired of writing long lists of ecological problems. In my honest opinion, and as I am quietly and solemnly coming to see it, everyone is free to do the googling.

Dr. Bandura’s article is a psychologist’s attempt to describe and explain the psychology, the group dynamics, the social and moral impediments that are constantly at work here, and making it what looks like absolutely impossible for humanity to respond wisely to the mass of scientific evidence of ecological degradation and planetary climate stress that we are all facing here, no matter who or what we are, and irrespective of whether we like it or not, and irrespective of whether or not it is our belief that we have anything to do with it. As a matter of fact, I think the reason why people can still allow themselves to wash the stains of personal guilt off their hands is a matter for future scientific ethics discussions to try to deal with. As it is, right now, intellectual dishonesty among a large part of the scientific community is making it possible for ordinary everyday people to make the claim that “some scientists are saying the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has got it wrong,” and then go ahead and feel good about themselves while they just get on with lives in good rhythm, not making any changes to their highly polluting lifestyles. ‘Cause what’s the use? — “Al Gore and the IPCC has got it all wrong anyway. And by the way, I know there was a short ice age some six hundred years ago, this is all a matter of natural cycles, that’s what I’m saying. And if you say otherwise, please feel free to get stuffed! Get out of my way, you’re not welcome.” — //blush//

It is my working hypothesis that people in general are way too afraid of the probable end result of global warming and manmade climate change to even contemplate the idea of actually trying to do something about it. It is my most basic argument that many people are extremely worried that the world ought to be saved. I can read it on my personal computer screen, and I can hear them whispering between themselves: “Is the world about to come to an end?” And in loudness: “Well, if so, there is nothing any human being can do about it, so grab a beer, mate, you deserve it.”

Echoing in your mind is perhaps a general realization that the actual fact of saving the world for future generations to enjoy living in, is going to take the co-operation of more than six-and-a-half billion people, and that the likelihood of such a thing ever to take place in this world is rather slim. So go ahead. Fuck the world, I don’t care. And don’t even think you can try and save it, ’cause noone else will. You’ll only end up feeling sorry that you ever sat down, read up on James Lovelock, and took to think to yourself: “We’re screwed.”

- — – –

P.S.: I know I am going to return to Dr. Bandura’s article shortly, just because I have a thing or two to say about the population connection, too. — A problem which is not played down even the slightest in the linked article; to the contrary it is being played up as the world crisis the on-going population explosion really is. As a matter of fact, there is no measure of intellectual dishonesty to find in the article. Again: to the contrary, large parts of the article is informed by the professor’s wish to arrest a situation in which too much intellectual dishonesty among scientists and political groups is becoming a problem as concerns making way for the social undertaking of climate change mitigative activites, for example. So well done, Bandura. Well done.

Better get a lawyer

Yay, yay, yay: a rational response to the problems concerned with the groaning spirit of a human and a not-so-human nature would certainly have to entail a large scale reduction of consumption (the logical side effects of which would have to be a decrease in both factory production and transport of goods, spare parts, and other material and natural resources, and that would come as good news to the planetary natural systems which are, as of today, pressured to the limits of what it can possibly take, and it is all due to human overgrowth activities), the introduction of education programs aimed at reaching a general understanding of the population connection (ie. the population explosion), the saving and protection of forests (especially the remaining rainforests of Africa, South America, and South-East Asia), the clean-up of extremely polluted city harbours, bays and fjords, cleaning up rivers that have gone green, purple and gray with toxic waste, implementing new international laws to stop overfishing, banning shark fisheries (simply for moral reasons: why on Earth are these shark fishermen only after the fins, cutting them off inside the boat and dumping the rest of these oceans’ beasts’ bodies straight back into the sea?! don’t they have any ethical qualms about that?! well, shame on them, and it had better be my lawyer’s personal opinion as well, as if it isn’t I will break his nose, just like that), moving away from industrial agriculture and towards ecologically sound methods of food production, and issuing all human beings with a light blue UN passport and grant us all complete and uninfringed freedom of movement, if not exclusively for that reason (we’re all human beings, first and foremost, and these days, with internet communication being the order of the day, it should be absolutely possible for anyone from anywhere to take on a global or planetary sense of identity, and especially so now that the whole wide world is reeling with the common-to-all problems of global warming and climate change), but also in preparation for an expected tsunami of climate refugees on rather a short notice, first of all from Africa, and later again from Asian countries like Sri lanka, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, The Philippines, and what have you? The island states of the Pacific Ocean? As a matter of fact, I would not be seen crying over the demise of the nation state system, and the fall of all national borders! And how about issuing each and everyone of us with a personal climate certificate which could, in the next phase, turn into a brand new monetary system which would, in effect, make way for a wholesale reduction of all forms of inequality measures? And so on and so forth. There are so many things that could be done, which would make life easier in these otherwise troubled climate times; if only we achieved the political will to do it. So much more than recycling, reusing, reducing, and changing lightbulbs, I mean. Oh dear: there seems to be such a lot of possible (yet still, because of the powers that be, impossible) rational responses here, available to us. Goal oriented responses that would be perfectly rational, reasonable, and – from a strictly humanistic viewpoint — very sound indeed. So why?! C’mon! Tell me why??!

