If we can Save the Banks, We can Save the World. ~ Greta Thunberg During Elizabeth Warren’s segment on the CNN Climate Forum on Wednesday, September 4, 2019, Chris Cuomo asked her whether the government should dictate the kinds of light bulbs and straws we use. It was typical of mass-media-pundit questions, which so often … More Light Bulbs and Straws vs. Human Survival
Can we get there from here? That is an open question. It all depends on what we do, and if we do. So far, we have done almost nothing in comparison with what we must do to retain a livable world into the Anthropocene. Overwhelming evidence on global warming and its effects destabilizing the key … More Getting Real: How to Constrain Climate Chaos for a Livable World
The idea of an Earth Manifesto reaches way beyond “normal politics.” The pressures that diverse interest groups place on democratic institutions drive politics. Right? Well, that is what the power elites that dominate political institutions have claimed for a long time. Nevertheless, politicians feel the power of great wealth and giant corporations every day. The … More Earth Manifesto, any time soon?
The debate over whether or not it is too late to “save the planet” from the human industrial-consumer juggernaut misunderstands the issue of the role of humanity and our future into the Anthropocene. An important flaw in the thinking of traditional “environmentalists” is that they partake in the errors of the culture they seek to … More To Live and Die in the Anthropocene
Sustainable This, Sustainable That; Green This, Green That. What exactly is the point? The “sustainability” meme seems to have gone culturally viral. Promoters use it to give any action or proposal at all a sheen of environmental respectability. But what does it actually mean? I am afraid that “sustainability” has come to mean nothing at … More The Sustainability Conundrum
~ Another entry in the Mad Jubilado series ~ Palpable fear, justified if misdirected anger, and xenophobic demagoguery have Trumped American democracy, even in its degraded form within the corporate state. With the powerful influence of the fossil-fuel industry, largely through Koch-brothers’ and similar front groups, neo-fascists and white supremacists have penetrated the U.S. politics and that of … More Overcoming Trumpery and the Technosphere
Acknowledging the Climate Emergency opens one up to all sorts of intellectual struggles with a reality that confounds even great minds. The industrialized nations and most of their intellectuals seem either unwilling or unable to face the magnitude of the hard facts. They do not know how to take action to ameliorate the immediate and … More Two Views of the Climate Emergency: David Wallace-Wells and Bill McKibben
It is as sad as it is fascinating to observe the complete disconnect between the assumptions behind current emerging trade wars and those behind the current pretensions of nations to taking climate action. On the one hand, news reports of steps taken on either side in the escalation of Trump’s trade war with China assume … More Trade Wars and Climate Chaos
The term “resilience” has become a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it projects the idea of humanity being able to do what we must to survive long term by changing human behavior. On the other hand, too many perceive the term to mean only our ability to adapt to conditions of life as they … More Resilience Redux: Revisiting Mitigation and Adaptation as Climate Chaos, Ecosystem Collapse, and Extinctions Accelerate
Trust. Who do you know that you know you can always trust? How much does it matter to you? Do you trust your money to buy today’s value next year? Probably not. You know that several presidents have taken “executive action” to tweak the official calculation of inflation to make it look smaller than the … More Cascading Consequences of Terminating Trust
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 