Yes, this will be our future represented above on the spit. I have seen over the past couple of years a snowballing avalanche of comments stating we are past all turning points that matter, and are on our way to possibly be the first species on this planet to self-annihilation. You might instead be a little more hopeful, but deep down truly believe we are destined for destruction. Guilty, convicted, and sentenced to death. Even many of you who believe we still have a chance, still can make this turn around, but are just damned frustrated that the leaders of our country — and of the world in general — are not moving fast enough. You want to be hopeful, but you feel doomed inside — believing you can’t do anything by yourself.
Your fear and helplessness mean are doomed and you can’t won’t do anything about it. And so… you and millions of other good, caring, moral individuals ARE allowing a mere handful of people - less than .00001% of our population - DICTATE survival for the rest of us. You will let them torture and kill your friends and neighbors. Your children’s lives will ultimately be cut short because you threw up your hands and said:
“I give up. I am completely helpless to affect my future or the future of my planet. I will let these few people - who came into this world as helpless as I was - decide how my children will die. I will do nothing to stand in their way because I am afraid. I am afraid of the unknown. At least this way I know how terrible our future is, although I don’t actually know how fast or furious. I am afraid of the changes we are not accustomed to. I would rather see my child die at the hands of others than risk living in a truly just and equal society where money and wealth have no place. It is too scary for me to stand in the way of a known evil instead of trying something good. I am truly weak in spirit, without resolve that extends past this weekend, and a coward in the face of this threat - the greatest threat humans have ever faced. Count me out, but I really hope you can do some good, even though I will publicly laugh at your ideas, condemn them as ‘too utopian’, ‘a pipe dream’, ‘your little pretend world.’ At the end of the day, who could blame me? I thrive on the mediocrity of the conformist. I agree with most people, and form all of my opinions from people I trust will tell me the truth. I am just an ‘average Joe/Josephine’ so why are you harassing me? Go hang out with the radicals if you want to get that far out of the box!!”
Okay, I understand - that was kind of harsh. Can we continue to pretend we aren’t facing extreme and growing harshness right now? Can anyone say with a straight face capitalism can save us? Will the ‘free market’ sell us something to save the planet? Not without a profit, and I just can’t find the angle that works. Can we stop the steal in time? The capitalist economies of the world are indeed stealing our future, our health, our lives...
I really feel very frustrated, and it feels good to share my frustrations here. I also worry this diary might come across like I am taking it out on the community here. Actually quite the opposite, but while I love the increasing environmental, climate change & related diaries (and comments) here I worry this particular part/cause of climate change is not being addressed much. I worry not enough attention is given to talking about capitalism’s role in the slaughter of our planet. I also know there are people on the front lines of climate action working tirelessly, and many more fighting hard to get climate change legislation passed. There remains the elephant(s) in the room making any real change or hope all but impossible. Capitalism stands for the opposite of and directly in the way of actual progress. Likewise, it appears any responsible action as one world of many nations will remain beyond our grasp. How do you expect ANY meeting with over 100 participants to make a decision, much less one that will be very disrupting to society. We should all be rowing in the same direction instead each in their own direction — ultimately rowing in circles. Collaboration instead of competition. On the other hand, the alternative to working together to solve this emergency might be a little more disruptive. The world is changing rapidly in terms of the relatively stable environment for the past 800,000 years. It hasn’t happened overnight, and although it has caused the deaths of thousands if not millions already, for many of us it might continue to seem somewhat ‘not happening overnight’ with a ‘wait and see’ approach. If it isn’t making them uncomfortable yet why worry, right?
Uncomfortable is coming. Which version will you like? I vote for living. We CAN still make the change necessary, but time is getting scarce to apply the brakes in time. We HAVE the means - the technology, the ingenuity, the current human resources of almost 4Billion folks. The untapped resources of over 1Billion additional people. We have the land to grow enough for the world, but soil conservation needs global attention. We have the resources to shelter, feed and provide water to every person on this planet. We can easily devote resources for healthcare worldwide when we free up our wasted energy on competition. Wasted energy devoted to creating, investing, leveraging, betting on and managing money (>20% of the workforce in the US.) Wasted energy devoted to wars between nations, tribes, cultures, religions, and just about anywhere hate can be fomented with ‘us vs them’. Anywhere you can draw a line on the ground, or any difference between yourselves. So much time and energy devoted to hate, devoted to training, readying, ‘defending’ with tools of war when there is no cause.