City life, of course. I mean: just to mention one case in point. ‘Cause here we are, more than 50 percent of the world’s population will soon be living in towns, cities and metropolises, all thoroughly detatched from Mother Nature (I like this kind of spiritual notion of a Mother, which is the Earth, and a Man on the Moon, which must be Buzz Aldrin, whose steps were not the short ones of a simple man but the silly jumping about the place, right in front of Neil Armstrong’s camera lens), many of whom are fantasizing freely of a future of eternal youth, to be bought in the health clinic and worked out in the gym, as they are very interested in green issues like organic foodstuffs and perfectly fair trade 500 gram bags of coffee. Ordinary people like you and me, seriously troubled by the urban smog but still hating smokers like they were all spawns of the devil, and all of them being careful not to look the people they meet in their faces, because that might be dangerous: the perfect stranger could easily be a thug in disguise or a pickpocket, even a murderer or a rapist; you can never be too careful. Some people are terribly mean, like real beasts, but you won’t know that until all of a sudden you do, and that would be the point at which you have turned into a victim. Which would also be a moment too late.

It’s a jungle out there.

“Livin’ in the back of my mind, there’s a wild idea. I just took a look around at all the shit in here. My mind is clutted like someone’s attic. Before I burn this house down, I better fix it up quick. I think I need a brain wash. It needs a clean. My mind must be filthy after what it has seen. I need to throw my thoughts out. Out into the rain. I need to purify my wooden legged brain. I need a wash. I need to clean my mind. Sometimes I get lost in here and I don’t like what I find. I think I need a brain wash. I need a brain wash. Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain.” — The Cruel Sea: “Brain Wash”

– – — – — -

Now, travelling to the countryside, what are people doing there? They are all cars, tractors and all sorts of agricultural machineries, I know that much. They are a 100 percent in need of a car, because there is seldom any such thing as a functional public transport system around out there, in the wilderness. And they are equally electricity crazy as the people who live in big cities. As a matter of fact some sociology report I heard about established as a simple fact that the homes of people in the countryside consume much more electricity than homes in towns and cities do. And another thing: how many relatively small communities do you have any knowledge of, that are almost totally dependent on the local garbage factory, in terms of jobs to the menfolk? Quite a few, I can imagine. Not only because it is imaginable but because it very often is the case. Oh dear. Am I in need of a lawyer now? As I am just about ready to take millions of jobs away from people who need these jobs, simply in order to put food on the table, and on the floor as well: animal feed for the dogs, the cats, the hamsters, the rats they are keeping because of the father’s hobbies of hunt’n, shootin’ and fishin’, and of course, also, for the amusement of three pretty children. While the mother’s main interest is going to the local mall shopping. Oh yes. To the local mall. Because with the building and construction boom in place all over the disaster area, even little villages get to have big shopping malls stashed away down there, up front or somewhere in the background. Consumers, you see: that’s what we are. And if we want to travel to some other place on on vacation sometimes, we no longer feel that the neighbouring country is anywhere near far enough away. Nope! We buy cheap air flights to the Maldives, the Bahamas, Thailand, or Brazil, places like that. Yes. That’s what we do, and we do so because we are modern and fairly well kept in terms of salaries and pension funds, not to worry. The economy is booming and you’ve got to celebrate the good times when they are here, because none of us can know what the future might bring. Well, anyway: not for certain. But hey. Let’s not think about the future. All of a sudden, you see, a range of rather depressing thoughts spring to mind, and you don’t want that. –

Oh dear! Am I in need of a lawyer?! —

“I wasn’t doing nothin’ — anyway, just what is it that I’m supposed to have done?

With blood shot eyes and bleedin’ hands, I put my new suit in the cleaners again. Took the first buss, I didn’t look back. Lungs long blowin’ like a smoke stack. Hair fallin’ out as the wind blows through it, my horse ran second just like I knew it would. Overflowin’ ashtray. Yay.

And the Officer said: Better get a lawyer, son. Better get a real good one. Get yourself a suit and tie. Get your hair cut way up high. Get yourself a lawyer, son. Better get a real good one.

I got legs I can walk. All the way down the dirt track. I fell down. I got up. I turned around then I walked back. I walked to the sea. I stood there, looked for a sign. It took time. But it came. I added up and took what was mine.

Better get a lawyer. Better get a real good one. Don’t drop the soap. Don’t smoke no dope. Get yourself a lawyer, son. Your gonna need a good one to getcha outa this one.”

