We’re creatures of nature, too

“So, what if nature itself decided for them to take notice of global climate change challenges? Would that be possible?”

Which kind of question is that?

“Never mind.”

Okay. — I think there’s really no saying what’s possible and what’s not. The only development that seems to absolutely impossible to achieve is that of getting hold of sociological and anthropological reports on the urgency of social changes taking place around here. It seems as if these people with those titles have already reached the consensual agreement that proposing that any form of social change must be considered, is a non-starter. It’s as if the social and cultural life academics have already concluded that people are not going to make any real lifestyle choices, and since it’s not going to happen anyway: why bother even to think about it?

“You know, that’s interesting. And I just heard a bird singing a song about the need to look into enviromental devastation on a more local level, and pointing to the simple fact that smog, water pollution and bloated landfills can be more clearly seen without graphs and charts and addressed regionally. Less abstract, in a sense. It’s a good point.”

It’s excellent.

“It’s all knit neatly together, of course. If only humankind would dare to consider the fact that they are not only creatures of society and culture, but indeed also creatures of nature. — It is difficult to them, now isn’t it?!”

It sure is. They like to think of themselves as creatures of society, first and foremost, and not at all as creatures of nature, unless they deliberately go trekking into the woods of the planet in order to do some actual hunting, shooting and fishing.

“But that’s the key! If they were to accept that they’re creatures of nature living in big cities, like ant-hills or bee-hives, and affecting nature in such a lot of ways, I think there would be a glimmer of hope to be spotted. But they’re so involved with the metaphors, the symbols, and the logos of theirs. It’s just fabulous.”

Yes, sir! It’s all about the money. And what’s more: it’s all about the nation-states, the big business corporations, and the ins-and-outs of the corridors of power. — The banks, the insurance companies, the hotels, the shopping malls, and the football stadiums. And then it’s all about the diplomatic envoys, the beaurocratic ways and ends, the powers that be, and the need to go to war on other powers that be, from other parts of the world. I just can’t get my head around this one. The military spending is awesome. It’s up, up, up, all over the planet. It may seem as if some very few of them are about to reach the decision to just bomb the whole place back into the stone age.

“And what a pity that would be.”

So let’s assume that they’re simply being very afraid of each other, and let that be the reason why the military spending is soaring. I mean: think about it — even though they’ve had access to nuclear weapons for more than fifty years, and wars have been taking place throughout this period they still haven’t made use of the technology more often than a very few times. It’s like they dread the possibility of destroying everything while at the same time they invent and produce even more new weapons and new war technologies, just in case.

“In case of what?”

I don’t know. In case of the Russians, the Americans, the Chinese, the British, the French, the Israelis, the Indians, or the Pakistanis. You know. Just in case.

“Okay. In case something happened, you mean. Newclearly.” –

That’s right.

“And this would probably be the reason why it is impossible for these people to agree on the emissions levels of CO2 and other toxic gases as well, don’t you think? Just in case of one local economy made this thing or that start to happen over there. — I hear they are going to meet in Bangkok soon. Where they are probably going to continue talking about how to stress the importance of the Kyoto agreement and the IPCC’s climate science, but not do something significant about it.”

Oh yes. There’s a meeting in Bangkok coming up. I wonder what is going to come of the final meeting, in 2009, in Copenhagen, Denmark, where (and when) they are supposed to reach some kind of a final agreement as to what they are going to do about the CO2 emissions. The meeting in Bangkok is nothing but a preparatory measure to that end. They’re buying time. In a year or so you’ll probably never be hearing about that 2005 augmented 10-year-window of opportunity no more, as they’re going to decide to start pushing and shoving at it until it finally cracks and breaks.

“Another great opportunity lost. Another great idea turned to waste. That would be such a shame, you know.”

Yes, I know. But the population of this world keeps growing at an exponential rate. The world economy is also expected to grow at an exponential rate. The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects the fossil fuels consumption of this world to keep growing very fast. And the people, well, they are all news consumers. They won’t be doing nothing while they’re reading the latest newspaper articles on how the atmosphere and the ecosystems of this planet is being destroyed. They’ll just buy another cup of coffee and look forward to reading the next newspaper of the next day and the next magazine of the next week, and think: what a wonderful world, it’s amazing. –

“You’re growing tired down there. I can see that. It means that you’ve got to work harder, you know. Get a change on. And then a little fix it. You know.”

I wish you didn’t steal my flying saucer.

“You wish!”

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!

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.”