Our problem: There is a high probability of massive pain and suffering and then human extinction within the next one to two hundred years.
The problem extends well beyond global warming denier Donald Trump and his American followers. It even extends into the bowels of the American “Liberal Left” and their US Media. It extends beyond America itself. The problem is rooted in the inability of our society to understand that the reductionist methodologies that grew out of our Enlightenment Age are failing humanity; with the most egregious of these being the economic system. That system was and remains a destroyer of our planet. It contains an inherent ecocidal death wish. Its “hidden Hand” is bringing on an end to human civilization. It is a hand that never picks up the check. (In economic parlance this is called the future cost of “Negative Externalities”)
How can we all, Americans and so many others, be so stupid as not to understand this? Why are we unable to face this reality?
The answer is in our genes. We have no fear. Throughout our development it has been our strength. By 70,000/26,000/12,000 BCE some, while mixing with the earlier erectus inhabitants, were fearlessly traveling from Africa to the north into what is now Siberia and then south across the Beringian land bridge (commonly referred to as the Alaskan land bridge) and all the way down to the most southern part of the Americas. Others crossing the Pacific.
They had no fear. This no fear part of us today has become our ecological problem. (Often referred to as the “deaf effect”) Like a pesky boil under the skin, it does bother some, but then they find that the more they scratch it, the bigger and the more red it gets. Solution; just stop scratching! Let it be. Enjoy life. Push it out of the mind.
A sign of a civilization’s entry into a downward spiral always begins with the abandonment of intellectual argumentation and methodological logic. That abandonment is also in our genes. Another narrative easily takes hold. (Adolf Hitler’s charismatic hold on many Germans is an example) Words lose their deeper meaning. Socrates taught us this. They become vague sophistic artifacts of what they had been. He said that with this loss comes an inability to think critically. “Truth” is no longer truth. “Honesty” is no longer honesty. “Beauty” is no longer beauty. “Absolute Good” is no longer absolute good. Critical thinking, so necessary for human progress dies.
This is America today. Critical thinking is dead. Words have become no more than babble. Honest dialogue has vanished. Listen to the Trump babble. Listen to the media babble on both sides. Listen to the advertising babble. Listen to the entertainment babble.
Where is the Truth? Where is the Honesty? Where is the Beauty? Where is the Absolute Good?
Look around. See the excessive wealth. See the babble deception paid for by that wealth. See an America blinded by a lust for more and more consumption, more and more money, more and more power. Think back to Greece and to Rome: The same wealth disparity. The same babble. The same deception. Two civilizations that rose and then fell.
Americans would be wise to ask themselves the question: What is planetary reality? By their babble, what destructive forces are being hidden?
Why will they not ask? The reason is that in reality these destructive forces are too horrific to be absorbed into their consciousness. CO2 Carbon Dioxide, CH4 Methane, N2O Nitrous Oxide; all pouring into the biosphere. Temperatures rising. Oceans dying. “Frankenstorms” occurring with increasing frequency. Aquifer levels under vital agricultural lands lowering. Non-reconstitutable (not biodegradable) detritus dumped and dumped into the air and water. And the list goes on. The new reality is that our species is literally eating up the planet, passing it through its gut and leaving the waste to fester in the biosphere.
And then we come to an even larger problem: Seven billion people pressing in on each other. (twice the world population size when I was a child) Nations at each other’s throats and ready to pounce, as they were in the darkest periods of human history.
A continuation of this disequilibrium will lead to the end of our species. Scientists and great thinkers all over the world are telling us that this is our reality, but very few are being heard. Peer reviewed papers end up in the closet. A few marches here, a few there; a conference here, a conference there, that’s all we see. On our TVs, in our Newspapers, on our radios we continue to hear nothing but babble.
This essay began with a reference to the “hidden Hand” that never picks up the check. Prominent economist spokespersons such as those teaching in American business schools; the likes of Harvard, Wharton and the University of Chicago have made sure of this. The Capital Market system is given a close to godly status. The pricing in of those negative external costs that are now damaging the biosphere and that may bring an end to our species are not recognized. Maximizing total financial return is.
If the next generation finds its voice muted, and if those academicians tied into the economics and other so-called social sciences continue to remain silent, and if the religionists continue their circular theological epistemological disconnect; then there will be no change and Homo sapiens will find itself facing a painful adjustment as it attempts to survive in the hostile planetary environment it has created for itself.
Only a powerful deeply rooted change in the way we think about our relationship to this planet and the cosmos can save us. We need to examine those originating presuppositions we have believed to be “inherent truths” that we now find were built on ecological flaws, to examine the validity of eight thousand years of our social, political, philosophical, religious and economic thought and the institutions that arose from that thought. And we need to do it all now. We need to recognize that the cosmos operates on its own timing, not ours.
How do we begin to extricate ourselves from this noxious nightmare? How do we begin to treat the boil? For a first move in the right direction, read these two chapters from my new book (email [email protected] for them. Say CHAPTERS)
Chapter # 8 A Dangerous Zero Sum Game – The “Chicago School” vs the Planet
Part III The Increase in the Emissions of CO2 and a Methane Hydrate Feedback Loop
Part IV An Economic Solution for the Increase in the Emissions of CO2 and a Methane Hydrate Feedback Loop
http://inquiryabraham.com/new-book.html
David Anderson brings together a wide range of interests in his writings, namely; theology, history, evolutionary anthropology, philosophy, geopolitics, and economics.He has published three books. A fourth is near completion. It is about the necessary geo political, social, religious, economic paradigm shift needed for human survival.
See: http://inquiryabraham.com/bio-lectures.html