– – — – — -

Okay, so I’ve got my lawyer here. His name is Darras, and he sits in the left half of my brain, which is the head centre of creativity. This is the extraterrestrial being which entered my mind and spiritual systems some time during the year 2004, at about the same time as I was extremely busy writing big chunks of prose which no publishing house would be associated with, and then another chunk of philosophical and political essays which none of the existing political elites found particularly attractive, — to my own astonishment I found myself pondering the idea of making myself known to The Club of Rome as the God of Prose. But I didn’t do that. I didn’t. Darras was extremely disappointed with me about that, but I was thinking to myself: “for goodness sake! this would surely be a bit too poetic, now wouldn’t it? people like Mikhail Gorbachew, Prince El Hassan Bin Talal, Richard von Weizsäcker, Emeka Anyaoku, and Ruud Lubbers are members of that Club, so I’d better be good and introduce myself as an ordinary human being, although I ain’t, but then: who’s more worried about that? me or them?” (as you can see, I was mad as a vroon at the time, but I was actually thinking straight enough, I believe, when I thought that Insane Insight might be the solution to all our problems?) — So I introduced myself as an unemployed social anthropologist and a seriously irritated author of novels and plays, that’s what I did. But I think I can still stand by most of the things I said in that wretchered essay which was written in response to that ugly question! — Up to and including my idea of a global vacation on the part of mankind, simply as a major security measure, as humanity would take a time-out, dance just a little but remain sober enough to come up with a rational and reasonable decision as to what we are going to do to this planet, if anything in particular? It sure seems to me — and my good friend and bad lawyer Darras agrees, wholeheartedly — that humanity as a whole has already reached the conclusion that the time finally has come to party like there’s no tomorrow; starting yesterday.

The main reason why I wanted to call myself the God of Prose, had to do with the sheer magnitude of the question posed by the Club of Rome: a question that I quickly decided to process and respond to, one way or another. And as I saw myself (and still see myself) as not only an unemployed social scientist and sustainability philosopher, but indeed also as an author of SAMTIDSLITTERATUR; ie. “literary fiction descriptive of our own times and days.” I mean: having given up on the idea of finding work as a social scientist, I had made the decision to invest a couple of years doing everything that was in my power to become an author of novels and plays. As I most of all was interested in the current times and also, of course, in the immediate future as seen from where we stand today — a future that sure is looking bleak (a topic which I had written a couple of angry political-philosophical essays on, and published on the Le Monde Diplomatique’s Norwegian website (they were quickly erased from the internet, however: illustrative of the gravity of the situation, I might even suggest — I found that the question posed by the Club of Rome had arrived like an answer to my literary plight. I mean: “Limits to Ignorance: The Challenge of Informed Humanity.” Which kind of a fucked-up situation is that?! No wonder I needed to think of myself as the God of Prose, as I started working on my long essay informed by this riddle: “The course of humanity has not changed, even though an increasing number of people have all the informational resources needed for responding to the situation. The crucial question for the future of humanity is whether we learn to understand the challenge of sustainable development implicit in this issue in time. What are the thingsis needed for changing ignorance and the lack of vision into global responsibility and awareness?” And also this other riddle: “The Club of Rome will focus on this the contradictory development: On the one hand we recognise an increasing flow of information that may potentially provide us with more knowledge about the world around us. On the other hand we also identify a growing information overload causing confusion and disorientation and an increasing tendency on misuse of information and information channels, obscuring the premises of the public and private decision-making and increasing to public ignorance.”

It’s like: “Tell me what the fuck is wrong with us?” And the answer would be: “Everything is. As a matter of fact, what we’re dealing with here is a whole species gone collectively insane. So call me what you will: call me the God of Prose if you wish to; I’ve got dirty feet, I don’t give a damn.”

Darras tend to be very, very clear about his points of view, and as the most sensitive person around, he feels there is every reason for humanity to start recognizing the fact that the human race, as an undivided whole, could be a paracitic species of crazy, lunatic mammals which, from the top of the foodchain, is just about ready to embark on the saddest undertaking known to all experienced research loons of an extraterrestrial background: the destruction, demonization, and ultimate desolation phase. Time is of the essence here, time is relative, and in the mind of extraterrestrial research loons and human physicists there really is no saying whether a hundred years or even a thousand years is a long period of time or a short one. As I said: nothing at all is more relative than time. But okay: Darras, who sometimes protests that he is not my lawyer at all, but to the contrary, my prosecutor: the strange little man with gypsy eyes, who is constantly worked up about the possible swift and final demolishion of all of the life support systems of this planet: all at the hands of one species: a species that had better start relearning a thing or two or three about how creatures of nature ought to be treating the very nature they are positively depending on in order to sustain a life of normalcy. He keeps nagging me with this foreign theory that unless we started to listen more often to the ghosts of Sitting Bull, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Albert Einstein, among many others, who all seemed to believe that we shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive. Or like Dalai Lama — who, by the way, is not yet a ghost — is reported to have said: “I believe that to meet the challenges of our times, human beings will have to develop a greater sense of universal responsibility. Each of us must learn to work not just for oneself, one’s own family or nation, but for the benefit of all humankind. Universal responsibility is the key to human survival. It is the best foundation for world peace.”

