At some point in the 1980s or 1990s, environmental issues became hopelessly and depressingly politicized. By "politicized," I mean it stopped being acceptable to talk about environmental issues in, for instance, a high-school setting, in the same way that evolution was made into a controversial subject to talk about in many school settings. I'm not sure when I would pinpoint that this politicization really sunk in, but I'd be interested in what those who were around at that point might have to say. By the Republican revolution of 1994 -- around the time I first became aware of something called "politics" -- this seems to have already definitively taken place.
But in the past of couple years, while it has remained fairly partisan, climate change has been rapidly depoliticizing as an issue. Even with a former Democratic vice president as its standard-bearer, it's now acceptable for companies, organizations, and institutions that would never consider taking what they see to be a political stance on an environmental issue -- or any other issue not directly concerning their core business -- to take a stance on climate change.
In my role as a grassroots organizer with a student environmental organization, it has only recently become possible to approach a wide variety of potential coalition partners for the very first time. My organization could never have approached a typical university president to register the school's public opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- but we can and do approach hundreds to work on climate change.
This is phenomenally important in repositioning the environmental movement beyond its role in the '90s as a "special interest." It's an immense boon to anyone trying to figure out how to spark the political moment that could result in good clean-energy legislation getting to the president's desk, and the society-wide coalition that will succeed in getting her or him to sign it.
I'd measure the completion of this depoliticization process to be when primary and secondary schools start including climate change -- and then carbon reductions and clean energy -- in their curricula, assemblies, and more. I'm not talking about when high schools stop teaching kids that there's a scientific climate debate -- I mean when they take the only step a responsible educator could take and ask students to consider this: Now that we have a problem, what are the solutions to this problem?
Obviously, we're not there yet.
The New York Times recently reported that a principal in Colorado was too scared of angry townsfolk to invite a Nobel Laureate to speak on climate at his high school without "balance." (Happily, the reaction from students and parents in this rural ranching town was that this decision was absurd.)
Showings of An Inconvenient Truth at high schools get spiked every once in a while. Every time this happens, it causes a huge local media storm, the people opposing it look like idiots, and the community generally gets closer to agreement that this issue is worth civic consideration. Not far behind will be the community thinking and talking about what can be done on the issue (because it is so simple a high schooler can understand it).
So here's my point: I was recently introduced to a high school student, Taylor Francis, who has become a pro at giving Al Gore's slideshow to packed crowds. For every other high school student (or high school teacher) out there, you don't have to get specially trained to give the Inconvenient Truth slideshow to hundreds of people.
All you have to do is get together some friends (or fellow faculty) at your school, set up a meeting with your principal, and say that you'd really like to have an assembly this semester with a speaker on climate change -- maybe a professor from a local university, or failing that, a school-wide showing of An Inconvenient Truth. If you're in a city where the mayor has signed the Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement, get the mayor to back you up on the fact that climate education is important in your community.
This will force the issue in your community. Will your principal, your school board, and other local opinion leaders in your area stand up on the side of science, community preparedness, doing their part, and being good citizens? Or will they stick with politicization of a threat to human well-being?
When principals and school boards find some guts, or blink, or whatever, and allow lectures and Inconvenient Truth showings to go forward, that'll just be the first step. (The next is to join the Campus Climate Challenge and turn your school into a green school.) But repeating this exercise in rationality is the cleansing process that is going move climate away from being a political issue -- and toward being considered, fully and finally, the civic, human, and humanitarian issue that it is. Class dismissed.
4.5 things I learned at my energy audit
Dirty energy fuels college campuses
Comments
View as Flat
Delay And Deny Posted 12:54 pm
25 Jan 2008
One can imagine the less popular nerd kids actually wanting to investigate the science and discover that there is no link between CO2 and warming. They can quietly send messages on Twitter to suggest there is much folly in Nashville, but in the end, parents are right to want to keep Al Gore and his AGWers out of the schoolyard.
Just Say No -- To Bad Science...
Viva la Climate Resistance!
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 9:16 pm
25 Jan 2008
Worldwide expansion of industrialization activities, unrestrained gigantesque corporatism and unbridled economic globalization present a clear and present danger to humanity and function with regard to Earth's body, ecosystems and limited resources as the equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction, a WMD more powerful than any yet imagined by the human mind.
While I do not think the family of humanity needs to immediately stop these "overgrowth" activities, we could consider limiting the increases of what appears to us, even now, as soon to become unsustainable growth of the manmade global economy.
Sincerely,
Steve
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/
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Nucbuddy Posted 9:30 pm
25 Jan 2008
How could growth of the manmade global economy be, or become, unsustainable?
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 10:58 pm
25 Jan 2008
In all the seriousness of trying to be honest, let me add here: if capitalism (by following the path of socialism) continues to ignore, and the global powerbrokers in Davos this week keep failing to recognize, how the global economy is dependent upon the frangible ecosystems and limited resources of Earth, then I fear the worst.
