Global Warming All Over Your Ass

[dotinthesky]

When I lived in Canada, whenever a topic of conversation went serious - frakenstein food, globalization, destruction of the planet - some of my friends would interrupt by saying "oh, Amazon forest conversation." It was their way of saying the topic was another highly serious one which shouldn't/couldn't affect their lives; or that it was a cliche to talk about something so heavy, overly played out in the media. They would rather think about the latest fashion trend then the consequences of drinking coffee ground by exploited workers.

I wonder if the current bandwagon-jumping on global warming fears is a little too similar to the one two decades ago when people became worried about the Amazon forest disappearing. At the time, Sting went to Brasil and visited the natives in the forest; millions proclaimed that Brasil should stop destroying the world's lung; but then something else went on the front pages and the story slowly disappeared out of view. I would like to believe that the current warnings on global warming will change the world, but who can say how oh-so-predictably-crap-at-hearing-warnings human beings will react? Will the papers be interested in this story by next year?

My feelings tend to go from extreme negativity to positivity. This morning, looking at the weekend newspapers, I'd swear on the Bible that we were heading for deep shit. How could we not? We as a species refuse to memorize our history lessons. In doubt, read Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Many human civilizations have been destroyed before and it wouldn't be impossible for ours to go the same route. If you add up all the stories in the papers - collapsing fisheries, escalating civil wars, disappearing water resourses, etc - it's enough to make you wish Virgin would hurry up with their space flights so you could book yourself on the next one to the Moon. And the majority of news editors and journalists don't help matters by scarying the public with twisted stories on the government's upcoming green taxes.

But this evening, on my gym's treadmill, with The Kooks on the stereo, and all these different people sweating beside me, it became obvious that in some aspects we are no longer like our ancestors, and perhaps we won't commit the same errors they committed. Sure, there's a vast majority of people who don't give a crap and will continue leaving their lights on when they leave their home, but the percentage of people who are not like that is higher than ever before. In the past, civilizations collapsed sometimes due to factors beyond their control (e.g. enemies or viruses) but the vast majority of them suffered because they didn't understand how important their environment was to them. We are no longer like that.

That the shit is going to hit the fan is obvious. Rich countries are going to have to deal with masses of refugees in the future, and probably the rise of extreme right-wing politics as a consequence; but there will also be places where environmentalism will show definite improvements in people's lives, and this will in turn encourage other communities to follow suit. I have to believe things will turn out OK, otherwise I might as well not get out of bed.

Comments

[kenoster.livejournal.com]

I don't know. There are so many other negative characteristics we have that seem to be dragging us down, I don't see how good environmentalist intentions and attitudes will stop the shit.

Greed, religion, tribalistic instincts, xenophobia, etc. I wouldn't put all my marbles on environmental techno advances.

I had a friend who said many times that he couldn't see the human race going extinct. Even if there was nuclear apocalypse, he said, there would be a group of survivors who would find the means to crawl out of the hole. I think it is precisely that overconfidence that we are somehow able to overcome anything, which really has its roots in fear, that is dragging us down.

I empathize with what you are saying though, I really do. Many times I also encounter people who are not willing to talk about important issues, either because they feel they can never have enough influence on them to change them, or because it is not chic enough or something. I grow so frustrated with these people, because their attitude is self-defeating. If anything these debates or conversations are meaningful because they allow us to understand them better each time we talk about them with other people, right? I feel these people don't understand how their community works. It is like recycling, yeah you throwing one tin can in the blue bucket won't save us from ourselves, but if more and more people in your community do it will have an impact larger than you could ever achieve on your own.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

If we were to have a global change of attitude to the environment, it would have to start in America. I'm sincerely hoping the Republicans get a beating in the upcoming mid-term elections (are you voting? are your friends and family voting? please do!) so your country can get back on track with bringing down CO2 emissions.

I do think we'll get to see some terrible events in the future because of global warming - makes me even scared sometimes of being an elderly person on this planet, to be honest - but I also think that horrible events are usually followed by a general push to fix, to overcome and to learn. Take Katrina for example: it was a disaster for New Orleans, and we all saw what happened on TV, but now we all know why it happened and what could have been done to avert it. The information is there, it's only a matter we put it in use by not re-electing idiots like Bush.