But how can we achieve World Peace? Can it only be achieved by the murderous political program of New World Order thinkers? Or would that most probably be a peace at gunpoint? And is that the best peace we can found? Darras seems to think that this is the case. I hate him for that, but see no good reason for firing the man. Not that he seems to be fireable. As a person of an extraterrestrial footing and a little voice in his own right, he just sits there, stuck inside of the left half of my brain, and calling great many of the shots here. I’m just this helpless man whose fingers are dancing the tango on top of the keyboard here. Raving mad, I might add. And a person who is all hopes but no energy to put into any attempt at making a goal oriented effort. And I am quite aware of the fact that my sorry excuse for a lawyer really isn’t good enough. He is all so Bob, Bob in a sense. I don’t think he cares too much about whatever would be best for me. I mean: to him, I am nothing more than one simple human being, just this tiny one in a congregation of more than six-and-a-half billion. And here I am, blowing all the fuses. Smart ass!

Stay away, don’t you invade my home

“Who can it be knocking at my door? Go ‘way, don’t come ’round here no more. Can’t you see that it’s late at night? I’m very tired, and I’m not feeling right. All I wish is to be alone; Stay away, don’t you invade my home. Best off if you hang outside. Don’t come in — I’ll only run and hide. Who can it be now? Who can it be now? Who can it be now? Who can it be now?” — Men At Work

- –

Whoah! Something odd is happening here. I just allowed myself to freefall into the abyss here. The question is: what was I thinking? I was thinking about the maximum fear factor: the psychological pit in which only bad things can happen; I was thinking about some issues of the human spirit, and I was thinking “fuck this! I’ve got to say some things about the Revelations of John, the economic, the ecological, and the spiritual twists and turns around here.”

It just doesn’t get any worse. I hate to say it, but the spiritual and religious dimensions inherent in the general topic of human driven environmental destruction, are secrets that are best not kept. My reason for saying so is as simple as it is obvious: religious, spiritual and strictly human tendencies to allow problems of the environment to become major metaphysical issues, can only work as an obstacle around here, on the third planet of the solar system, as counted outward from the starting point of the sun. I am stressing the importance of being reasonable here, even as the situation is about to be discovered as “a problem of biblical proportions.” –

I know, very well, that this may come as a tall order, but I don’t believe there is any way around it. We need to check the interior of the human and the natural spirit, and do so with a sense of purpose, simply in order to eradicate some serious obstacles which are standing between where we are right now, and the place in which so many of us dream that we will be standing when the window of opportunity is closed, which would be, I guess, on a much higher ground: I’m thinking about a ground on which the plight of the ecosystems take preference over the might of the economic systems, as is the situation today.

Let me return to the discussion that all of a sudden arose on “Growth is Madness!” — Here are the things I said, as concerns “the biblical proportions” mentioned above:

– 1

This is just a little embarrassing, of course. But I feel — and I know that many other environment bloggers must feel like I do — like something out of the Book of Ezechiel of the Old Testament of the Bible. As we are relentlessly preaching words of Earthly Wisdom — long sermons of impending disaster that should be possible to avert, but only in-as-much as the world population would decide to take steps in the right direction, move on after more than a century of industrialization and seek to reconnect to the demands of the ecosystems, after decades and centuries of artificial cultural and social disconnectedness from the vital life support systems of the planet. — And yet noone, or so it seems, are ready to take us seriously.

“And they to whom I send thee are children of a hard face, and of an obstinate heart: and thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: If so be they at least will hear, and if so be they will forbear, for they are a provoking house: and they shall know that there hath been a prophet in the midst of them.” (Book of Ezechiel: Chapter 2, verses 4 – 5)

Now, what scares me the most these days, is my strong feeling that even the most steadfast of all environmentalists among us are starting to show signs of no longer believing that a change for the better can be achieved. I have this strong feeling that we are simply losing it, and that the winning philosophy is that of money consciousness. It is a shame, of course. But we might even reach the conclusion that strict money consciousness and brutal growth madness is indeed modern human nature; nothing more and nothing less. And that, as a matter of fact, it is making it impossible to get the message and the philosophy of wholesale change across to the general public.

– 2

Hm. Let’s not mince words here. I have read the strangest things in Norwegian newspapers over the past couple of years. I’ve discovered that some of our distinguished journalists have grown very keen on writing in numbers. Now, I don’t know about foreign newspapers, but the rather big and influential Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet spent the last few months of 2007 doing one Hell (!) of a job of preparing people for some kind of an end which ought to be called a beginning (you are all all aware of this epithet, I guess?), and that the number 18 had a lot to do with this. Now, the Book of Revelations’ Chapter 18 is all about the break down of economic systems. I know that most people tend to think in terms like these, and so do I. I remember too well how I, in my atheist youth used to sit together with friends and read that last book of the Bible, most of the time ridiculing the whole thing, but always being brought to some kind of capitalist world culture breaking point where the Revelations reaches it’s poetic peak:

“The merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise any more; merchandise of gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, fine linen, purple, silk, scarlet, all expensive wood, every vessel of ivory, every vessel made of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble; and cinnamon, incense, perfume, frankincense, wine, olive oil, fine flour, wheat, sheep, horses, chariots, bodies, and people’s souls.

