Red line:
carrying capacity of Earth with wilderness and non-human life
sacrificed; Green line: carrying capacity of Earth with some wilderness
and non-human life retained, at historical and forecast average
consumption and agricultural productivity levels.
My friend Jon Husband has an astounding
ability to harvest the most important writing on the Internet and route
it selectively through to his very substantial networks, mostly in
person (he really gets around) or by personal e-mail rather than
through his excellent blog. In the past week he's sent me four articles
I missed, each of which has significantly radicalized my thinking. So
today, I'm going to pass on the favour to my readers, with a tip of the
hat to Jon.
#1: The Coming Energy Crisis: Stan Goff
In this very long article, Goff deconstructs the myth that solar and
wind energy, the 'hydrogen economy', biomass and nuclear power all
combined are capable of staving off economic collapse as the
availability of hydrocarbons peaks around 2010 (or shortly thereafter,
if we allow the oil companies to ravage the rest of earth's wilderness
to extend the peak a couple of years) just as the demand for them,
especially by the exploding Asian economies, is accelerating at an
unprecedented rate. Goff tilts rather unseemingly at John Kerry and the
Sierra Club for not 'getting it', and some of his sources (e.g.
Pimentel's arguments about the efficiency of alternative energy) are
somewhat dubious, but for the most part Goff's arguments are sound and
compelling. The lessons from history that Goff draws from the work of
the late (and invisible on the Internet) British historian Mark Jones
are particularly striking. By 2030, Goff argues, per capita energy
consumption, as a result of rapidly diminishing supply and continued
population growth, will have inevitably declined to 1930 levels,
followed by a continued downward spiral over the succeeding century to
'stone age' levels. At the same time the initial effects of
catastrophic global warming -- weather disasters, damage from
desertification and floods, crop failures and more -- will be ramping
up. Goff describes the massive inefficiency of our current urban
agricultural-industrial model (use of 90 calories of energy in the US
to produce one calorie of food, for example), and the inevitable
acceleration of costly and destructive imperialist military adventures
to hoard the remaining oil for the countries most dependent on it, at
precisely the time when conservation and collaboration to solve this
massive problem and try to minimize its effects -- mostly through
conservation (rationing) -- are most desperately needed. Modern
agriculture, which, as Richard Manning has pointed out, consumes more
oil energy (in fertilizers etc.) than it produces, will be critically
affected, and will itself exacerbate the water shortages,
deforestation, ocean life depletion and desertification produced by
global warming. After some rambling, Goff gets to the bottom line: (a)
The third world cannot be developed, nor can its 'standard of living'
(consumption) be raised to first-world levels: There just isn't enough
energy and other resources to go around -- it's a zero-sum game, and
that means the longer the first-world continues consuming the way it
is, the greater the suffering and misery of the third world, and the
greater the eco-catastrophe produced by the first-world's extravagant
effluent, and (b) The only answer is massive conservation enabled by a
social-political revolution, because the powers that be aren't going to
give up their power peacefully or willingly.
#2: War Crimes and Imperial
Fantasies: Noam Chomsky
In an interview for Alternative Radio, the always-provocative (and
sometimes annoyingly condescending) Chomsky suggests that the
ideological, imperialist, neoconservative, corporatist agenda that Bush
has followed in the past four years, and promises to accelerate in the
next four, is nothing new in America. Indeed, he says, it has been the
basis of US foreign policy without interruption since the end of WW2,
under both Republican and Democratic regimes. It's just that before we
weren't told about it. In dozens of countries around the world, the US
has tortured and killed thousands, toppled democratic governments,
destroyed economies and wrecked social systems. He argues that there
has been a decades-long media-supported campaign of disinformation,
denial and cover-up to conceal news of America's murderous and
anti-democratic adventures abroad -- but
just from Americans. No surprise, then, that the rest of the
world 'hates' America and Americans don't understand why. He goes on to
argue that what Eisenhower called "the military-industrial complex" --
in his surprising and oft-quoted warning about his fears of its
dangerous influence over political affairs -- is the "core of the
modern economy", and that most government programs are designed to
"socialize costs" -- to let taxpayers pay for them and take the risks
if they fail, and corporations reap the benefits. There will be no
significant change in US foreign policy no matter who is elected in
November, he says, but the election will have important ramifications
for domestic policy. "They [the Bush people] want
to destroy the whole array of
progressive achievements of the past century. They've already more or
less gotten rid of progressive income tax. They're trying to destroy
the limited medical care system. The new pharmaceutical bill is a step
towards that. They're going after Social Security. They probably will
go after schools. They do not want a small government, any more than
Reagan did. They want a huge government, and massively intrusive. They
hate free markets. But they want it to work for the rich. The Kerry
people will do something not fantastically different, but less so. They
have a different constituency to appeal to, and they are much more
likely to protect some limited form of benefits for the general
population." So Chomsky says it's important to get out and support
Kerry, as a first essential step towards a longer-term and more
fundamental reform of the US political and economic system to restore
democracy, end imperialism, and repair America's reputation in the
world.