[kenoster.livejournal.com]

I can't vote here. I am a foreigner. Which reminds me, I meant to ask you what is your citizenship officially?

To me Bush is not much worse than any other US President since 1944. These guys are just more vocal and efficient about their agendas. They are just people in power really, they all have the same nature.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I have dual citizenship: British and Brasilian. I could claim South African too, since that's where I was born, but there would be no advantages for me. :-/

I disagree with you on Bush. Sure, other presidents were pretty crap, but he's by far the worse one.

[kenoster.livejournal.com]

Oh and I agree about the environmentalist shift having to start in America. I've heard some scientist speculate that even if you could get all parties working together now it is too late to prevent major consequences in the next 100 years. It makes sense really, since the Industrial Revo. all we have done is change the environment as fast as we can. Sadly, instead of people coming together to work on this, what I see is countries competing to become as wasteful and energy hogs as the US. China and India are doing everything they can to do it. Every time I read about the techno revolution coming to China and India, how they are planning to build X number of millions of cars by 201x I fear for their environments. How many new electronics will be built by countries that together are 6 or 7 times larger in pop. than the US. How will they dispose of them, etc.

See today I feel despair. Show me something hopeful please!

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Ok, here's something hopeful: while China is indeed pushing its development button like crazy, it has also realized that massive deforestation and exploitation of its rivers has had a negative effect on the country. Millions were displaced in 98, for example, because of massive floods (due to trees by riverbanks having been cut down.) Now, with the Gobi desert encroaching on cities - Beijing itself now has sand storms whip through it - they have woken up to the fact that they need to tackle their behaviour too.

See, although it does look grim, no country is immune to the effects of global warming/destruction. Consequently, politicians have to change and face these issues if they wish to retain their power, otherwise they risk losing everything to a population determined to elect new political parties that will do so.

I'm full of hope today. :-)

[sor-eye-ah.livejournal.com]

I am saddened less by what I see happening and more by the mentality that people aren't being educated, shown, forced even, to make it stop.

I think as humans we don't worry enough - we get used to it. Nobody seems to mind in Australia for example, that when the sun shines even at 18 deg cel, you -burn-. It's not natural, it's not right - and yet we sill say 'oh but that's just the way things are', turn our key and drive our car down to the corner store.

I take wars, on whatever country with which ever countries putting in so many millions of dollars to fight for the bottom line (oil, a different god, what does it matter). Now wars that countries like Australia invest so much in. Why don't they step back, take all that money, dump it into funding renewable energy sources or environmentally friendly car development and actually think long term and not about band-aiding.

Am starting to think nobody in our generation thinks long term.

In 1918 an Australian Prime Minister said "grazing domestic european cattle on Australian land does NOT work. A policy must be developed, this must be stopped, something must be done" 100 years later people still doesn't listen and what we have here will be turned into a wasteland.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I've read some stories recently in the national papers of the drought going on in Australia, and how the desert is growing into the farmlands. It's sad that so much will be lost before the population forces the government to take an attitude. It seems like the polls in England are doing the talking and the government is finally willing to put it at the top of their agenda, but now the papers over here are trying to scare us into believing we'll lose our money on taxes. But to me, if the taxes are in place to revert the damage, then for god's sake tax us all!

[sor-eye-ah.livejournal.com]

Well . . . It's a bit tricky really. Australia never had much 'natural' farmland. There weren't the grassy open plains of the US, most of the fertile farmland (ie: where my parents are esp) came from the early settlers bulldozing 100's of hectares of forest, bush and -swamp-. The land here as been so royally fucked around with in the last 200 years that it's incredible.

We've just had the hottest October in 92 years. Grain prices are already on the rise (there is talk of companies only dealing with existing customers and restricting the amount of feed to be trucked in for animals) and there are people already running out of water - something that wouldn't usually happen until Feb/March - the end of summer.