By that I mean UNBRIDLED capitalism could collapse later in this century, perhaps sooner rather than later, if Earth's ecology is not positively regarded and preserved as THE foundation of all human activities. Without benefit of an adequately functioning, living Earth the status of life as we know it cannot be sustained, can it? Can there be such a thing as healthy manmade economy without a sufficient resource base provided by Earth?
If we keep doing what we are doing now, we will keep getting what we are getting now, will we not? More environmental degradation, more resource dissipation, more people to feed.
Put another way, not seeing that the colossal size of the multi-trillion dollar global economy is soon to become unsustainable in the relatively small, bounded world we inhabit is a misperception; not seeing that increasing per-capita consumption of Earth's limited resources by six billion, soon to be nine billion, people cannot go on much longer, much less forever, is a mistaken impression; and not seeing that absolute global human population numbers, just like the population numbers of other species, cannot increase endlessly, relative to a limited resource base, is a misconception, I suppose.
Perry, while I am content with what you report above, something continues to worry me, something that appears self-evident, clear and simple. Given its huge size and anticipated growth, can the human species behave much longer as an insatiable infant, recklessly sucking the resources from the bosom of Mother Earth?
Human beings inhabit a planet that we seem to wishfully think of, and magically regard, as if 'our' tiny Earth is actually some sort of enormous cornucopia which can constantly fulfill the many desires of the human community.
Surely we can agree that the human species is not like a suckling babe and the Earth not like an endlessly providing teat.
What am I missing? What are y'all seeing?
Sincerely,
Steve
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/
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Nucbuddy Posted 11:24 pm
25 Jan 2008
How so?
Stevenearlsalmony wrote: Can there be such a thing as healthy manmade economy without a sufficient resource base provided by Earth?
I thought I just asked you to explain how there couldn't be. Maybe I should have said, "please." Here goes:
Please explain.
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Nucbuddy Posted 11:44 pm
25 Jan 2008
I am seeing 200 trillion tons of uranium and thorium -- a half-trillion-year supply at current nuclear-electricity generation rates -- and people making useful things (i.e. resources) out of them. I am seeing 1) oxygen and all chemical fuels as regeneratable, 2) food as producible, 3) all waste-products as recyclable, and 4) shelter and social-networking as providable with energy from fission-fuel and requiring neither ecosystem nor any more than negligible amounts of the earth's surface.
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LegumeSam Posted 11:47 pm
25 Jan 2008
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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Nucbuddy Posted 11:59 pm
25 Jan 2008
That is because other species do not create their own resources. Since humans do create their own resources, the conclusion you have drawn -- that human social growth must likewise be limited -- is invalid.
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Nucbuddy Posted 12:03 am
26 Jan 2008
What does fission-fuel have to do with ecosystems? Fission-fuel is not biological.
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kmp Posted 12:10 am
26 Jan 2008
While I am all for "creativity" in the sense of re-arranging Nature's bounty for say, a fabulous meal, a revolutionary painting, a sculpture or a functional pottery bowl, we are but rearranging. We do not make clay, nor plant-based pigments, not the raw materials for a great meal.
We are the 'Boy in the Bubble:' everything we have to work with is in the bubble. We can't get anything else and we can't get rid of what is in the bubble, only change it.
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Nucbuddy Posted 12:21 am
26 Jan 2008
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LegumeSam Posted 12:30 am
26 Jan 2008
No, we don't have a freakin' clue as to "why socialism failed," because we've posed the problem all wrong. Let's clear the air here of echoes of right-wing ideology and try to figure out FIRST what it is that we are calling "socialism," then maybe we can proceed to understand global capitalism a little better, OK?
First off, "socialism" in the Chinese variant didn't "fail," it simply changed its name to "capitalism" and became the world's fastest-growing economy.
Secondly, the "socialism" of the USSR didn't "fail," it was subverted from within. The "socialists" in the USSR had this narrow idea of "socialism" that was tailored to the Cold War: "socialism" was supposed to compete with the capitalist world in, get this, providing its participants with the same sort of alienated consumer society that the capitalist world provided its participants. This, in turn, was subverted by Gorbachev, who wanted economic integration with the capitalist world. (This AFTER the so-called "socialists" put the USSR into serious debt to the capitalist powers-that-be.) Gorbachev then went to the leaders of the G-8, who demanded the immediate privatization of the Soviet Union's assets -- and that's what they got, an internal battle or two later. Read Kees van der Pijl's Global Rivalries from the Cold War to Iraq to find out the full story. Oh, sure, "socialism" was in decline at that time -- it was integrating itself into neoliberal capitalism all the while -- but it only "failed" after it was subverted from within. The Soviet Union, remember, was abolished by Boris Yeltsin's decree.
"Socialism" in its Cuban variant is still around; Cuba is at times acclaimed as the "most sustainable" society in the world.