The fruits which your soul lusted after have been lost to you, and all things that were dainty and sumptuous have perished from you, and you will find them no more at all. The merchants of these things, who were made rich by her, will stand far away for the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning; saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, she who was dressed in fine linen, purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls!

For in an hour such great riches are made desolate.’ Every shipmaster, and everyone who sails anywhere, and mariners, and as many as gain their living by sea, stood far away, and cried out as they looked at the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What is like the great city?’”

(Revelations, Chapter 18, verses 11 – 18)

- —

Now, I will put it to you in a manner as straight-minded as I can possibly make it. I say those of us who are old enough to take an interest in the history of world philosophy, must surely have read the Revelations of John. And those of us who are head over heals into the destruction and possible restructuring of the world today, as it lies ravaged and raped before us, must surely be familiar with the apocalyptic scriptures of the Bible, and also other religions, traditions, and culturally based cosmologies from around the globe. Anyone who says that (s)he has not even lent the idea a thought does so, I believe and shall suggest, because of personal and communal fear of repercussions.

I put it to you now, that the idea of slowing down on general consumption is a very good one, even if it is noted in the Revelations of John and, for no other reason than just that, can be understood as an endtime sign, and therefore something that people should disregard. As a matter of fact (oh, how I wish there were other ways of putting this straight), the simple fact that a solid reduction of general consumption is highlighted by John the Baptist (?) in the last book of the Bible, does not make it unwise! To the contrary: I will put to you that “the poison”, which is the Revelations of the Bible, can actually and equally come to be “the remedy” for all of our problems. And I will tell you that I do not give a toss about the woes of the political and financial elites, as this miniscule strata of the world population starts to really feel heat here, as more and more people from all over the planet gradually start to question and correct the consumerist societies of our time. And I truly believe that such a move would be a good option here, as we are going to have to start cleaning up the mess of generations, and embark on lifestyles that are conducive to a planet (Mother Nature; the ecosystems; the life-support systems of this world) faced with rather urgent atmospheric and material stress symptoms.

Ahem. Well, anyway. —

– 3

I’m a social anthropologist by education, and I have always been keen on understanding the differences and similarities of all the cultural and social fields of this world; be it subcultures and minstream cultures, and be it different ethnic groups from around the world. But then, I must also say that I’m a sustainability philosopher of some sort, and as such, well, what can I say? — I say we’re human beings first and foremost, and that as such — human beings — we are mammals, creatures of nature, belonging to nature, as part and parcel of it. Just like lamas, tigers, elephants and gorillas are creatures of nature belonging to it and depending on it. But when it comes to man (humanity, the human race) it is actually makes much more sense to describe our said belonging to nature in the way of pointing at domesticized animals like cows, sheep, pigs, dogs, and horses: animal species that would not have been around in such a big number if it wasn’t for humanity and human agricultural practices.

It would be wrong to assert that human beings are nothing more than mere apes. We are social creatures too. And creatures of culture and also of spirit. This is the reason why taboos exist.

Now, I mentioned the Revelations and also the Book of Ezechiel, but I am not going to forget about all those other cultures and cosmologies that are around, and be so good to mention that “the end theme” is evident in almost all human cosmologies, including animist or naturalist religions / cosmologies.

Let me also point out that in times like these, when all that is human nature and all that is the nature of nature itself, so to speak, is brought to the table as relevant to the discussion of what we are going through, all of us, whether we like to admit it or not, and whether we are foreseeing a future for humanity in outer space (like Stephen Hawking so often has said) or we are doing the opposite and thereby find ourselves invariably landed in the Lovelock / Gaia tradition. — Well, in times like these, the human (animal) spirit will quite naturally be exposed in people all over the place. It’s a stress function. And yes: it can even be a sign both of warning and of real danger.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6595521.stm

- “I think the human race doesn’t have a future if it doesn’t go into space,” [Stephen Hawking] told the BBC News website.

And I believe Stephen Hawking should have a good time reading NASA medical reports on the unpromising way the human body responds to long periods of wieghtlessness. The simple fact is: it doesn’t.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast02nov_1.htm

“Unfortunately, without the pull of gravity it is very difficult, if not impossible, to duplicate loads routinely experienced by our muscles and bones on Earth. The regimen of exercise that astronauts perform in space has shown some promise as a countermeasure, but not enough to protect long-voyaging astronauts from injury or bone fracture when they are re-exposed to gravity — either here on Earth or on some other planet.”

