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The pathos of Derrick Jensen
Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights
Author Derrick Jensen is as rare a person as you will ever meet. He is so keenly attuned to the natural world that he feels every knife cut civilization inflicts on it. With every word he speaks he seems to be saying, “If you could feel the Earth’s pain as I do, you would spend every moment of your existence trying to stop it.”
Before he came to town last week, I had read only some scattered essays by Jensen and had never before seen him speak. At first I tried to take notes. But then I gave up and simply let the wave of pathos emanating from this man wash over me. He was at turns erudite, crude, poetic, caustic, and misty-eyed–as gifted a performer as I have ever seen. But what was his performance about?
He spoke at length about patriarchy, conquest, empire, slavery, wage slavery, cruelty to women, cruelty to minorities, cruelty to indigenous people. He plumbed the depths of the modern psyche, our attachment to machines and their effect on our brains. He talked about the effect of language on perception. Is that a forest full of trees–an oak here, a walnut there, with a black squirrel scurrying around the trunk and a sparrow alighting on a limb–or is it simply lumber waiting to be cut? Sometimes the forest is euphemistically referred to as a “natural resource” by environmentalist and forestry company executive alike.
…As an audience member you are simply following him around as he destroys one notion after another about what constitutes justice, what constitutes truth and what constitutes peace. Jensen is an environmentalist so he must be for peace, right? No, not really, not if you take into account the tremendous violence that modern societies inflict on nature, even while they are at nominal peace with one another. You’ll never overcome that violence by working for peace. You must resist the foundations of civilization, sometimes with violence.
How about justice? Surely, we must share the fruits of civilization more widely with the poor. No, those fruits aren’t worth sharing because they are poisonous. OK, but surely we would be better off by choosing to keep some of the machines brought to us by modern civilization while discarding others that are known to be bad? Those machines are the product of a civilization built on violence and oppression. The violence and oppression are built right into the machines. How will you filter that out?
…He ostensibly came to talk about his latest book, “Endgame.” Can industrial civilization survive? Answer: No. Is there anything we can do to make a gradual transition from industrial civilization to a peaceful, sustainable world? Answer: There is, but we won’t do it.
Are you saying that industrial civilization is so harmful to humans and nonhumans alike that we ought to hasten its inevitable demise? Answer: It is and we should. Won’t a lot of people die if we bring down industrial civilization today? Yes, but a lot more will die if it continues to expand before meeting its inevitable demise…
(9 December 2007)
This crisis demands a reappraisal of who we are and what progress means
George Monbiot, The Guardian
Outdated figures have been hiding the full extent of climate change.
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When you warn people about the dangers of climate change, they call you a saint. When you explain what needs to be done to stop it, they call you a communist. Let me show you why.
…The diplomats who started talks in Bali yesterday should be discussing the complete decarbonisation of the global economy.
It is not impossible. In a previous article I showed how by switching the whole economy over to the use of electricity and by deploying the latest thinking on regional supergrids, grid balancing and energy storage, you could run almost the entire energy system on renewable power. The major exception is flying (don’t expect to see battery-powered jetliners), which suggests that we should be closing rather than opening runways.
… I am not advocating despair. We must confront a challenge that is as great and as pressing as the rise of the Axis powers. Had we thrown up our hands then, as many people are tempted to do today, you would be reading this paper in German. Though the war often seemed impossible to win, when the political will was mobilised strange and implausible things began to happen. The US economy was spun round on a dime in 1942 as civilian manufacturing was switched to military production. The state took on greater powers than it had exercised before. Impossible policies suddenly became achievable.
The real issues in Bali are not technical or economic. The crisis we face demands a profound philosophical discussion, a reappraisal of who we are and what progress means. Debating these matters makes us neither saints nor communists; it shows only that we have understood the science.
(4 December 2007)
Recommended by David Strahan: “Everybody needs to read this.”
Futurism and its Discontents
Jamais Cascio, Open the Future
The deputy editor of the Economist, Robert Cottrell, thinks he knows what I’m up to. Well, me and the myriad other folks working to analyze what the future could hold, in order to make better choices. In “The future of futurology,” Cottrell argues that the only way to have any credibility as a futurist to think small, think short-term, and shut up.
So there you are on the moon, reading The World in 2008 on disposable digital paper and waiting for the videophone to ring. But no rush, because you’re going to live for ever-and if you don’t, there’s a backed-up copy of your brain for downloading to your clone.
Yes? No? Well, that’s how the 21st century looked to some futurologists 40 or 50 years ago, and they’re having a hard time living it down now.
…[Cottrell would] rather that we not worry about what’s down the road, and focus only on the immediate future.
You can still get away (as we do) with predicting trends in the world next year, but push the timeline out much further, and you might as well wear a t-shirt saying “crackpot”.
I’ll keep that in mind next time the Economist prints a story about energy use projections (nearly always going through 2020 or 2030), population projections (2050), or any economic analysis (particularly of climate change) that declares with great certainty the impending financial doom of trying to reduce carbon footprints.