What's wrong with our picture of "socialism" here is that "socialism," from Lenin through Mao to Gorbachev, was intended as the philosophy of a CONTENDER STATE. Kees van der Pijl talks about what a contender state is, especially in Transnational Classes and International Relations. The capitalist world can be divided into three political entities:
a) the capitalist "core," the state or states with the biggest stake in imperialism. At the beginning of capitalism this was, basically, the United Kingdom; after World War Ii, the "core" mantle was transferred to the United States, with western Europe and Japan in supporting "core" roles.
b) the "peripheries," nations in South America, Africa, Asia etc. which serve as resource bases for the economic imperialism of the "core" nations
c) the "contender states," nations which have decided to devy the core, and which typically employ authoritarian rule to "catch up" in capitalist development with the "core." Contender states include entities like Napoleon's France, the Kaiser's Germany, Hitler's regime, Stalin'e regime, Mao's regime, and so on.
No future socialism (and by this I mean REAL socialism, not "socialism") will adopt the philosophy of a contender state. Circumstances have changed; the world has industrialized, and so there are no longer any nations which have to "catch up" in capitalist development. Thus the whole "contender state" framework is falling apart; maybe nations such as Venezuela, Iran, and China, and Russia can be counted as "contender states" in a trivial sense, as they resist imperialism, but they too are industrialized, and they moreover trade with the "core," if indeed there still is such a thing.
Any future socialism will have before it one, and only one, pressing task: the creation of a global, ecologically sustainable, world society. This is what I mean when I talk of "ecosocialism." My guess is that socialism would have three advantages over capitalism as regards the accomplishment of this task:
a) Ecosocialism means democratic control over important decisions about production, whereas capitalism focuses control over production in the hands of a relatively small, super-rich elite.
b) Ecosocialism can decentralize ultimate say-so over production decisions, whereas capitalism centralizes production through processes of capital accumulation
c) Ecosocialism means willing coordination of people to accomplish goals which can (ideally) be beneficial to all, whereas capitalism offers nothing more than competition between financial entities to profit off of processes of global exploitation.
The idea that "socialism can't happen again" is stuck in the core-versus-contender conflict. Let's get out of the miasma that spurious "realism" casts over our brains, and focus on what sort of political economy we really need in order to deal with abrupt climate change et al.
***
Lastly. I wanted to respond to this comment:
By that I mean UNBRIDLED capitalism could collapse later in this century
Sure, Steve, I agree with you here. But "bridled" capitalism is really no better. Capitalism, in any variant you care to name, is dependent upon the flow of resources from peripheries to cores; when the peripheries are exhausted, capitalism will go down. What you want is an end to capitalism; it will come anyway, as Paul Prew points out in "The 21st Century World Ecosystem":
The question to be asked, really, is whether we proceed with capitalism until we reach an ecological bifurcation point that leaves the habitability of the earth in question for the vast majority of the population, or we reach a social bifurcation point that leads us to a social system of production that is dissipative, nonetheless, but does not threaten the flowing balance of nature.
Prew, see, has the courage to name what he wants. You, however, suggest:
In all the seriousness of trying to be honest, let me add here: if capitalism (by following the path of socialism) continues to ignore, and the global powerbrokers in Davos this week keep failing to recognize, how the global economy is dependent upon the frangible ecosystems and limited resources of Earth, then I fear the worst.
Let's stop asking the foxes if they will be kind and gentle in their governance over the chicken coop, and focus upon what it is WE need. Eh?
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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Erik Hoffner Posted 12:34 am
26 Jan 2008
I think it's way easier these days to bring together folks/groups to discuss something like climate change, and take group action. If I may generalize, campus organizing in the 90s seemed to center largely on anti-war or anti-sweatshops, and those issues remained fairly siloed if broadly popular. Nowadays, folks are willing to draw connections between their own interests or experiences and place them in the context of what society is talking about. I wonder if it's got something to do with the internet, that we all feel more networked now. Certainly seeing the looming climate crisis has motivated a lot of that feeling...we're on a small planet full of a lot of people that need to learn to work together, fast.
Organizing and bringing together unusual coalitions of groups to discuss how to ramp up our mutual work for people and planet synergistically gets easier and easier. It's an ecological worldview coming into activism of late.
When Step it Up got started last January, the Orion Grassroots Network hosted a conference call with Bill McKibben for our 1,100 member organizations, saying that no matter what each of us is working on, from economic justice to water quality, it's time to say something together about the climate and hold a rally, and a huge number of them did so.
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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Nucbuddy Posted 12:36 am
26 Jan 2008
Humans do make clay -- but more importantly, humans gave natural-clay every bit of its current "resourceness", and humans continuously give natural-clay more "resourceness". Natural-clay is more of a resource than it was last week, and more last week than the week before, because humans continuously make it so.
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amazingdrx Posted 12:55 am
26 Jan 2008
The byproducts are rapidly increasing the numbers of genetic diseases, 1600 identified so far, according to Helen Caldicott. The contaminants are filtered out of the environment by life itself and concentrate in the fat near our sex organs, irradiating and mutating our genes.
They certainly have a biological effect! Which is why they ought to be left where nature put them.
And nuclear power ought to come exclusively from the sun and the earth's core, then captured safely with wind, solar, wave, geothermal, biogas and other Earth friendly power systems.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Nucbuddy Posted 1:05 am
26 Jan 2008
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amazingdrx Posted 1:14 am
26 Jan 2008
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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caniscandida Posted 1:41 am
26 Jan 2008
you and Steven have hijacked this thread. Perhaps you are writing about an interesting subject, good for you, I do not know, I do not care, I refuse to read what you two are writing.
