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.

[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.