Kingsnorth: The new environmentalism: where men must act 'as gods' to save the planet

[GliderGuider]

The new environmentalism: where men must act 'as gods' to save the planet

Hope is certainly in short supply in environmental circles these days. With the failure of yet another global summit to "protect the planet" – this time the Rio+20 Earth summit – a tipping point seems to have been reached. Green activism has achieved a lot in five decades, but it has been unable to prevent the global industrial machine from continuing to destroy wild nature and replace it with human culture. There is no prospect of this changing in the near future, and we are reaching the point now when many prominent greens, having denied this reality for so long, are beginning to admit this in public.

So: what next? One increasingly fashionable answer is offered by a coalescing group which we might call "neo-environmentalists". The resemblance between this group and the neoliberals of the early 70s is intriguing. Like the neoliberals, the neo-environmentalists are attempting to break through the lines of an old orthodoxy which is visibly exhausted and confused. Like the neoliberals, they speak the language of money and power. Like the neoliberals, they cluster around a few key thinktanks: then, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Cato Institute and the Adam Smith Institute; now, the Breakthrough Institute, the Long Now Foundation and the Copenhagen Consensus. Like the neoliberals, they think they have radical solutions.

Neo-environmentalism is a progressive, business-friendly, postmodern take on the environmental dilemma. It dismisses traditional green thinking, with its emphasis on limits and transforming societal values, as naive. New technologies, global capitalism and western-style development are not the problem but the solution. The future lies in enthusiastically embracing biotechnology, synthetic biology, nuclear power, nanotechnology, geo-engineering and anything else new and complex that annoys Greenpeace.

According to the neogreens, growth has no limits. We are, in the words of their spiritual leader, Stewart Brand, "as gods", and must accept our responsibility to manage the planet rationally through powerful technologies guided by science. Wilderness does not exist, "nature" is a human construct, and everything that matters can be measured by science and priced by markets.. Only "romantics" think otherwise.

+1 for the poets and enviro-mystics

[phantom power]

1. I'm not gonna say he's right or wrong, but...

if we're going to be In Charge, then we had better start improving at it faster.

Because, damn.

[GliderGuider]

2. I don't think there is a right or wrong. There's just this or that.

And the reason we suck at being In Control is because we're not. Never have been. We love to imagine we are, though.

Recognizing that "I/We are not In Control" is one of those moments of sublime liberation that people go to ashrams in India or California to discover. We are very fortunate that we have Mother Nature herself teaching us, and environmental collapse on every hand reminding us to listen.

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. So what do you suggest?

...that we all sit passively by and see what happens?

Because any effort that we make, in your philosophy, must, perforce, lead to a bad result.

(Of course, sitting passively will also lead to a bad result.)

[GliderGuider]

5. No, I suggest we sit actively by and see what happens.

Some bad things will happen, and some good things - like always.

Just because we're not in control doesn't mean we can't or "shouldn't" act. It's impossible to live without acting. It's not so useful to think that we control outcomes through our actions, though. IMHO.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. "...It's not so useful to think that we control outcomes through our actions..."

Then there's no point in taking action at all.

How about taking a scientific approach. You know... forming a hypothesis, performing experiments, observing the outcomes... (boldly assuming that the outcomes are somehow a result of the experiments...)

[The2ndWheel]

8. Living life is action

The issue is the expectation of total control. That if we just do it this way, or that way, that we'll get closer to it. That's what we've been doing for however many years/decades/centuries now, and here we are.

[GliderGuider]

9. As The2ndWheel says, life is action - we can't avoid acting.

Science gives us a deep understanding of how things behave, but what we're talking about here is something else. IMO. It's more a question of misinterpreting the nature of cause and effect. When we look at two events apparently linked in time and space, we assume that we are looking at a cause and an effect. This isn't necessarily so, especially at a fundamental level. And it's this failue to internalize the idea that cause and effect are fundamental illusions that causes humans to assume that because we can identify apparent causes and apparent effects that we are "in control" of the transaction between them.

I don't think that's the case at all.

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. Then all is chaos

And yet, this illusion of cause and effect is reinforced on a daily basis.

I personally take many actions each day, with the intention of producing a certain result, and observe that result.

Are they necessarily cause and effect? Perhaps not, however, the odds that they are not seem quite small.

So, let’s assume that they are in fact cause and effect, and act accordingly.

[GliderGuider]

14. Yes all is chaos. But that doesn't prevent it from being orderly at the same time...

I actually prefer holding both positions - that cause and effect is real and that it's illusion - simultaneously, and apply each potential belief to different situations.