The problem may not be the reach, but the scope. There are fields in which it’s acceptable to talk about timelines far greater than 1-2 years. We regularly see mainstream discussions of very long-term trends in energy and finance (e.g., Social Security) that talk about points in the future still decades away. What doesn’t seem acceptable — at least to Cottrell — is any effort to combine these various narrow projections to look for contradictions or reinforcing systems.
But that’s exactly what a futurist — sorry, TATFist — does.
It’s clear, however, that Cottrell (who actually goes on the speaker circuit as a futurist) has an extremely dated view of what TATF really is all about.
…The larger point is that professional TATF long ago dropped any pretense of offering predictions or prophecies. Single-point predictions are rarely even broadly correct; of greater value are sets of possibilities, offering insights into what kinds of forces are at work shaping how the present becomes the future. For some professionals, this means scenarios; for others, this means mapping. Regardless of the exact methodology, the purpose is to uncover unexpected potential outcomes, allowing strategists and decision-makers to come to more sophisticated and productive conclusions. …
A third piece of advice: say you don’t know. Uncertainty looks smarter than ever before.
This is one rule that I agree with wholeheartedly.
(29 November 2007)
What will we look like in 2050?
America’s climate and energy future
Joseph Romm, Gristmill
… 2010: As the first decade of the 21st century came to a close, the American people turned a historic corner. The growing number of droughts, wildfires, violent storms and other problems persuaded even the deniers that we were experiencing the first dangerous symptoms of global warming. Resource conflicts were growing worldwide as developing and developed nations competed for oil and other finite resources. Now, in wry acknowledgment of the world’s deteriorating condition, a song recorded by the Kingston Trio 50 years ago — “The Merry Minuet” — has climbed to the top of the charts again. Voters are demanding that the president and Congress chart a new course in which economic and ecological security are recognized as interconnected, and continued reliance on nuclear and fossil fuels are regarded as “threat multipliers” for national security.
2020: America’s transition to a clean energy economy is well underway. More than 20 percent of the nation’s electricity now is generated from renewable resources. Due to breakthrough technologies and pressure from Washington, the passenger vehicle fleet averages 50 miles per gallon, on the way to a goal of 200 mpg by mid-century. America has reduced its oil consumption by half and no longer imports petroleum from the Persian Gulf. Because conventional coal-fired power plants were banned 10 years ago, urban air quality and public health — particularly asthma in children — have improved dramatically. Americans have reduced their per capita carbon emissions by half, and greenhouse-gas emissions nationwide have declined 30 percent from their 2010 level.
Everyone now regards energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies as tools of national security. Photovoltaic panels are as critical as M-16s; plug-in hybrids are as important as Hummers. International defense organizations like NATO have become international climate-action collaborations.
On the international scene, the United States has led the development of a “grand deal” in which wealthy nations no longer subsidize fossil energy projects in developing countries — a practice that was motivated by not by altruism but by the desire of rich nations to gain access to energy resources in poorer nation (PDF). Today, international loans and trade policies support energy efficiency and diversified, decentralized renewable energy systems to raise quality of life with simple, decentralized renewable technologies that have democratized energy production.
After the ugly deterioration of its international reputation in the first decade of the century, the United States has earned back enormous good will for using its wealth and talent to help the people of all nations attain decent living standards. Foreign aid for clean energy and water projects is far bigger business than weapons sales. The United States has joined an international “race to the bottom” — i.e., a competition to become virtually carbon-free economies. Terrorist organizations, starved for sanctuary, money and recruits, will not attack the United States, which is regarded as the leading global force for dignity, health and prosperity for the world’s poorest people.
Young people are required to give at least two years to some type of national service in the United States or overseas, and they do so enthusiastically. They are helping communities adapt to climate change, teaching in inner-city schools, setting up emergency response systems, helping build clean energy systems in developing communities. In exchange, the federal government, in partnership with private philanthropies, grants graduates of the program funds for college tuition, home ownership, vocational training, or small business creation.
2030: Rural farms and communities are enjoying unprecedented wealth as the nation’s primary energy suppliers. America has grown, rather than drilled, its way out of energy insecurity. Farms are growing food, fiber, and fuels; practicing conservation tillage to see carbon offsets by keeping carbon sequestered in the soil; and managing forests for carbon sequestration. Solar and wind farms dot the countryside. Bio-refineries are common in rural communities, providing high-quality jobs that have increased the rural tax base and reversed the out-migration of youth.
…2050: Our cities are composed of compact “urban villages”, each a community in its own right with schools, churches, libraries, stores, and other necessary services within a 15-minute walk. Roofs, roads and other paved surfaces are light in color to reduce the “urban heat island” effect. Parks and green spaces are sprinkled throughout the urban villages, further reducing the need for cooling and providing people with places to enjoy natural beauty. Public transit has become so safe, efficient, and appealing that few urban residents own cars. America no longer imports any petroleum and uses virtually no oil.
(3 December 2007)
