marklynas.orgLet's talk about climate change 22 April 05
The flourishing and thought-provoking website openDemocracy has launched an online debate about the politics of climate change. Too well-written to paraphrase is the latest contribution, from Scottish novelist Ian McEwan. Here’s a quote: “The sheer pressure of our numbers, the abundance of our inventions, the blind forces of our desires and needs, appear unstoppable and are generating a heat – the hot breath of our civilisation – whose effects we comprehend only hazily. The misanthropic traveller, gazing down from his wondrous, and wondrously dirty machine, is bound to ask whether the earth might not be better off without us. How can we ever begin to restrain ourselves? We appear, at this distance, like a successful lichen, a ravaging bloom of algae, a mould enveloping a fruit…”
Comments
Jonny Holmberg
April 22nd, 2005 at 12:27 PM
So… we suck as a species. And? Let´s commit collective suicide for the benefit of the planet? I don’t think so. IMHO we ought to focus on what can be done in order to survive. It’s not merely crucial. It’s also the only hope for a sustainable economic foundation for the rest of the future. We need to do a lot, us humans. We have some of the answers, but not all of them. But a few of the relly good ones might be awaiting just around the corner. Everything from high-tech windmills to a smaller-scale, enviroment-friendly way of life alltogether. Soon enough these things will be the only possible and profitable ones. Then, but only then, we’ll see the boost of development i the right direction.
Lynn Vincentnathan
April 22nd, 2005 at 04:42 PM
We are not animals following either biological or economic instincts. People can do what’s best for society and the world, rather than stuffing their lives.
Numerous people are already restraining themselves from emitting more GHGs. It is our cultural system, linked with psychological dynamics & social factors, that encourages us to emit more, without much thought regarding destruction.
Culture includes knowledge, values, goals for people to achieve, a world view, etc. It is very difficult to change culture, but it’s not impossible.
In America, many otherwise good people don’t even know about GW, or about its importance, or they think it’s been disproven due to the media & government downplaying it, or highlighting skeptic arguments. I think these good people outnumber the skeptic ideologues & fossi fuel entrenched interests. They need for us to constantly speak out (as if we are trying to light a campfire of damp wood).
There is also the flock mentality social factor—if enough people are doing good & reducing GHGs, then others will follow. We are nowhere near the bulk required, but we have to keep building it up, and show that it is the “in-thing” to be an environmentalist and reduce harm.
Other cultures, like the Japanese, have certain values that are more amenable to addressing & solving societal problems, such as crime and global warming, although they too are zonked into World Culture (that arose out of modern materialistic Western culture).
I think we in the movement get discouraged and speak as Mr. McEwan did, and as you did (about people changing only if it’s in their economic interest). I also get discouraged & say cynical things.
Isn’t it great that we have such good websites like this to rekindle our spirits when they’re low.
April 22nd, 2005 at 06:26 PM
The article sounded like man was the plague of the earth and likened us to a parasitic force. Yet man also seemed to be the answer to all the climates woes… which is it?
The politics of climate change is called…
POLITICAL SCIENCE (ha)
Dano
April 22nd, 2005 at 11:34 PM
which is it?
It’s not which, but a little bit of both. We’re fouling our nest and we should clean it up. My mommy taught me to not make messes and to clean up after myself if I did.
And thank you for reminding us that the politics of climate change includes politics. I trust that the politics of health care involves politics still, too.
HTH,
D