For me it's not so much that cause and effect is necessarily an illusion at an operative level. For example, if I want to move something I'll push on it. The deeper question for me is how I react if it doesn't move. Do I spend the rest of my life pushing on it in different ways? Do I find some blame to fix on myself or the object for its lack of motion? Or do I say "It didn't move" and go do something else?

When it comes to pushing on the state of the planet and its coterie of human beings, I'm very inclined to go do something else. It's less stressful to me to change my response than to spend my life in frustration. The state of the world will change no matter what I do - the forces at work out there are far bigger than me, I prefer to make my small contribution and let it flow in with the rest. kind of like pissing into a giant river. I can't hold the river back with my hands, but that doesn't mean my small addition of liquid makes no difference - especially if someone is trying to drink just downstream of me.

The knowledge that C&E is an illusion at the most basic level of reality makes it easier for me to choose not to continue banging my head against the brick wall of my own expectations if reality has other ideas about the outcome.

[OKIsItJustMe]

16. But “Cause and Effect” is not “an illusion at the most basic level of reality”

The most basic level of reality is quantum mechanics, which, while seemingly odd, is orderly. “Cause and Effect” still holds. If it did not, then many of the fundamental technological advances of the last half century or so, would have been impossible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor

[font face=Serif][font size=3]…

A semiconductor has electrical conductivity intermediate in magnitude between that of a conductor and an insulator. Semiconductors differ from metals in their characteristic property of decreasing electrical resistivity with increasing temperature. Semiconductor materials are useful because their behavior can be manipulated by the addition of impurities, known as doping. The comprehensive theory of semiconductors relies on the principles of quantum physics to explain the motions of electrons through a lattice of atoms.

…[/font][/font]

[GliderGuider]

17. Here's an interesting discussion on the topic

http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-4982.html

I agree that yours represents the consensus position of this culture, and suspect that I'm simply moving away from the scientific worldview. I confess to feeling much more at home on the mystical side of the coin these days. As a result we may be discussing two entirely incompatible versions of reality.

[The2ndWheel]

3. We're not going to get better at it

Because we can't take everything into account. The more we do end up taking into account though, the less we find that we can do, if we care about what we've taken into account. If we disregard what we've taken into account, then it makes no difference, and we do whatever. But if we do keep it in the equation, and actually have to work around it, and not force it to conform to only what we want, then the whole human experiment in what we call progress takes a hit.

[appal_jack]

12. We are not 'in-control'

I was once at an Anishanabe (aka Chippewa or Ojibwa) gathering whe every public speech began with something that sounded to me like 'nin-get-a-ma-gess' (apologies to any Native speakers who know how badly I am surely transcribing it). It translates as 'I am humble in the eyes of the Creator.' What an inspiring and relevant perspective to always begin from.

The fools described in the OP are coming from exactly the opposite place, and they will surely fail, doing more damage to the ecosystem the whole while. But they will garner the support of the 1%, who also fancy themselves Gods.

-app

[Amonester]

7. Fuk u - 'nuclear power' - shima!

(Not you, GG)

After all that happened there (Fukushima)??? Really??

Why not "Concentrated Solar Power" (CSP) instead, like in CaSaPlanca?

(Done "intelligently" of course, i.e., with underground turbines and storage tanks.)

[GliderGuider]

15. Sure, why not?

CSP is a lot better idea than stratospheric sulphates (to choose a totally random counterexample)...

I expect that between now and then (for highly variable values of "then&quot we'll try a whole lot of different things. It's what we've always done as a species, after all.

Perhaps humanity's motto should be: "Fix the problem, fuck the consequences!"

[NickB79]

10. Mistake #1

Assuming "21st-century technology = God-like powers".

For all the technological prowess we've mastered, we don't have jack shit on Mother Nature. She has shown us time and again that she can muster enough energy in a common thunderstorm or earthquake to thwart even our most sophisticated attempts to control her.

[RobertEarl]

11. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

According to the neogreens, growth has no limits. We are, in the words of their spiritual leader, Stewart Brand, "as gods", and must accept our responsibility to manage the planet rationally through powerful technologies guided by science.

I won't. But i do understand the mentality. Enviros have been stating the truth for years and we all got beat up pretty bad. And we lost.

So.... for those who can't face the reality, and feel they have to do something, joining in and kissing ass is the only solution. It's not a real world solution, but a personal one. If it makes ya feel good.....