We're on Stage 1 water restrictions. A normal part of life over summer, can't water your lawn, hose your car down, water your garden during certain times. (basically the water restrictions you guys got to at the end of last summer). But as I've mentioned -we're not in summer yet. We're in Spring, which is meant to be one of the wettest seasons of the year in Aus.

I'm kinda glad not to see Summer in Aus this year. Drought is a gut wrenching thing; it will be spread over the news when all the animals start dying, they'll show the big pits that are dug to take all the dead bodies. Water restrictions will most likely get to the level where you're only allowed to take showers for a certain amount of time - or perhaps even every second day (I remember one year we got down to once a week showers and sponge baths the rest of the time). I think the rest of the world has little concept of drought!

What makes me sad though is the waste here. There are no water recycling plans (they're -thinking- about it). True, the land is unsuitable for domestic farming on the most part - but alternatives aren't really pushed; I guess most people don't want to eat roo as part of their diet. There is talk that it's El Nino and not global warming but really; there is a natural cycle and then there is totally fucked.

Drought is part of the natural cycle - but it shouldn't and didn't happen this often. In my life time we've seemed to bounce chaos like from one season of drought to the next, only years apart. At least here it's still green - living in the most fertile part of this country has it's plus sides. But it's very, very sad.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Do you sense in the people around you a similar attitude to how things are, i.e. that it's sad the state things have reached and something has to change. Is there, in other words, a possibility of a green revolution in Australia (despite the government)?

[sor-eye-ah.livejournal.com]

Some, but not many. General mentality is a hard thing. Most people aren't sensetive enough to notice small changes and aren't strong enough to stand up and voice something iabout it.

Eg: I have a teacher at school about is about 5 months pregnant now. She came in the other day with -freshly dyed hair-. You don't EVER dye your hair if you're pregnant! I just looked at her, stunned. "You dyed your hair!!?" she just shrugged and said "hey, it's not proven."

It may not be proven, and even if it is, so many people won't listen to it. And that is what you're working with.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Depressing news (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/31102006/325/australia-rejects-climate-report.html)

[sor-eye-ah.livejournal.com]

That's the exact kind of thing I'm talking about. Howard is a fucking Grandpa and very, quote, behind the times. He seems to think that kissing the ass of the USA will do all kinds of good. Like most countries Australia has a choice of many leaders and they all suck, badly.

Sign the agreement you IDIOT! Then withdraw all trade and touristic agreements with the countries that won't. Gah. There are two things I've always wanted to do that idiot man.

1. Send him my brother for a couple of weeks.
2. Steal his job.

He's got no balls and doesn't represent Australians on ANY level. Most Aussies would gladly stand up, tell the USA we think they're a pathetic bunch of fuckwits and we don't want anything to do with their old fashioned, uneducated ideals. I mean - Australia may be little but we can scream damn loud if we need to.

Next step . . . Same sex marriages *wishful thinking*

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking along the same terms, with relation to Brasil. When America started fingerprinting every Brasilian (and other international travellers) that went into their country, Brasil responded in kind by doing the same to every American tourist. We have just re-elected a socialist president (responsible for distancing ourselves from a lot of neocon crap in South America) and I hope he takes things further by placing Brasil directly opposite from America's stance on the environment.

[sor-eye-ah.livejournal.com]

I wish Australia would too. I wish we'd do a lot of things. We have the support, the resources, the money, the people to stand on our own. I see Australia as a bit of a teenager, unsure of itself and trying to get the rest of the gang to like her. So she'll do anything to fit in, instead of thinking for herself, listening to her people and saying 'no, we're doing things a different way'.

Fitting in creates little good. It makes you into a sheep. Aus isn't about sheep; it's about incredible, unique animals that have learnt to co-exist on this fragile continent. I look at what white settlement has done to this place and i feel so sick, and so over-run with guilt. It makes me happy to leave because sometimes I don't think I belong here (and I'm not alone in that.)

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I've met plenty of people from Australia and New Zealand, over here as well as in Canada, who feel the same. My reasons for leaving Brasil were similar, in the sense that I never felt I could be 100% happy as a gay man there, so I gave up on that culture for a society that is more liberal and supportive for Kevin & I.