#3: The Death of Progressive Values: George
Lakoff
In a lengthy interview, Lakoff urges progressives to wake up and see
what's happening before the well-oiled and well-orchestrated neocon
propaganda machine wins an inexorable share of the hearts and minds of
Americans. You can't persuade people who have bought into the
compelling conservative mindset by arguing within their 'frames', he
says. You need to 'reframe' the discussion to appeal to people's values
by showing and teaching that it is progressive values, principles, and
policy directions that have made America great. (A policy direction is
something like "Let's have a sustainable environment" and "Working
people shouldn't be living in poverty" and "Everybody should have
health care.") These principles, not programs and platforms, are what
people, including most conservatives, buy into, and if progressives
talked about them they would reframe political discourse to their
advantage, instead of getting hopelessly mired in conservative frames
around 'family values', good vs evil, etc. And progressives need to go
on the attack, not against conservative principles, but against the
legacy of conservative administrations that have failed to deliver what
they promised: "When they have a case to be made on the basis of a
pattern of behavior, progressives don't tend to use a grammar that
really nails the message, like 'We're weaker in education, and here's
why. We're weaker in security,
and here's why.' You could write this argument in half a page."
Likewise, the discussion on tax cuts should be reframed as a discussion
on cuts to investment in our future. People, he says, also need to be
educated that business gets far more benefits from government
infrastructure and investment than they're paying for in corporate
taxes, and that simply isn't fair. And progressives should not even
talk about the "war on terror" or other purely metaphorical, unwinnable
wars, but should reframe the discussion around how the actions of
conservative administrations have weakened the country, made people
more vulnerable, destroyed global alliances, endangering troops, and
mired the country in costly, damaging, needless wars.
#4: A Time to Weep: Theodore Sorensen
In this brief commencement address, the former JFK aide, laments the
"mean-spirited mediocrity" of an America that has begun to decline, and
which has destroyed its moral authority -- its greatest weapon against
terrorism. Thanks to incompetent, ideologically-driven leaders, he
says, the world no longer trusts America to be honest, to keep its
word, to respect global values of peace, caring for others, justice,
truth, human rights, fair-mindedness, civility. "We are no longer the
world's leaders on matters of international law
and peace. After we stopped listening to others, they stopped listening
to us. A nation without
credibility and moral authority cannot lead, because no one will
follow", he says. He points out the irony of being accused, and with
good reason, both of reckless and imperialist interventionism (in Iraq)
and of isolationism (in Sudan and elsewhere) -- Evidence, he says, of
atrociously immoral judgement. He concludes with a reminder that the
Islamic world had universities and observatories long before the West
had railroads, an unsubtle reminder of the dangers of ignorance of the
lessons of history. It's an interesting speech in the context of
Lakoff's comments, above. Despite its eloquence, Sorensen's speech is
largely preaching to the progressive choir, and unlikely to move
conservatives who, not understanding his frames, won't even understand
where he's coming from.
All of this is
very discouraging. It is easy at times to yield to the temptation to
wallow in despair, to succumb to the seduction of hopelessness and
depression that at least briefly relieves us of the awful
responsibility for fixing this horrendous mess. As someone who has
dealt with depression all my life, I don't blame those who give up the fight --
they tried their best, and that's all you can ask from anyone. For the
rest of us, we can and must fight on. Nothing less than the survival of
our planet is at stake. And while our success is far from certain, there is
reason for optimism. And as TS Eliot said in Four Quartets:
So each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on
the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always
deteriorating
In the general mess of
imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of
emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission,
has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several
times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate -- but there is no
competition --
There is only the fight to
recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and
again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But
perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the
trying. The rest is not our business.
Most important -- Be good to
yourself. We all need to stay healthy for the hard work ahead.
Jon is looking for beta testers for his organization's new
information aggregation and publishing tool, which appears to have some
of the functionality I was calling for in my Personal
Knowledge Management post. If you're interested, you can sign up here.
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