Do NOT blame Amazing for doing any "vandalizing"!
As a teacher having long had to deal with students, parents, teachers and politics, I find Nathan's post fascinating and valuable, on an excellent aspect of environmentalist outreach.
It would have been great to hear from science teachers, and others with thoughts on public education in the US. But why in the world should anybody want to plunge into this thread at this point?
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:59 am
26 Jan 2008
But to further distract readers from buddy's favorite topic.
Remember Pat Robertson's campaign to train his acolytes how to take opver local school boards for the "christian" agenda?
This method to grab the attention of school systems back and direct them to a more realistic sphere seems very effective. It exposes local wing nuts and their limboobery to the light of day.
Let the assholes complain, as loudly as possible, it energizes our side.
It would be nice to include evolution too and lies that got us into Iraq. In the run up to this next election, local controversey could help voter turnout and involvement. Ally with local radical teachers to show progressive films on these topics to children. That will enrage the nut wing.
In their own rage, lies their own defeat.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Nucbuddy Posted 2:13 am
26 Jan 2008
There was no discussion of nuclear power here until you brought it up. Why are you vandalizing this thread?
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amazingdrx Posted 2:49 am
26 Jan 2008
"I am seeing 200 trillion tons of uranium and thorium -- a half-trillion-year supply at current nuclear-electricity generation rates"
I am seeing a lot of injection of nuclear nonsense into thread after thread with very little reality mixed in. Gotta introduce some fact based nuclear information to counter it.
Some school presentations from Helen Caldicott maybe? I bet some of her talks are available on video. Let the children find out what past nucleared power folly is doing to their DNA. Some of them might want to become parents someday.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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wiscidea Posted 3:38 am
26 Jan 2008
The problem is NOT that schools should be talking more about climate change solutions or even climate change.
Schools should be covering basic ecological principles, letting students know what we acquire -- really NEED -- from the biological world around us, and tell them what happens to the waste products we release. They can then use this information to reach their own conclusions regarding climate change and perhaps contribute novel approaches to meeting the challenge.
I would thoroughly enjoy teaching such a class -- just the facts, not my own notions regarding how to solve problems -- but I doubt the current politcal environment would cough up money to ensure our national educational curriculum actually lets the next generation know just how important an intact biological world is. It would put an end to short-term economic thinking the the greed sustained by it.
Peace.
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bookerly Posted 4:11 am
26 Jan 2008
Dear LegumeSam,
You state that "Circumstances have changed; the world has industrialized, and so there are no longer any nations which have to "catch up" in capitalist development. Thus the whole "contender state" framework is falling apart; maybe nations such as Venezuela, Iran, and China, and Russia can be counted as "contender states" in a trivial sense, as they resist imperialism, but they too are industrialized, and they moreover trade with the "core," if indeed there still is such a thing."
(You left out India, Brazil and South Africa, was this on purpose?)
Without discussing the notion of "contender states", I do want to point out that it is not true that "Venezuela, Iran, and China, and Russia ........are industrialized", These are huge countries and their growth is uneven. How uneven may be hard to imagine from the US, but very uneven.
And please define what you mean by "industrialized"??
The problem with this comment is it seems to trivialize the difficulties that developing nations are facing on the road to achieving a sustainable reasonably well off society for all of their peoples. My inclination is to believe that this was not your intention, but certainly would like to ask for clarification.
patrick in Beijing
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LegumeSam Posted 4:59 am
26 Jan 2008
As for this idea that "the difficulties that developing nations are facing on the road to achieving a sustainable reasonably well off society for all of their peoples," how do you figure? Capitalist government is, by and large, a compact of the wealthy for their own enrichment, no? Which governments are "on the road to achieving a sustainable reasonably well off society for all of their peoples" today?
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 7:35 am
26 Jan 2008
Every possible bias, rhetorical device and "spin" appears to have been employed to deny the mounting evidence of the potential for impending ecological calamities and economic disasters from the near exponential growth of human numbers worldwide. Recently, good science about the way the world works has been systematically discredited; leading elders of the political economy have consciously conspired to mislead the public by misrepresenting the science and by turning climate science into a "political football" of sorts; ideological groups sponsored by super-rich, large-scale corporate 'citizens' have spread uncertainty and confusion in discussions about the nature of the biophysical world in which we live; and controversy has been manufactured where none would have otherwise existed.
The illusion of meaningful debate has been foisted upon the public by leaders who are evidently intent on "poisoning the well" of public discourse by knowingly and selfishly fostering disinformation campaigns for the purpose of enhancing their own financial interests........come what may for our children, coming generations, global biodiversity, the environment, and the Earth as a fit place for human habitation.
