We all hate imperialism, right?

[GliderGuider]

How about ecological imperialism? How much do we hate it, how are we working to stop it? Hell, do we even know what the term means?

Here are a few excerpts from an interview with Derrick Jensen, a man who has been fighting ecological imperialism for a long time now. He has some insights and some advice that I think are worth a thought or two, whether you agree with his perspective or not.

'We Need to Stop This Culture Before It Kills the Planet' - A conversation with Derrick Jensen

I try to be fairly inclusive of the people I would work with, but I’ve realized over the past many years that I’m not working toward the same goals as many of the environmentalists who are explicitly working to save capitalism or to save civilization, rather than the real world. In talks and interviews I often ask what all of the so-called solutions to global warming or the murder of the oceans, or biodiversity crash, etc, all have in common. And what they all have in common is that they all take industrial capitalism as a given, and the natural world as that which must conform to industrial capitalism. That is literally insane, in terms of being out of touch with physical reality. I mean, look at Lester Brown’s Plan B 4.0 to Save Civilization. What does he want to save? Could he be any more explicit? He wants to save civilization. But civilization is killing the planet. It’s like writing a book about how to save a serial killer who is murdering so many people he’s running out of victims. We see this attitude all the time. When people, for example, ask how we can stop global warming, they’re not asking how we can stop global warming; they’re asking how we can stop global warming without changing the physical conditions (burning oil and gas, deforestation, industrial agriculture, and so on) that lead to global warming. And the answer to that question is that you can’t. Likewise, when they ask how we can save salmon, they aren’t really asking how we can save salmon, they’re asking how we can save salmon without removing dams, stopping industrial logging, stopping industrial agriculture, stopping industrial fishing, stopping the murder of the oceans, stopping global warming, and so on.

So much nature writing, social change theory, and environmental philosophy are at best irrelevant, and more often harmful in that they do not question human supremacism (or for that matter white supremacism, or male supremacism). They often do not question imperialism, including ecological imperialism. So often I feel like so many of them still want the goodies that come from imperialism (including ecological imperialism and sexual imperialism) far more than they want for these forms of imperialism to stop. And since the violence of imperialism is structural—inherent to the process—you can’t realistically expect imperialism to stop being violent just because you call it “green” or just because you wish with all your might.

So how do you start? The problems are so huge! Well, the way I started as an activist was the result of the smartest thing I ever did. When I was in my mid-20s I realized I wasn’t paying enough for gasoline (in terms of including any of the ecological costs, etc), so for every dollar I spent on gas I would donate a dollar to an environmental organization (never a national or international organization, but rather local grassroots organizations), but since I didn’t have any money I would instead pay myself $5/hour to do activist work, whether it is writing letters to the editor or participating in demonstrations. My first demos were anti-fur demos and anti-circus demos. And don’t let your perceived ignorance stop you: I had no idea what exactly was wrong with circuses, but I knew they were exploitative of nonhuman animals and so I showed up, and other people handed me signs. If anyone asked me, What’s wrong with circuses? I just pointed them to the person standing next to me. I went from there to other forms of activism, including filing timber sale appeals, and so on. The point is that I started. At the time it cost $10 to fill my tank with gas, and if I filled it once a week, that meant two hours per week. And I started having so much fun with the activism that I stopped keeping track of how many hours I was doing activism, and just did it. But the important thing is that I got off my butt and started doing something.

What will it take for the planet to survive? The eradication of industrial civilization. Industrial civilization is functionally, systematically incompatible with life. The good news is that industrial civilization is in the process of collapsing. The bad news is that it is taking down too much of the planet with it.

More nuance at the link.

[phantom power]

1. I guess I half agree.

I don't see industrial civilization as incompatible with life. Or, at least, I think our biosphere and planet can support an industrial civilization of some maximum size sustainably.

I do 100% agree that viewing our civilization and economy as anything but dependent on the biosphere is not reality-based, and is leading us to catastrophe.

[GliderGuider]

2. I half-agree too, but with a different half.

I agree with Jensen that industrial civilization is incompatible with life. I don't think that there is any level of industrial civilization that is truly sustainable. What I don't agree with is his position that personal action is pointless - I think that personal and small-community action is the only kind worth taking.

• Industrial civilization is created and supported by institutions that have a vested interest in its continuation, at virtually any cost.
  
• Since industrial civilization is intrinsically unsustainable, this means that it will inevitably collapse.
  
• Any effort spent on trying to prevent that collapse is pointless, misguided and serves only to prolong its death throes and the continued destruction of the natural world.
  
• Any effort spent trying to bring it down will be met with massive resistance from its guardians institutions.
  