Dividing up the world’s population into hundreds of buckets of ‘us’ vs ‘them’ leaves only thousands of potential conflicts, trade wars, all-out wars, border control and blocking, wasteful military spending and more. A Brown University webpage states:
“...through FY2022, the U.S. federal government has spent and obligated over $8 trillion on the post-9/11 wars”
How many tons of deadly fabricated steel have you purchased in your lifetime? How can we possibly win the war on climate change with so many other conflicts stealing our attention? The status status quo won’t get this done, and if that’s what people are relying on then they are actually living in a dreamworld. Some believe man-made ‘interventions’ (climate engineering / geoengineering) might be the answer. The Union of Concerned Scientists discusses this below in their Nov 6, 2017 article:
‘...we lack effective mechanisms for global society to consider the risks and potential benefits of these technologies and make informed, well-governed decisions about further research and potential deployment. They warn of the risk, or “moral hazard,” that investments in solar geoengineering may diminish efforts at reducing net carbon emissions through proven and affordable means like renewable energy, and that they also may increase geopolitical conflict over “who decides” what the climate goals of deploying SRM would be..’
They re-stated their opinion of this quackery in a February 2019 statement (pdf).
“Deep cuts in emissions of heat-trapping gases and investments in adaptation to now unavoidable impacts must remain humanity’s first-line responses to climate change. Emission reductions and adaptation must be carried out at a greatly accelerated pace, and in a manner consistent with sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty.”
The first item on their multi-point list:
1. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) strongly opposes any deployment of solar geoengineering because solar geoengineering technologies pose significant environmental, ethical and geopolitical risks, challenges and uncertainties.
These sort of sci-fi bandages are akin to sticking a few sand bags out in front of a major hurricane. There are much better time to spend our resources on. Planting trees is low-tech enough even a 5th grader could do it! Personal experience show it can be done at half that age, and by the hundreds. There is a strange little pine forest growing in Missouri now thanks to that summer. Cutting out any and all online currency use (including speculation and creation) helps. These currencies aren’t stamped from precious metals, instead consuming their entire ‘worth’ at creation via exploitation of electricity and computing power. They are actually extremely costly and quite the asinine product as we dance our way into history. There are a large myriad of ways to fight climate change, but it will be all for naught if we continue to fight amongst ourselves at the same time. Fighting to slay our economic system at the same time might seem counter-intuitive and a waste of time. If we want the treasure we must fight the dragon. We have no choice.
We must work with each other to not only see our way through this greatest threat to our species, but to ensure actual equality for everyone in the world. It should come as little to no surprise to you. Working together, collectively, instead of against each other is like swimming downstream instead of upstream. We compete for so much it seems only second nature, from crappy jobs (and great ones) to material ‘signs of our wealth’ like a blinking roadside attraction. Why spend time fighting over these scraps we are ‘allowed’ by the few who rule. Why do we allow ourselves to waste so much energy on competing with each other? How many situations can you apply this to? Competing for land vs community organized sharing is one. Workers each representing their individual rights vs unions collectively representing them is another good example. So much constant competition adds unneeded stress to everyone’s life, affecting their health. *(I am not a doctor and this is my personal opinion, like all of my diaries)
We simply can NOT wait and see what the ‘leaders’ do, while most of us live in and support a world preventing any real change. How do we fix this? It is always best to work with what you have. We have an AMAZING planet that is here for us, has been for hundred of thousands of years (and many, many millions more). Our planet is astounding in its abundance of life in so many varied forms. It supports such an incomprehensible plethora of wonderful varieties of plants and animals, so much exquisite variety of humans — like cultures & races. We can let them all perish or we can fight for them all. There is no middle ground, and capitalism is the white elephant preventing even the great odds we face in saving our environment.
Please share your thoughts, arguments, compliments and questions in the comments :)