The elder guarantors of a good enough future for the children appear to be leading our kids down a "primrose path" along which the children could unexpectedly be confronted with sudden, potentially colossal threats to human and environmental health that appear to be derived from human-driven, converging global challenges such as pernicious impacts of global warming and climate change, pollution of the air, water and land from microscopic particulates and solid waste, and the reckless dissipation of scarce natural resources. All the while, these leading elders remain in denial of the fulminating ecological degradation by willfully declining to acknowledge, much less begin to address, humanity's emerging, human-induced predicament. One day, perhaps sooner rather than later, our children could have extraordinary difficulties responding ably to that with which they could soon come face to face; that is to say, because their leaders have so adamantly refused to acknowlege God's great gift of the good science of biological and physical reality, our kids will not even know what "hit" them, much less why it is happening.
Please note the concerns I am trying to communicate are expressed much better today by Cameron Smith at the following link.
http://www.thestar.com/Article/297574
As always, your thoughts and those of others are welcome.
Also, Legume Sam and the AmazingDrX have made comments here that are deserving of a response, ones which I will try to make later.
Sincerely,
Steve
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/
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bookerly Posted 11:13 am
26 Jan 2008
Dear LegumeSam,
All capitalist governments are not the same, nor are all governments capitalist in the manner in which you speak. A number of governments proclaim that they are ""on the road to achieving a sustainable reasonably well off society for all of their peoples". (The Chinese government is one, but others also talk about this).
Whether you believe them or not, is another matter (my guess is that you don't believe them!!).
Ecosocialism to be meaningful would have to be a mass movement that arising from the working classes. Don't hear any hue and cry for it.
One of the reasons the left in America failed is that it misread the actual conditions among the masses. So, the revolution it expected never occurred. We have had this discussion before (smile).
While ecosocialism sounds pretty (as does pure anarchism, pure communism, and most other Utopian visions), for it to have any impact on global warming, people need to be organizing NOW!!
The global warming crisis is likely to be solved (or fail to be solved) under the present system(s) of governance (like it or not).
But Utopianism is always nice. Dreamers should be welcome.
patrick in Beijing
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LegumeSam Posted 11:35 am
26 Jan 2008
Now, here you criticized ecosocialism as a form of unrealistic "Utopian vision":
While ecosocialism sounds pretty (as does pure anarchism, pure communism, and most other Utopian visions), for it to have any impact on global warming, people need to be organizing NOW!!
The global warming crisis is likely to be solved (or fail to be solved) under the present system(s) of governance (like it or not).
But Utopianism is always nice. Dreamers should be welcome.
But then, see, you put the question of "Utopian vision" on the table at the beginning of your post.
A number of governments proclaim that they are "on the road to achieving a sustainable reasonably well off society for all of their peoples"
How is this sort of government promise any less a "Utopian vision" than ecosocialism?
In the modern global society, especially in its urban variant, sustainability is far away and a majority are far from being "well off."
An ecosocialist society could end hunger, and far more quickly and sustainably than the current neoliberal version of world-society. I know I would feel safer as a result of such a reform.
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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LegumeSam Posted 11:46 am
26 Jan 2008
The environmentalism of the poor and the environmental justice movement will be the seedbeds of ecosocialism.
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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Backcut Posted 1:09 pm
26 Jan 2008
College professors are the worst about "imprinting" their own morals and ideals on those poor misguided college kids. They'll learn to hate "Freddies" because it's for their own good. Fight the system! Disregard facts from The Establishment!! Screw the MAN!!! Yep, can't let scientific truths get in the way of a charismatic cause!!!!
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
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amphibious Posted 1:33 pm
26 Jan 2008
In the military this attitude is punishable as "dumb insolence", defined as not actually breaking a rule or regulation but acting as if possessed of barely double digit IQ, in defiance.
Nobody could be as pig ignorant as Nucbuddy pretends so there are two possibilities
playing devil's advocate
one of those who permeate all blogs deemed to threaten the current Old World Order.
This person is tagged as a parent - if so you must hate not only your children but descendants, if any.
Be constructive and read the detailed replies others of good will have posted to your niggles.
Or read Rudyard Kipling's short stroy "Pig", it's onlya dozen pages and exemplifies what you are doing.
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JohnMashey Posted 2:31 pm
26 Jan 2008
http://publications.teachernet.gov.uk/default.aspx?PageFu ...
The following 69-pager gave teachers advice on using various subsets of using AIT, planning shot lessons, full days, links to further resources, etc.
http://publications.teachernet.gov.uk/eOrderingDownload/F ...
-John Mashey
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bookerly Posted 2:41 pm
26 Jan 2008
Dear LegumeSam,
The attempts (no one has succeeded yet) to build a sustainable world that creates a reasonable standard of living for all are not "utopian" because they are based on real conditions and are existing on-going struggles. (You might argue that they have no more chance of success than ecosocialism, but then, they are underway.).
The problem with ecosocialism is that lacking a clear blueprint on how to get there, or clear definitions, it is impossible for most of use to discuss.
The difference between "Utopian" and other ideas, is that "Utopian" ideas usually lack clear blueprints. Perhaps that is the nature of the struggle.
Global warming is a crisis beginning to occur now. There isn't (in my mind) time to create anything other than the conditions under which we now find ourselves in order to solve it.
