By Chris Hedges:
In the past when civilizations went belly up through greed, mismanagement and the exhaustion of natural resources, human beings migrated somewhere else to pillage anew. But this time the game is over. There is nowhere else to go. The industrialized nations spent the last century seizing half the planet and dominating most of the other half. We giddily exhausted our natural capital, especially fossil fuel, to engage in an orgy of consumption and waste that poisoned the Earth and attacked the ecosystem on which human life depends. It was quite a party if you were a member of the industrialized elite. But it was pretty stupid.
We view ourselves as rational creatures. But is it rational to wait like sheep in a pen as oil and natural gas companies, coal companies, chemical industries, plastics manufacturers, the automotive industry, arms manufacturers and the leaders of the industrial world, as they did in Copenhagen, take us to mass extinction? It is too late to prevent profound climate change. But why add fuel to the fire? Why allow our ruling elite, driven by the lust for profits, to accelerate the death spiral? Why continue to obey the laws and dictates of our executioners?
The news is grim. The accelerating disintegration of Arctic Sea ice means that summer ice will probably disappear within the next decade. The open water will absorb more solar radiation, significantly increasing the rate of global warming. The Siberian permafrost will disappear, sending up plumes of methane gas from underground. The Greenland ice sheet and the Himalayan-Tibetan glaciers will melt. Jay Zwally, a NASA climate scientist, declared in December 2007: “The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming. Now, as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines.”
The current level of CO2 is 385 ppm and climbing. This already guarantees terrible consequences even if we act immediately to cut carbon emissions.
The natural carbon cycle for 3 million years has ensured that the atmosphere contained less than 300 ppm of CO2, which sustained the wide variety of life on the planet. The idea now championed by our corporate elite, at least those in contact with the reality of global warming, is that we will intentionally overshoot 350 ppm and then return to a safer climate through rapid and dramatic emission cuts. This, of course, is a theory designed to absolve the elite from doing anything now. But as Clive Hamilton in his book “Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change” writes, even “if carbon dioxide concentrations reach 550 ppm, after which emissions fell to zero, the global temperatures would continue to rise for at least another century.”
Copenhagen was perhaps the last chance to save ourselves. Barack Obama and the other leaders of the industrialized nations blew it. Radical climate change is certain. It is only a question now of how bad it will become. The engines of climate change will, climate scientists have warned, soon create a domino effect that could thrust the Earth into a chaotic state for thousands of years before it regains equilibrium. “Whether human beings would still be a force on the planet, or even survive, is a moot point,” Hamilton writes. “One thing is certain: there will be far fewer of us.”
We face a terrible political truth. Those who hold power will not act with the urgency required to protect human life and the ecosystem. Decisions about the fate of the planet and human civilization are in the hands of moral and intellectual trolls such as BP’s Tony Hayward. These political and corporate masters are driven by a craven desire to accumulate wealth at the expense of human life.
The leaders of these corporations now determine our fate. They are not endowed with human decency or compassion. Yet their lobbyists make the laws. Their public relations firms craft the propaganda and trivia pumped out through systems of mass communication. Their money determines elections. Their greed turns workers into global serfs and our planet into a wasteland.
Full article here:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/calling_all_future-eaters_20100719/
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"
Comments
It's all about the strategy that those who see the light take. It's tough for those who are far down the wrong road to change very easily even when they kinda get it. And those that have set up shop on this wrong road too find it a difficult task to pull up shop and make the needed transitions. I've found you need to start with those who have yet to get too far down that path and can more easily start in a new direction. Mostly this will be the youth that will need to set the new course.
Industrialization needed to remove us from our natural environment. To get our feet out of the soil and put shoes on us. The pleasure of the grandeur of our environment was replaced with a plane ride to Disneyland. The pleasure of preparing a family meal of local real foods was replaced with a trip for a Happy meal. The simple pleasure of playing catch with Dad now finds Dad working to pay for their kids cost to sports camp. Weren't the most popular board games for Boomers "Monopoly", "Easy Money" and "Candyland"! Even if a parent becomes aware that they have taken themselves and their children down the wrong path the thoughts of change seem overwhelming. And fears that even if the parents are willing to make a 180* change in direction how will they get their children to understand the abrupt change?
I spent some time last weekend pulling garlic in the field with two recent grads from 2 of the top tier colleges in the nation. Why were they doing this? Because they had not been taught "better" in the evil sense of the word. Why were they not spending their summer on a Cancun beach? Or searching out a top level corporate position with their golden diplomas? Because they again had not yet drank the Kool Ade. Why do many kids now prefer going to a CSA farm than going to a supermarket to hunt down the coolest toy inside the cereal box?
Who has been doing the recent teaching of the good path to take in a family? Surprisingly it is the kids often with backing and wisdom of grandparents. When our kids get on the right path it is easier for the parents to start to make transitions.
It's not the "quick fix" that most are looking for but be careful and understand that "quick fixes" are again a product of the wrong course. The mere lack of understanding of the abilities of our children and the wisdom of elders is also a product of manipulation from the wrong path. We encourage our kids to play competitive games(guess Why?) rather than explore the wonders and truths in our environment and our seniors to retire to senior communities isolating their wisdoms.
As the article notes: "The current level of CO2 is 385 ppm and climbing. This already guarantees terrible consequences even if we act immediately to cut carbon emissions."
We face consequences even if carbon emissions were cut to zero tomorrow...by what's already been set in motion....yet emissions are still rising...not falling..
Some are starting to get that really bad consequences are in the cards. Others are more concerned with maintaining the same game plan right up until the meltdown. A final great hurrah.