• If collapse is inevitable, adapting to that change is the only sensible approach.
  
• We cannot count on the institutions of civilization to help us adapt to this change - it's simply not in their interest to do that. Even worse, they can't even comprehend the idea.
  
• That leaves individuals and small communities (aka tribes) as the only historically proven agents of adaptation.

[jwirr]

3. Whole heartedly agree. To just let things slide is fatalism and guarantees

we fail. I prefer taking action especially locally to giving up.

[pscot]

4. I agree with Jensen

The system is collapsing, but not rapidly enought to save the planet. Where we disagree is in believing there's much an individual can accomplish to hasten the process. Osama bin Laden has had more success in that line than anyone. He managed to drive an American president over the edge, and made a large contribution to the ultimate bankruptcy of the U.S. But there are almost 7 billion of us now. Momentum has taken over. We aren't driving the train any more.

[joshcryer]

5. Can't believe I'm reccing a Jensen post...

...wow.

[GliderGuider]

6. Funny!

I'd completely given up on Jensen a year or two ago as well. I'm not sure who has changed - him or us?

[joshcryer]

7. I rec'd it more for your commentary than anything.

I'm still pro-civilization. ;)

I just like the environmental imperialism argument.

[Nederland]

8. I have to take the contrarian view here

The real danger IMHO is not that industrial civilization is doomed, but that industrial civilization is here to stay no matter what the ecological cost. While I firmly believe that industrial civilization will not collapse anytime in the next couple of centuries, I do NOT believe that is will necessarily create a world that I care to live in. We may see in our lifetimes the destruction of much of what I personally find beautiful about this planet. Given that possibility, I think it is important to make sure that certain paths are chosen over others. For example, oil is running out, and our response to that reality will determine much. Will we give up on oil early, or will we delay the inevitable by making use of destructive tar sands oil and drilling everywhere we possibly can? As oil gets more expensive, battery powered cars will become the norm. Will they be charged by clean energy sources, or electricity produced from coal? The answer to those questions are what concerns me.

Implied in the above paragraph is the idea that industrial civilization will continue on, the only question is what type of planet it inhabits. I recognize that my belief that industrial civilization is not doomed is a minority one here. However, I simply do not see the mechanism whereby it will collapse. The current population of the industrialized world lives in societies whose populations are shrinking, not growing. How is a shrinking population unsustainable? Let's perform a thought experiment. Imagine that the entire population of the non-industrialize world disappears. What would cause the collapse of the remaining economies? Lack of food? No, the industrialized world already grows far more food than it needs on less than one third of the world's available farmland. Lack of water? No, the planet's oceans make water is one of the most abundant molecules on the planet, all you need to do is take the salt out of it. Lack of energy? While the disappearance of oil may cause a temporary slowdown in economic activity, eventually alternatives will be developed to take it's place. Yes, the price of food, water and energy may increase in the future, and the percentage of the industrial world's labor that goes into producing those things may increase, but those events do not represent an existential threat to the existence of the industrial world. Less than 10% of the world's economic activity today goes to producing food, water and the energy needed to produce them. The vast majority of our time and resources goes into into completely unnecessary activities and products. The idea that someday the cost of food, water, and energy will exceed our ability to pay for them is ridiculous.

Many here seem to believe that at some point "justice" will prevail and the people and societies that are spoiling the environment of the planet will eventually pay a price for their actions. This is naive. There is no reckoning coming round the corner. Industrial civilization is perfectly capable of laying waste to the planet and then continuing on. Yes, the price of food may triple, and billions in the developing world die as a result, but virtually no-one in the industrial world will. Yes, we may run out of oil, start driving battery powered cars and level every mountain top in West Virgina for the coal to power them, but will the people in NYC even notice? Every time I hear someone claim that industrial society is doomed I scratch my head in wonder. I think that perhaps many find the reality of what our planet will look like too difficult to contemplate and prefer to believe that somehow the planet will step in and put an end to it all. I'm sorry, but that is the plot to the movie Avatar. In the real world earth corporations would have nuked the Na'vi out of existence and taken whatever they wanted.

[NNadir]

9. The assumption that he is helping the environment by paying himself to write letters is, um,

a little self-serving, is it not?

People are, um, reading his writings on a computer which is being used to make sure that everyone knows how noble he is about "smashing industrial capitalism."

One of the things I like about bacteria, is that when they exhaust their resources by becoming too successful, none of them announce that they are the noblest bacteria of them all, because they have refused to divide as much as other bacteria.

It seems to me a little glib. The conundrum is that anyone who is widely diseminating about our need to abjure our consumerist selves and live in a sack cloth, is, um, probably not living in a sack cloth.