You say that ecosocialism could provide a better solution to global warming. I don't disagree at all with this statement!!!
My problem (as always) is that I don't see either a roadmap nor a crowd heading in that direction, and I don't think we have time to wait for either to appear.
patrick in Beijing
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LegumeSam Posted 10:47 pm
26 Jan 2008
And so is ecosocialism.
The problem with ecosocialism is that lacking a clear blueprint on how to get there, or clear definitions, it is impossible for most of use to discuss.
A global, ecologically sustainable society needs a clear definition?
The difference between "Utopian" and other ideas, is that "Utopian" ideas usually lack clear blueprints. Perhaps that is the nature of the struggle.
Where are the blueprints of the powers-that-be, who fatuously claim to be building a "sustainable" world?
Only fools believe in political promises that "alternative energy" will solve the problem with abrupt climate change, for under capitalism "alternative energy" will merely form a supplement to the 85 million bbls./day of everyday global crude oil consumption. And this is in fact what our politicians are promising us. That's not utopian?
My problem (as always) is that I don't see either a roadmap nor a crowd heading in that direction, and I don't think we have time to wait for either to appear.
I answered this already.
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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LegumeSam Posted 10:52 pm
26 Jan 2008
The almighty corporate-dominated "free market" demands forest sacrifices! How dare we deny it its due!
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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caniscandida Posted 11:22 pm
26 Jan 2008
For old time's sake:
<<
We don't need no education
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.
"Wrong, Do it again!"
"If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you
have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?"
"You! Yes, you behind the bikesheds, stand still laddy!"
>>
The latter quotes are the mean-throated voice-over. I always loved the "meat vs. pudding" issue, to say nothing of imagining what the laddy was doing behind the bikesheds.
From a purely professional point of you, mind you. Being a teacher, I need to know what the young folk are thinking ...
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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amazingdrx Posted 12:19 am
27 Jan 2008
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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wiscidea Posted 12:51 am
27 Jan 2008
This is not just a matter of educating the next generation. It is clear that a majority of adults don't even have enough information for making sound decisions. We can't wait for the perfect society to spontaneously emerge as a wave of new spirtuality and interest in community sweeps around the world.
How can environmentalists persuade voters to fund basic courses covering ecology and, perhaps, persuade those same voters to read at least one book or watch a television show that teaches them a little about ecology?
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Backcut Posted 1:05 am
27 Jan 2008
Let's have more "idealistic dogma-drama". Let's have more eco-censorship! Let's have more "non-violent" elimination of people jobs, lives and happiness. Let's have teachers brainwash our kids into learning that people don't belong in the forests.
I couldn't care less about the lumber mills making money. I care about the forest ecosystems and how the teacher's are telling our kids that it's OK to burn them at high-intensity. I care about people ignoring science and going with the lies and rhetoric. Yep, we can't let science get in the way of eco-fundraising and litigation.
Finally, go and visit our forests.....before they're turned into "natural and beneficial" brushfields.
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
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LegumeSam Posted 1:21 am
27 Jan 2008
Name some names, eh? Who are you talking about? Your "eco" readership should be given a chance to tell you who is, and who isn't, an "eco."
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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LegumeSam Posted 1:35 am
27 Jan 2008
Political realism sacrifices the integrity of ecosystems for a clinging to the "probable" as determined by the pundits.
Whatever one's eco-utopia ideal might be, we're not going to get anywhere near it unless someone figures out how to ensure everyone, young and old, acquires some basic knowledge about ecology, how we benefit from a functioning biological world, and what happens to all the waste we release into the environment.
Sure -- but don't forget the "native" knowledge about ecosystems already possessed by indigenous people who have been managing ecosystems all their lives. The agroecologists are discovering that agroecology, in the sense of the ecological "management" of farms/ gardens, has been around for thousands of years.
It is clear that a majority of adults don't even have enough information for making sound decisions.
Is the problem of ecology a problem of knowledge? Or is it just a matter of belief, that people living in cities actually think of nature as the hidden source of their favorite consumer appliances, because that's what they experience of it? We live on, and in, and with, planet Earth. It's more than our appliance. Abrupt climate change will help transform it into our trash-item.
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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caniscandida Posted 1:56 am
27 Jan 2008
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:58 am
27 Jan 2008
They used to burn it. If logging corporations or their lobbyists and "friends" in government had ever proposed to reduce fire danger by recycling dead wood and slash, maybe they could be trusted.
Maybe if they will do that environmentalists could trust professional forestry policy again. Trust that it isn't just about the corporate bottomline.
Forestry jobs ought to be restored with massive recycling/fire prevention projects, like the old CCC (civilian conservation corps). Instead of 1930s era hard labor, working with modern, earth friendly, safe automated equipment chipping up dead wood for building materials, paper, and biomass.
Strategic fire breaks could be established by cleaning out and recycling dead and dying wood.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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LegumeSam Posted 1:59 am
27 Jan 2008
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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LegumeSam Posted 2:04 am
27 Jan 2008
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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Backcut Posted 2:21 am
27 Jan 2008
Probably not.