– 4

Thinking things through here. I think it might be fair to say that, under certain circumstances, all sorts of supersticions are quite natural facets of human life, both on cultural, social, and indeed individual levels. And hey: I know, far too well, how scary these things are. Again: I suggest that what we’re actually dealing with here, in terms of sustainability philosophy (or what I might call it), is FEAR. And sure enough: when things are reaching “biblical proportions” we have surely reached the maximum fear factor. Now, I have mentioned this before: not only are we cursed with religion; we are also cursed with old prophesies. Like the 2012 frenzy, and the end of the Maya calendar, for example. There is also a lot of whispering going on about the Illuminati, the New World Order, et. al. My greatest fear is that all this spirituality is going to be the perfect obstacles lying between the realization that “we got to do something about humanity’s relation to the ecosystems of the planet,” and the actual fact of doing something about it. I mean: spirituality can make us all petrified with fear, to the point when all climate change action might be seen as a total waste of time. I only hope you can catch my drift here, as these are very difficult topics to think and write about.

- — – — – — – — – — – – - — – — – — – –

Now, of course, I’d BETTER GET A LAWYER. Let me take a moment to think about that, okay? I’ll be back shortly: like a real poet.

They do it over there but we don’t do it here

“There’s a brand new dance, but I don’t know its name. That people from bad homes do again and again. It’s big and it’s bland, full of tension and fear. They do it over there but we don’t do it here. Fashion! Turn to the left. Fashion! Turn to the right. Oooh, fashion! We are the goon squad and we’re coming to town. Beep-beep. Beep-beep. … Listen to me – don’t listen to me. Talk to me – don’t talk to me. Dance with me – don’t dance with me, no. Beep-beep. Beep-beep.” — David Bowie: “Fashion”

Isms. I’m terribly tired of isms. Communism, socialism, liberalism, conservatism, and all other freaking isms. Including totalitarianism, islamism, anarchy, and fa fa fa fa … I mean: what’s in an ism? I mean: what is the ism for? I mean: aren’t all isms social and communal constructs, put in place in order to create and maintain division among and between people who share the same culture but, unfortunately (because this is the way it works, it has worked in this way for centuries, so there is nothing anyone can do about it, and especially so these days when the weapons at our disposal are so indescribably potent and cruel, the end result being that we cannot do without this potentially murderous ruling class of ours, the military-industrial complex, ’cause some of us need to exert complete and unrestricted control of the weapons and ammunitions belonging to the state), do not enjoy the same good standard of living. Some inequality measures — call them small or know tham as enormous — are only the end result of centuries of social history, it’s only natural, and if you should think otherwise, we’ll tag you with an ism and treat you accordingly, forever and ever, ever and ever again, until you give in, give up, and get out of here at your own chosen speed, so bye-bye, off you go, and in case you wonder: the answer is “No. It’s not that we hate you, it’s only that we can’t tolerate much more of your bullshit.”

Fas(chm)sm is a political term which is hardly ever in use these days. Come to think about it, I think I can say that it is most often in use among potential suicide bombers, as they are doing some oral thinking about the state of thing over there, in the United States of America, and, to a certain degree, within the EU, but then some other speeches come to arrest my mind, as I’m thinking of the language used by some of the leaders of “the free world” — the brand new term of “Islamo-Fascism” comes forth. The fact that this term is basically used in order to tag about 600 million people — the number of muslims around the world — as potential serial killers, well … that would be my personal opinion and point of view …

Now, in the automn of 2005, I a Swedish social worker employed in the county of Oslo, Norway, told me, straight out: “we just can’t help you; I suggest you read up on the works of Michel Foucault, who states that ‘the system is fascist, and works to protect and preserve itself.’” That was about the time when I should have given up and started to crawl from here to the faraway fringe of the world. That was about the time when I — the little David that I am, with my little catapult — should have given in to the enormous strengths of Goliath, which would be the social democratic government and social system of Norway and the rest of the Scandinavian peninsula. But still — the foolish idiot that I am — as I am thinking of this social worker, I feel pity for her, poor soul: a typical socialist voter who can do little or nothing about the fact that she is working every day under the strict rules and routines of a system that is fascist. It’s like Michel Foucault said it was (and now I’m thinking of the proverbial chains of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (I can’t help myself, they are stuck in my head and sit like glued to the top of my mind)): “The strategic adversary is fascism… the fascism in us all, in our heads and our everyday behaviour, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.”

But don’t quote me on this! You’ll only be making a fool of yourself, of course. Norway is not a fascist country. The Norwegian political system has nothing to do with fascism. This is a very good country, it is among the best countries in the world to live in, and it is a quiet and peaceful democracy (at war in the Middle East), it is a country in which the idea of freedom rings true in the minds of the masses, it is just lovely. Fascism, dear friend, is something we do not do here. They do it over there, and that is why we’re on numerous peace-keeping missions and operations over there. In Iraq, in Afghanistan, and in the future maybe in Somalia too, and in Sudan (you know, Darfur, you know) as soon as we possibly can. We are ready to embark on peace keeping missions all over the place, wherever fascism seems to be the order of the day, and nothing, absolutely nothing, is just lovely. But most of all, and most frequently of all, in countries well known for their abundance of natural resources (Iraq), or in countries that are, as seen on any world political map, strategically useful geographical areas to control (look up on the whereabouts of Afghanistan, so neatly stuck in there, in-between Iran, Pakistan, and Kasakhstan: such a lovely place; always a warzone).

