July 28,2015
Prophets and \”end of the worlders\” have been predicting our doom since the dawn of civilization…and nothing has happened yet…but somehow, this global warming thang feels different (as everyone is now admitting that their local weather is changing…).
I had the good fortune (or misfortune?) of participating in a CSUN \”think tank\” during which time we read David Klein\’s Capitalism and Climate Change. Fortuitously, David himself took lead of the group and embellished on his research; the unfortunate part was: the future of human life on earth looks very bleak!
We have all heard about global warming: Environmental rhetoric speaks of carbon footprints, acidic oceans, melting polar ice caps, thousands of species becoming extinct daily, and toxic fracking and drilling by oil companies that has \”tipped\” ecosystems on our planet past the point of no return. We appear headed toward raising the average temperature of the earth another 2 degrees centigrade — which, according to David (and a host of other climatologists), spells the doom of the human race.
Most people that I casually quiz about our planetary predicament suggest that they believe that the earth has the ability to \”right itself.\” This is known as the Gaia Hypothesis — which suggests that the Earth is an organism and we humans are the infectious bacteria that have given the planet a mighty fever. The fond hope in the back of everyone\’s mind is: Nature will find a way of reducing this fever.
But we may very well have already gassed Mother Nature out. Drilling for energy releases more methane into the atmosphere than the atmosphere can process — which assists in raising that average temperature (you recall ye olde greenhouse gas effect?). And the oil companies show no signs of slowing down — still trading on oil that has not been mined (futures).
Herein lies the irony of capitalism: for capitalism to work — the product needs an ever expanding consumer base. The resources of the Earth — which are used to fuel the capitalist machines however, are finite (which often makes me wonder why Mars is so important?).
I asked David during one meeting if events like rising sea levels could occur exponentially — what with all this shit going on simultaneously. He felt things were happening in a fairly linear/stepwise fashion. But other scholars disagree with him, suggesting that changes in our environment could happen much more quickly than initially assumed. With approximately two-thirds of the world\’s population living along the Earth\’s coasts — a dramatic rise in sea level would wreak havoc.
There is an additional irony! The switch to less polluting means of creating energy actually adds to current levels of pollution. We still have to manufacture these solar panels, windmills, bio fuels etc. with our current technologies (which pollute). If China is held as the example of industrial pollution run amok — we see a population incarcerated by toxicity! They have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide as their rivers run red. For those who stay behind, and are not used to \”seed\” other countries that still possess the precious natural resources China requires for their continual expansion, why they have to wear breathing masks and put balms on those strange skin irritations.
We will have to wait and see if Mother Nature still has the moxie to cure this bacterial infection we have given Her; or, is this the end?
If I invest in companies manufacturing air purifying breathing masks — might I still enjoy a decade of capitalist high-on-the-hog living?
The Wife says to forget my survivalist machinations — when the shit hits-the-fan (harder than it has already) — it doesn\’t matter if we live an-extra-6-months or-a-year.