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
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Backcut Posted 2:33 am
27 Jan 2008
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
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caniscandida Posted 2:41 am
27 Jan 2008
So yes, education should most definitely be about questioning why society does what it does, and NOT about justifying why society does what it does.
On LA (vs. NYC): Well, there you are.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:08 am
27 Jan 2008
Socialist government run forestry jobs! Ahhhh!
Funding forest management with the products, wood chips and energy and salvage logs from forest cleanup. All to prevent fire.
Americans being legally payed by government. No illegal contractors. No ducking out of cleanup by corporate logging. Actual revenue stream and clean kwh and soil amendment from the forest. leaving healthy trees to grow.
With some of the biodigested chip slurry injected into the ground with seedlings. That's real CCC type stuff. Just use modern equipment.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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wiscidea Posted 4:40 am
27 Jan 2008
Let's stop assuming that humans living in relatively wild areas have some special knowledge about how to care for the environment. Humans EVERYWHERE have dramatically altered ecosystems by hunting animals to extinction or setting fires to improve areas for hunting, foraging for berries, or just have a better view of the surrounding terrain.
Let's also stop assuming that people moving beyond urban areas are bent on destroying the natural world, turn into ultra-conservatives, and sever their connections to human communities or even reality.
Let's stop assuming that only a highly educated class of folks know what's best for everyone on the Earth.
Let's stop assuming that our relatively short lives on the Earth, exposure to only a small number of the 6 billion people currently alive, and limited exploration -- enough for really understanding an area -- of only a small fraction of the Earth entitles us to confidently tell everyone else how to live.
The first human to drop to the ground and wander out on to the savanna changed the Earth forever. I do not believe in "original sin", but it is pretty clear that everyone has "harmed" the world, some folks know more about the biological world, others know far less, and most of us continue -- because we really prefer to maintain a comfortable lifestyle -- to "harm" the world. I realize there are exceptions and I apologize if someone reading this is offended... as an exception, please continue to inspire the rest of us.
From the most dense urban island to the most remote regions of Earth, there are human beings who don't give a damn about conservation of natural resources and there are human beings who focus their entire lives on caring for the biological world.
How do we create more of the latter EVERYWHERE?
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Backcut Posted 5:33 am
27 Jan 2008
History will show that this was the last gasp dying forests like the Bitterroot and the San Bernardino. These Forests have reached their final destructive phase. All that is left for them is for catastrophic fire to incinerate those remnant ecosystems. So much will be lost and it will never return to what it once was.
Which forests will be next? It looks like Colorado's forests are very close to complete collapse, as well. The National Forests of the Sierra Nevada are at that tipping point for more massive dieoffs and raging wildfires. Eastern Oregon is ripe for firestorms. The drought in the South will surely impact their pine forests.
I see VERY limited options, especially with Forest Service budgets. Can anyone put forth an economically-feasible plan for every National Forest?? In California, that biomass just doesn't "pay its way out of the woods". Those projects have to be embedded within commercial thinning projects that are desperately needed, as well. Forest management isn't a one-size-fits-all thing. You all should reconsider the complexity of such things.
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
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bookerly Posted 7:30 am
27 Jan 2008
Legume Sam says "As I suggested above, the seedbeds of ecosocialism are the environmentalism of the poor, the environmental justice movement, the movement for community gardens, and so on. The movement need not be fully formed, or united, as of the present moment."
This is a solution for global warming?? Not really. (And btw, I have been involved in the latter two movements (such as they are)).
Ultimately, this is another distractor, more "business as usual", more "pie in the sky by and by".
The environmentalism of the poor is great, I support it. It involves very small numbers of people worldwide, and will soon be engulfed by the fight for survival during massive climate change. I wish otherwise, but really, there is little possibility of otherwise (smile).
The environmental justice movement is also great (which is not "one" movement, but rather the name given to a wide variety of peoples and organizations fighting for justice and the environment), but is also small, underfunded and always struggling just to survive. In fifty years, able to take on the global powers? Maybe.
But unless white environmentalists (I am talking about America, since that seems to be the real focus here (smile)) find a way to deal with issues of race and class (no signs so far), it is unlikely to be powerful enough to address the issue of global warming in the timeframes required.
The movement for community gardens?? Great people, but are you kidding me?? As a force for some kind of ecosocialism?? Not even close.
So, what we have finally, is either the present system or nothing. Which is not how I would like the world to be, but is reality.
Global Warming needs to be addressed in the short term future, or we are all f***k*d (to quote David Roberts).
Waiting for some idealistic imagined Utopian future to solve the problem only makes things worse.
Ecosocialism thus becomes part of the problem, not part of the solution. Too bad.
patrick in Beijing
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Kif Scheuer Posted 8:42 am
27 Jan 2008
So far the response has been great. At least some school are not afraid to tackle this issue head on with our young ones.
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Kif Scheuer Posted 8:45 am
27 Jan 2008
So far the response has been great. At least some are not afraid to tackle the issue.