Most aren't getting that it will happen within their own lifetimes. It's accelerating. I doubt they even understand what the consequences will be....including famine.
"In the past when civilizations went belly up through greed, mismanagement and the exhaustion of natural resources, human beings migrated somewhere else to pillage anew. But this time the game is over. There is nowhere else to go."
Destroying the environments capacity to support human life isn't new....it just wasn't global.
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease".
Destroying the environments capacity to support human life isn't new....it just wasn't global.
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease".
I'd estimate that it's been at a global level for a good 100 years. The couple percent of those we consider in power have a few more tricks up their sleeves and can certainly stall and ride out their live without disruption to their system. Which is really all they care about. We thought China was the end but then they just started wiping out the middle class which they realized was over populated. It's the middle class who's life expectancy is dropping the most.
At the same time I'm very optimistic that power may have overlooked some positives that are happening under their radar. I'd believe some of the calls of gloom but not ready to except doom.
I tend to side with the doomsdayists, given that the knowledge of what ails humanity is mostly a taboo subject; given that, even if we awakened to our sickness of mind and spirit, we lack the essential will and time to do what's necessary to avert disaster. Chris Hedges is a truth-teller; if only the-powers-that-be were reading him.
Waiting for leaders to do something, however, while we fail to make personal changes—go vegetarian, give up conveniences tied to pollution, plant trees, a vegetable garden...and so forth—is part of the problem. If you're (the collective "you") serious about loving the planet, why are you still eating red meat?
nothing wrong with red meat raised in the right environment with proper stewardship. Perennial grasses in the right environment are very good for the soil, air and water. Grasses benefit from the grazing with nutrients and the effects of the cloven hoof. Since we are not ruminates, grazing grass for meat and fiber can be done quite sustainable. Various livestock can also be used on integrated farms as recyclers of farm byproducts, weed and growth control and in a grass and crop rotation stewardship. This can help from needing chemical controls or energy sucking equipment. Feed lots are really bad in many ways and are as bad an idea as is the corn based system. Plows and tilling are not soil microbe or nutrient friendly either. More perennial crops are now being considered by those in the sustainable movement. A good steward/farmer respects all life, animal, plants, the micro-life in the soil and the wildlife equally.
Absolutely true, Ed. And if your vision were the predominant pattern, or system, we would not be in as much trouble as we are, and I might be inclined to eat meat once in awhile. Unfortunately, it is not, and because our current food suppliers—agribusiness—are chauvinistic in their devotion to anti-earth methods, the change we need will not be soon in coming.
If you have the means to live on grass-fed beef, that's fine, as long as you don't mind developing heart disease...
My question, however, was for the average, conscious lefty who probably has to shop at a super-market and is still eating meat. It's as though there's a disconnect; even though they know the facts about the meat industry, they don't see how they are a party to the cruelty and environmental damage, when they buy meat there.
And I realize meat is not the biggest problem. That's just one example.
Food, how we eat, is one area where we can act for a better world. I felt, when I became a vegetarian, I didn't have a lot of power with regard to government, but I could make that one sacrifice on behalf of the planet. (I do like meat.) I'm sure I'm probably missing the boat in plenty of other areas—there's much more I could do—but at least that choice makes me feel clean and wholesome and somewhat less a part of the problem.
These are thoughts, of course, that one cannot express to family and friends who are not vegetarians. Mostly, I keep my mouth shut, rather than inflicting guilt on everybody. Funny thing, though, here and there individuals are changing, trying it out. It's a tough choice, and I know that.
What can anyone really do? The vast majority of citizens in the US really can't comprehend the problems the world is in. We live in a society of ignorant bliss and an inability to rebel in many ways.
I do tune in to FreeSpeechTV and I still don't see how I can really do much of anything to really help. While it might make a tiny iota of difference to conserve energy and to recycle when I can, it's not really going to help impact a major change needed.
That guy James Lee who took hostages at the Discovery channel building, while obviously terribly misguided in his actions... had more guts than most Americans to stand up for when he believed in. Hours before they shot and killed him, I knew they were going to. There was no way they were going to let him live another day after the stunt he pulled. Despite the fact that he shot no one and seemed to be very cooperative with the negotiators. They'd have shot him even if he had totally given up and walked out with his hands in the air.
That is why there is very little protest in this country. If you try to make waves, you'll probably end up dead. I'm not saying that violence and hostage taking is the way to get results. Far from it. That borders along the line of terrorism.
There's not enough non-violent outcry from the public for one thing. And if anyone tries to do any violent protests (which I am opposed to!) even if they actually harm no one in the action, they're still as good as dead.
If you try to make waves in any way that isn't conventional, even non-violant, you're instantly considered a criminal anymore.
Well, first clearly identify the underlying problem...then opt for solutions to address it.
Moral Courage:In A Period of Collapse
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9217110#utm_campaigne=synclickback&source=http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/chris_hedges_on_moral_courage_20100901/&medium=9217110
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"
Gas-fed and Grass-fed sound a lot a-like. As do Carbon-free and Karma-free.
So it's only natural that 99.6% of beef consumers prefer to think that the meat they're buying was grass-fed and Karma-free.
And since it's natural that they feel so - it becomes "all natural".
Non-meat products, thanks to agra-business, are made from as much petroleum as everything else - and thanks to "innovators", like Monsanto, aren't even fully non-meat anymore.
Processed foods are concentrations mostly done for shelf-life or marketing purposes and do not have the consumer's interests in mind.
We came to be [God or Nature] along with food items. That some believe they can do better than God's packaging, is to be expected - that we should encourage them by buying their pseudo-food products is not.