The planet will not be saved as much as we try to ‘green up’ our lives, no. This is not pessimism, this is number theory: big change needs big action, and unfortunately, by this I don’t mean a big-hearted action. If we want real results, its quantity not quality. Quality is by definition small and non-numerous, but it is quantative change that is required to reverse a problem caused by quantativeness in the first place: unhindered growth and economic greed.
Am I sounding a bit gloomy? I feel I am, but I wish someone would tell me it's otherwise. Of course, our green revolutionaries, and our moderate sympathisers must carry on in their quest, but will they not just be like Zen monks who exist solely as self-sacrificial beacons, who become idols for millions of devotees in centuries to come (if indeed this earth lasts that long), and objects of shrines, dotage and empty religion which these sheep-like masses will pay lip service to and aggrandize all their lives, maybe even fight wars over, but never truly embody the values of?
Hmmm. Maybe we need a new empty ‘green religion’. If the majority of people are not inclined to thoughtfulness, why not just be green out of stupidity?
8 comments:
I feel I am, but I wish someone would tell me it's otherwise.
Well if you read Bjørn Lomborg he will...
I don't deny for a second that there's a problem (unlike Lomborg), I just wish there was a solution that didn't involve mass change because, unfortunately, the majority of human beings don't like to think, and so any mass change would have to be blind.
Well to be fair he doesn't deny there's a problem as such, more that it's more efficient for countries to deal with the effects of it. For example in Bangladesh where global warming causes mass flooding tackling the causes of the global warming i.e. stopping industrialization would be harmful to the economic welfare of Bangladeshi people (who let's face it aren't exactly the richest of people), instead it would be better for them to build flood defences and continue with their industrialiasation even though this would cause global warming.
Here'something I learnt the other day, having a baby in the developed world is 30-300 times more damaging to the enviroment that having one in the developing world. In the spirit of offsetting ones carbons footprint perhaps people that chose to have babies in the developed wprld should pay for 300 women in the developing world to have abortions. Admittedly there might be some ethical issues there....
It seems to me the complete wrong way of going about solving any kind of problem- like throwing fuel on the fire. Yes, use temporary measures in the mean-time, but don't drain the resources away from permanent solutions. And no one's advocating de-industrialisation (although that is what some people believe will inevitably happen when the oil runs out)- but what we advocate is thoughtful and sustainable technologies- carbon quotas, and offsetting our footprint through whole lifestyle and attitude changes.
Having a baby doesn't have to have an environmental cost if you just acted resonsibly and frugally in the first place.
Yes but all this sustainable living and offsetting ones carbon footprint are all very well if you're middle class. If you're poor it's hard enough to survive.
living an environmentally responsible lifestyle has nothing to do with spending money- in fact, if anything, it saves you money. I'm talking about simple lifestlye changes (walking more instead of using the car, going on less long-haul holidays, watching less tv, using less electricity, buying things second-hand, recycling, you name it)- these things don't cost a thing. I can manage these things, and I don't have any money, in fact, people may think I manage them because I don't have any money.
But whilst those things are all very laudable do you think they make a real difference?
They are laudable in and of themselves, even if just one person were to do it. A good action has weight beyond its existential outcomes.
But back to the pressing issues of climate change and environmental disaster, any change to the cataclysmic course of the current state of world will require mass global upheaval and individual change on a very large scale. This is the crux of my post here- how can we achieve mass conscientious change in a world where the masses are sheep, unless we get them not to adopt conscientious change but simply to adopt blind change instead? Far from being an ideal remedy, will the end not justify the means?
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