More Cognitive Dissonance, Part Two

 

It is truly saddening to see so many articles which proclaim complete nonsense. The worst part is that so many people are culturally indoctrinated to the point where they cannot see through these false claims. In this particular one, the claim is made that we need to protect nature (true), quote: 

"Our five breakthroughs for nature echo and expand upon those same themes, emphasizing the urgent need to transform our relationship to the natural world on which we ultimately all depend. In a nutshell, here is the handful of headline actions that we are advocating:

• We need to put nature at the heart of decision-making, with governments and the private sector held accountable for making nature a global priority.

• An annual investment of US$500 billion to protect and restore nature is a minimum requirement, with funding diverted from environmentally harmful activities into nature-positive initiatives.

• The communities and local organizations working on the front line of conservation are the ones best placed to address the interrelated biodiversity and climate crises through action at local level, but they need far more support.

• Safeguarding nature is crucial to climate stability and human health, and we need to redouble our efforts to halt the destruction and degradation of these vital life-support systems.

• For far too long, advances in technology have worked to the detriment of nature, but they have enormous untapped potential to support its conservation. Technological innovation is not a silver bullet—and needs to go hand in hand with drastic emissions cuts—but it's a vital weapon in our armory."

The first four ideas I really liked. They make good sense and would definitely help if put into action. The trouble is that the last idea completely wipes out the entire list. Technology and its use is precisely what has brought all these issues to the forefront as being the predicaments we face. Technology use is precisely what supports civilization, the very continuation of which precludes the other four ideas from being executed (along with the drastic emissions cuts mentioned in the last idea). As long as civilization is allowed to continue, biodiversity loss will also continue, and nature (and therefore us, as we are a part of nature) will suffer as a result. Extinction is the outcome; the end result. 

Unfortunately, money itself is actually a claim on future energy, and the only energy that is edible is food. It's going to be extremely difficult to grow food without the biodiversity, climate, and fertile land available to support it. Uh oh....oops!

On a slightly different note regarding cognitive dissonance, William Rees came out with a new article a couple days ago which I have added to my article about ecological overshoot and it offers details on how to turn the economy around into a more localized system for starters. The article is very well-written and explains precisely what ecological overshoot is, why it is a much larger threat than climate change because it actually is CAUSING climate change, and different ideas on what to do about it.

Unfortunately, the article's subtitle is this: What would ‘getting serious’ about the survival of civilization look like? Do you see the denial? There we go again, attempting to save that which cannot be saved - civilization. But his ideas go much further than I have seen before, with mentions of breaking up large cities and redistributing the population into more rural areas. His ideas are MUCH more realistic than most all of today's mainstream ideas. He also rules out one of the mainstream ideas of using non-renewable "renewable" energy here, quote:

"Admit that modern renewables — wind turbines, solar panels, hydrogen — are not renewable, are themselves dependent on fossil fuels and have virtually no possibility of quantitatively replacing fossil fuels even by 2050, if ever."

So, despite the underlying premise to save civilization, Rees does peel away much of the other denial regarding rosy and romantic predictions commonly trotted out in the mainstream media. Admittedly, there will have to be a period of transition, if there is to be a transition. I still have considerable doubts that such a transition will happen due to the kinds of intertwining predicaments and threat multipliers these predicaments pose. Lots of fancy talk about infrastructure improvements, promises of trillions of dollars' worth of improvements, and millions of jobs in this "new" economy are all being thrown around by the politicians in the US (and probably many other countries as well). Unfortunately, these plans will not help much if at all, because they are designed to keep TODAY'S set of living arrangements intact - something which will become impossible within the next decade. The rate of change will overwhelm most infrastructural systems within this same timeframe. Needless to say, these same predicaments will also overwhelm attempts to "save" civilization. The very fabric of society will begin to break down as time moves forward. As I have mentioned many times before in this space, this is due to a lack of agency. 

On a somewhat humorous note, Kevin Hester reminded me of something I wrote many years ago, quote: "The scientifically necessary is politically unfeasible, the politically feasible is scientifically irrelevant."

One of the largest parts of our collective denial is the idea of transformation. Transformation WILL occur, but it will most likely happen much differently from how many people think it will. Much discussion centers around what we "need to do" or "how to accomplish" certain tasks, but almost nobody focuses on the actual change that would bring these ideas into being. There are a few voices here and there mentioning personal change, and this is where it starts. However, that being said, personal change even if accomplished on a massive scale still won't undo the harm caused by our very way of living. Changing our entire economic and governmental systems would require at least a generation if not two, because change happens slowly. Take a look at the length of time required to go from mostly wood-powered energy to coal, then from coal to oil, then from oil to gas. These transformations are STILL in progress today! But one also must look at the facts surrounding personal change too:

Once again, we are reminded of our lack of agency, and that our very mindsets, cultural values, and anthropocentrism are at the heart of our troubles. I find it helpful and grounding to remember the cycle of life, the trajectory we are on, and that what is truly needed is to Live Now!