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LegumeSam Posted 9:43 am
27 Jan 2008
This is just blather, or to quote the vitriolic skills of the great Patrick, "Ultimately, this is another distractor, more "business as usual", more "pie in the sky by and by."
You aren't going to get the capitalists, nor the political elites in their pay, to do what needs to be done about abrupt climate change. And that is, to quote the vitriolic skills of the great Patrick, "not how I would like the world to be, but is reality." They've already discussed this at Davos, in just the terms we've presented here, and come up with nothing. But keep dreaming.
Global Warming needs to be addressed in the short term future, or we are all f***k*d (to quote David Roberts).
Love the passive tense here. "Global Warming" needs to be addressed by someone else, therefore it's not my job.
Waiting for some idealistic imagined Utopian future
Get bent, Patrick. Nobody here is "waiting" and you know it, yet you had to drag out this boring old straw man.
If you are REALLY going to reduce fossil fuel consumption, then production of necessities needs to be localized, thus reducing fossil-fuel-consuming long-distance traffic. That's what community garden people do. Yeah, we're only waiting.
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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bookerly Posted 4:18 pm
27 Jan 2008
Dear LegumeSam,
Didn't we have this discussion a couple of years ago?
I admire community garden people, some of my good friends in the states are involved in community gardens. There is nothing bad about them. But they are not widespread enough to make a major difference in modern life at this point (nor in the near term future which is when we have to confront global warming).
Nor are community gardens going to move us towards ecosocialism. Most of the people involved in them have no such political bent. Which I suspect you know.
What do I do about global warming? Hmmm, I am a carless bike riding vegetarian, and I tell people why. I debate here. I include information about it in my teaching plans. I work with scientists on various projects related to environmental issues. Is it enough? Hell, no. Am I going to solve global warming? Hell no.
It is going to require concerted efforts by governments, business, other insitutions as well as individuals to get over the hump. And not to forget, we will add probably another 1/3 to the worlds population.
Can we afford to gamble on some vague promise of a Utopian ideal (which only a very few people are even discussing) to solve a problem which is coming up quickly?
You say that is the only solution, I say it won't happen.
All the name calling (except the umm "great" part, but I suspect that this is sarcastic (ROFLMAO), and I have been called worse) won't change the reality.
Which is not to say that people should not work on community gardens, environmental justice, and fighting for an environmentalism of the poor. But global warming will require mobilization and agreement across society (as much as we can achieve).
At least in my opinion.
So, there you have it. Best of luck with your work, despite our disagreements.
patrick in Beijing
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amphibious Posted 7:48 pm
27 Jan 2008
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caniscandida Posted 10:24 pm
27 Jan 2008
Philosophy is figuring out how they relate.
Be not mean. Very many of the people who live in cities are in fact immigrants from non-city places. That is one of the many wondrous beauties of city life, that we come from all over, and have all sorts of terrific ideas.
New York City is saddened (well, many of us in NYC are saddened) these days by the loss of one of our new citizens, Heath Ledger, an Australian from Perth. By very many accounts, he was a beautifully friendly and kind person.
And that explains what we cities are. We get the best, from everywhere. Not by force. But because the best know, this is where goodness can start.
God bless Heath. God bless us one and all.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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caniscandida Posted 10:30 pm
27 Jan 2008
Rats are beautiful, intelligent, sensitive creatures. They make very good pets. They do not deserve to be used as laboratory subjects, with the presumption that their suffering and pain, their death, matter nothing.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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GreyFlcn Posted 3:02 am
28 Jan 2008
One of the first climate change documentaries I've seen that actually covers Milakovitch cycles.
http://www.history.com/shows.do?action=detail&episode ...
http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B000YKI4MM?showViewp ...
http://www.amazon.com/Global-Warning-History-Channel/dp/B ...
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bookerly Posted 7:49 am
28 Jan 2008
Dear CanisCandida,
Speaking of immigrants, I was just listening to Steve Earle's new song, City of Immigrants.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWnGctWs4JM
patrick in Beijing
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caniscandida Posted 10:02 am
28 Jan 2008
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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Steve Erickson Posted 4:54 pm
28 Jan 2008
Please Backcut, tell me how. I've never gotten a dime for the thousands of hours I've spent enforcing environmental laws. Nada. I have had my charming county commissioners spend over $30,000 on a disinformation campaign trying to incite violence against me. Had to be escorted from hearings by the friendlies and look over my shoulder a lot. But that's no reward. Now, BIG BUCKS SOUNDS MORE LIKE IT. That'd be cool to make Big Bucks. Shoot. I got no pension, unlike lifer forest circus timber planners. Tell me how. Please, please, please. Big Bucks. I can't wait.
Steve E.
Whidbey Environmental Action Network
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Backcut Posted 5:21 pm
28 Jan 2008
All too often, the beneficial parts of the project gets scrapped when injunction hits. For example, in fire salvage, eco's love to stall until the smaller diameter wood is useless. Scientifically-speaking, that is what is most important to remove after a forest fire. Hazard tree removal along main roads are another important task that gets stopped by people like Chad Hanson.
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
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