Discuss: The Consolations of Extinction

A Way Not to Go?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6146160026172748084&q=what+a+way+to+go

For the first time, I am noticing the loss of extirpated species of many kinds but, mercifully, seeing some of them in my dreams and others as apparitions in daytime reveries.

Human-driven, massive biodiversity loss, for example, appears more clearly now as a direct product of hubris.

Dear Jon B,

Once human intelligence and ingenuity are employed to address rather than to avoid the real global challenges of our times, then many good things will begin to occur.  In the meantime, perhaps three questions are timely.

How are we to see that the patently unsustainable economic expansion and unlimited big business growth of global human enterprise which are based upon a “grow or die mentality” are taking humankind down a primrose path to massive species extinction?

When will we hear from the global thinkers and appointed experts in science with a capacity for clear vision, coherence of mind and intellectual honesty among us who understand the following words of Ozymandias:

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

AND are able to communicate the best available scientific evidence concerning the predicament posed to humanity by itself?

Where are the world leaders who are capable of exhibiting the vision, courage and political will to remake the world?

Always,

Steve

Hi Steven,

Human ingenuity and intelligence is the answer? Well, I don’t know, those positives are always in opposition to human stupidity and unthinking group think.

I think in terms of historic trends. Humanity has had its’ ups and downs, high violence/low violence, dark ages/enlightenment, tyranny/freedom, etc. But as well, trends transcend even humanity. We’ve had species rise and fall, domination/extinction and humans are only the last in the those trends with no guarantee of eternal dominion over other forms of life.

Would I blame humanity if we should somehow fail to run the world (as if we really do that) in good stead? No, not really. Accidents can happen, unintended consequences can result, unforeseen problems erupt, no one knows the future. If it wasn’t for a meteor dinosaurs might still dominate and mammals would still be nothing but rat-like creatures hoping to evolve.

Leaders? I’m not big on depending on the hierarchies of humanity. If anything, our stumbling into a possible disastrous future might be best blamed on leaders. It’s leaders that have started all the wars, told us how we should live, approved the systems we have to live under. History is full of examples of leaders that lead us over cliffs, even if the “followers” didn’t wish to follow.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not really as pessimistic as I might sound. I tend to view the history of humanity as one long story. Every day is simply another page in that story that I can’t wait to read. I’m fairly certain I won’t be alive if that long story has a final page revealing an ending, but the book is still a good read. The current chapter has the drama of a life form trying to accommodate its’ mass to its’ rapidly changing environment.

Dear Jon B,

If it is all right to do so, I want to inject several questions for discussion at this point. Your consideration of them is appreciated. Your comments and those of others are welcome.

If they please you, the questions follow.

1) Who among the living can know that a particular species, even the human species, is doomed? How is it possible for any one of us to have certain knowledge of such a thing? If we choose to believe such a thing and act as we are now, does species extinction not become a self-fulfilling prophecy?

2) Is silence other than golden? Is the deafening silence we hear (i.e., elective mutism) somehow useful to humankind or does it simply provide things that are regarded as temporarily golden by the few among us who are wealthy and powerful, the ones who have mortgaged the future of our children and, in effect, forsaken them?

3) Would it make sense to make a case in the strongest possible terms for a human being’s “duty to warn” humanity of whatsoever dangers appear to loom before us and, by so doing, begin the vital process of acknowledging, addressing and overcoming actual challenges to a good enough future for our children and coming generations?

Sincerely,

Steve

well Steve…

1) Where do you figure I said our species is doomed? I said there is “no guarantee,” hardly a bold prediction of our future.

2) I hear voices out there, it’s not total silence. But, certainly there is a sort of complacency from the public. Yet, historically Americans have repeatedly fallen into the trap of inaction. Again, there is that rise and fall of a collective nation, sometimes power is wielded by the elites without challenge and other times that power has been spoken to, truth to power. The question is whether the cards have been stacked against any type of challenge in our dilapidated democracy.

3) Certainly there should be an effort to change the course. Warnings? Well, there have been plenty of historical Chicken Littles, and not all of them have been correct, note the repeated warnings of a Biblical Revelations slamming our nation, these have been predicted since even before the Revolutionary War.

Look at the reactions towards Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth.” Plenty of people accept it as truth, yet many others attack both the message and the messenger. There are scientists who believe that global warming’s tipping point has already occurred and that there is little humanity can do. There are those who believe that it isn’t even human induced, but just a natural cycle. Given several of those opinions, there are going to be plenty of people who won’t feel obliged to do anything.

You can’t blame the elites on inaction without also blaming all of our society. Americans will do almost anything to maintain a suburban car culture, even if it comes to an obvious point that cars might have to become obsolete. Nothing drastic is going to be done here in the US until it becomes overwhelmingly obvious that drastic is the only answer.

There are an awful lot of Americans that are comfortable with the lifestyle that has become the norm. And vast numbers of Americans will not volunteer to be the first on the block (or even the second, third, thirtieth, etc.) to give up that norm…even if they fully believe that the norm is wrong.

There are vast numbers of Americans who are authoritarians, they follow their leaders and plenty of those leaders will not have anything to do with changing our way of life for some vague promise that global warming is real and that humanity can somehow control it by actions.

Put me more in the camp of “global warming has already tipped and that we can’t have much effect.” Unless…something drastic happens beyond our control, say, a major worldwide epidemic that depletes our population, thereby changing habits quickly.

But it is hard to root for massive death, so I try to do my small but truly insignificant steps on my own. My energy usage footprint is certainly smaller than most people here in the US, but compared to plenty of people in less developed parts of the world, I’m an energy hog. I’m stuck in the society I was given.

I vote for progressive candidates (when available). I usually vote nearly all Green Party, but they don’t win. I’ve marched in protests against the Iraq War, it still goes on. I’m not stupid, I see an apathetic electorate, but I still try. Maybe the tide will turn, but I’m not betting my clothes on it.

Dear Jon B.

You have read something more and different into what I have been reporting than I meant to communicate. In any case, no offense was intended. 

Please know that I appreciate what you are saying and doing.  At least to me, we appear to be virtually complete agreement about the formidable challenges before humanity as well as their potentially profound implications for the future of life as we know it on Earth. 

Where we might differ just a bit has to do with our separate estimations of the readiness, willingness and ability of humankind to save the world for coming generations.

The tide is already turning….. and I am one who believes we are making a difference.  Also, I am one of the people who is betting my life on the favorable results derived directly from our efforts.

Sincerely,

Steve

Cokinos poses the dilemna each of us faces on a daily basis. He has resovlved it for himself in a creative, meaningful way. I don’t think I can imprve on it. We need to remember the importance of communal festivals and enjoyment, the “ecstasy” of “getting out of oneself.” Consumer “culture” rests on individuals consuming more and more stuff, and bigger. It would be a huge blow to consumer culture (and the present system we’re enthralled to or tied to) if we started enyoying ourselves, communally. In that act of enjoyment, the futility of competitive consumerism would be revealed, and we could get down to the real business of living, once the world fell apart. The seeds planted in the 60’s may yet bear new fruit. I say, bring on the music and lets dance. Who can resist the beat? We can do more to save the world by having a good time of it, than by grieving and cursing the water-wasters. And, if it turns out to be unsalvageable, at least we’d have had a good time.