I wonder. How are these people — the political, economic, cultural and social elites of our times, and the ruthless powers that be — likely to go about the saving the world from all sorts of unwise human acts of environmental destruction and daily human routines of an ecologically degradable nature?

Oh gee!

I have no way of knowing just that.

300 years of negotiations would be required

“I say: we can act if want to, if we don’t nobody will. And you can act real rude and totally removed, and I can act like an imbecile. I say: we can dance, we can dance, everything is out of control. We can dance, we can dance, we’re doing it wall to wall. We can dance, we can dance, everybody look at your hands. We can dance, we can dance, everybody’s takin’ the chance.” — Men Without Hats: “Safety Dance”

Yes. We can dance. And take a look at your hands: are they dancing on the keyboards or aren’t they? Oh yeah. We can dance alright, and our hands can dance, but can we allow ourselves, as adult human beings, honest and sincere, to let go of all of our brain cells and just party on every evening after work at the fossil fuel consuming garbage factory (for example) or shipyard (another example), not caring to think about what this factory and that shipyard is doing to the world? In terms of the pollution of the air that comes from it? The global warming and the manmade climate change? Would that be the way to go? It would definitely not be the way to go. But you shouldn’t ask me. I’m just an unemployed sustainability philosopher who is looking to a future in which the white man, with all of his industrial-military complex thinking in place and consumerism always at the ready, doesn’t quite seem to fit in. A future in which there can be no consumption of fossil fuels what-so-ever, simply because humanity has finally learnt a lesson here, and come to conclude that our children’s grandchildren will be looking at the last century’s development and realize that it was all about a world civilization gone blithering mad. A world civilization in which ecosystems destruction and environmental degradation was the order of the day and the social and cultural routine of our times. A world civilization in which all forms of forwardmindedness stupidly had everything to do with developments in space and little or nothing to do with developments on ground; and in case it was just a little about thinking of on-ground developments it had all to do with the real value of the atmosphere. I mean: how many dollars the atmosphere was worth! I mean: for Goodness sake! What?!

“At the same time the [Kyoto] Protocol targets the North for some small emissions cuts, it also quietly gives the North quasi-property rights over the atmosphere, leaving the South out in the cold. … Call it the magic of the market. … If Japan (say) finds that cutting its emissions by the six per cent it has promised is too difficult or expensive, it’ll be able to buy cheap emissions permits from elsewhere to fill the gap. But it won’t need to buy permits for the remaining 94 per cent. These it already has automatic “title” to, free of charge – at least until 2008.” — Larry Lohmann.

And so on.

I’m sorry, I do not quite follow, now excuse me, please! What are these people thinking? Or rather: which part of their bodies are they thinking with? International political, diplomatic, and economic bodies, of course. And butts.

Now, the fantazillion dollar question would have to be two-fold.

1. What would Sitting Bull be thinking about this?
2. How are future generations likely to be thinking about these ominous arrangements?

As for the final words for today? While I am merely thinking with my fingers here, Larry Lohmann receives the honour. His essay was really quite a find, I mean. Well done.

“Environmentalists have been right to ridicule Kyoto’s insignificant reduction targets. Shortly after the treaty was initialled in 1997, a scientific journal pointed out that 30 Kyotos would be needed just to stablilize atmospheric concentrations at twice the level they stood at at the time of the Industrial Revolution. At this rate, 300 years of negotiations would be required just to secure the commitments necessary by the end of this decade.

But the force of this criticism was lost when environmentalists hastened to add that “of course, Kyoto is a step in the right direction; we just need to move faster”.

And today many environmentalists are still held captive by this metaphor of Kyoto as a constructive, hard-won (if tiny) step along a technical, clearly marked-out linear path.

This metaphor magically transforms the Kyoto Protocol into a basically sound structure with “imperfections” which can eventually be “reduced”. It obscures the fact that Kyoto can be more accurately compared to a blind stumble sideways into an institutional morass of privatization, spurious science and the construction of a new carbo-industrial complex. The problem is not “imperfections” or “compromises”, but a revolutionary restructuring of power in favour of the rich and of new technocracies which has so far been concealed from the public.

Similarly, when environmentalists comforted themselves that “at least carbon will now have a price”, they were overlooking the resource seizures and fake science necessary for the setting of that price.”

Many of your dreams will be destroyed

The world population is projected to reach 9 billion by the year 2050. This means that the world population will rise by a massive 50 percent in the next forty years. Now, that’s a lot. And here we are, discussing humankind’s impact on the ecosystems of this planet. –

Digesting a little piece of experimental mathematics is all that it takes for you to understand that an average of three childbirths in every woman’s lifetime inevitably leads to population explosion. Since the ecosystems of this planet are faced with such a lot of human induced problems, it should be very easy for people to understand that the ongoing population explosion is a very unfortunate natural fact. As a social fact, though, the simple mathematics of population explosion realization, is for the most part absolutely impossible for individual human beings, cultures, social systems, and religions to take in. There are way too many spiritual, psychological, instinctive, intuitive barriers to cross here. Like the general idea that God, the Creator, in making it possible for every female of this world to give birth to fifteen children in a lifetime, as a matter of personal choice and free will, could possibly have made some sort of mistake. I mean: yes. Of course there is a religious dimension to this. And yes: I have been told, straight out, by people unknown to me, who have heard about me and my simple piece of population maths, to “please” get stuffed. Oh, and yes: I know that the kind of natural science I am thinking about here, is the form of natural science that noone ever asked for. As a matter of fact, I know, very well, that this is the kind of natural science that makes a lot of people feel a sudden urge to kill, as a matter of basic principle, or (more likely) pure instinct. Killing the unknown perpetrator of population explosion natural (mathematics) and social (anthropology) science would not make the problem of population explosion go away, but it just might make it easier for a number of people to breathe freely? And go ahead with their free-breeding lifestyles, unabated. That would be a convenient solution, of course. So why not?

– – — – — – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0uoy0krJe8

The IPCC analysis implies that we need to curb fossil fuel use within a decade, but the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts energy use will increase by 50% by 2025, with fossil fuels still the dominant component. The World Energy Outlook report from the IEA predicts that “global greenhouse gas emissions will rise by 52% by 2030, unless the world takes action to reduce energy consumption.” And as it happens, US President George W. Bush ended up, in Bali, in the early part of December 2007, saying “we must do it in a way that does not undermine economic growth or prevent nations from delivering greater prosperity for their people.”

As the population explosion continues to take place, and (under normal circumstances) there can be no good reason to hope that the world population will begin to stabilize before it has reached the 9 billion mark, there is every reason to suspect that the strictly humanly driven deterioration of the world’s ecosystems will continue. Even if people in general and a number of governments in particular are indeed starting to think about what the fucking hell it seems we are up to here, destroying this planet’s ecosystems by means of such a lot of activities and routines; so long as the world’s population continues to explode, there can really be no hope for a better future in terms of the general state of world’s biosphere. A fast growing third (developing) world human population is definitely going to continue pursuing an American (kingsize ecological footprint) lifestyle, and political leaders from around the world are going to have to continue to welcome such a development, as it will be very good for the world capitalist economy and also very good for the developing countries’ populations, as the development ensures greater prosperity for them; and possibly also a way out of the poverty trap. Meanwhile, the atmosphere of the planet is going to be thickening with a rising amount of greenhouse gases; global warming’s effects on the climate systems of this planet are only just beginning to be experienced as we speak. Deforestation and desertification are other topics of concern. Industrial agriculture is eroding the farmlands. Overfishing is a serious problem all over the world. As is the building and construction boom which is being experienced all over the planet, even if it’s good for the people (for example: how many people are involved in, and receiving payment for work done on the construction sites?). Now, I just don’t feel like listing every possible problem of this ecosystems-studded planet which can be associated with human overgrowth activity. I’m starting to think that it should soon become easier and easier for people to think for themselves. Not that it is going to be of any help. Not so long as humanity insists on being the fossil fuels addicts that we are, and the potential paracitic species of mammals that we currently are to be categorized as. — Oh yes: I am not kidding. It is only that I’m making use of a language that Big Brother (disguised as a sentient being; a thinking and caring humanist, and your best of all friends) disapproves of. Uh, anyway: that is also to admit to the fact that my own Orwellian language skills are poorly developed, of course.

– – — – — – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxuWdEbxAn4

The one thing we can actually do in order to changing things to the better around here, on the spheric globe which is planet Earth, would have to involve the active reduction of general consumption. I have not yet begun to dream of seeing real world changes in this direction, as consumerism seems to be the fastest growing religion of our times, and all things possible are strictly commercial. I’m a zombie lost in the supermarket myself, of course. I’m not buying much. I’m not buying needlessly. But I’m still buying things, and I guess it is bound to remain that way.

I believe it should be possible to arrange for a development that would come as good news to the biosphere of this planet. But it would certainly have to happen in a future which had everything to do with the correction of all the mistakes humanity has made over the past century. The large scale abandonment of the industrial culture of our times would have to be regarded as the first and most important objective. Humanity as a whole would have to get ready for a long range of lifestyle sacrifices. People in the western world would certainly have to lead the way. As I said: it is possible. But as I do not see any movement in the direction of good taking place anywhere near to where I am seated, I can’t say that I am very hopeful on the part of humankind as a whole. We are probably going to allow ourselves the luxury of continuing leading our pantomime lives in this utter make-believe civilization of ours, in which ignorance is strengt, and war is peace. We’ll be waiting it out, I believe. And stop overconsuming when we reach the point when no further growth can be carved out of the natural resource base, which is the biosphere of this planet. Or better still, until we all just give in to a feeling of jolly communal insanity, turn all our television sets off in a swift social movement, and mutter: “No more of this.”

But I do sometimes wonder: as we all ought to know that air travel is the most polluting of all forms of transport, why is it that all of the airline companies of this world are consistently reporting of a rising numbers of passengers every single year? Is it because people are proud to be stupid?!! — Oh yes, I wonder.