The Sky Really Is Falling
Article by Chris Hedges. What do our eco-inclined readers make of this?
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The rapid and terrifying acceleration of global warming, which is disfiguring the ecosystem at a swifter pace than even the gloomiest scientific studies predicted a few years ago, has been confronted by the power elite with two kinds of self-delusion. There are those, many of whom hold elected office, who dismiss the science and empirical evidence as false. There are others who accept the science surrounding global warming but insist that the human species can adapt. Our only salvation—the rapid dismantling of the fossil fuel industry—is ignored by both groups. And we will be led, unless we build popular resistance movements and carry out sustained acts of civil disobedience, toward collective self-annihilation by dimwitted pied pipers and fools.
Those who concede that the planet is warming but insist we can learn to live with it are perhaps more dangerous than the buffoons who decide to shut their eyes. It is horrifying enough that the House of Representatives voted 240-184 this spring to defeat a resolution that said that “climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for public health and welfare.” But it is not much of an alternative to trust those who insist we can cope with the effects while continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Horticulturalists are busy planting swamp oaks and sweet gum trees all over Chicago to prepare for weather that will soon resemble that of Baton Rouge. That would be fine if there was a limit to global warming in sight. But without plans to rapidly dismantle the fossil fuel industry, something no one in our corporate state is contemplating, the heat waves of Baton Rouge will be a starting point for a descent that will ultimately make cities like Chicago unlivable. The false promise of human adaptability to global warming is peddled by the polluters’ major front group, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which informed the Environmental Protection Agency that “populations can acclimatize to warmer climates via a range of behavioral, physiological, and technological adaptations.” This bizarre theory of adaptability has been embraced by the Obama administration as it prepares to exploit the natural resources in the Arctic. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced recently that melting of sea ice “will result in more shipping, fishing and tourism, and the possibility to develop newly accessible oil and gas reserves.” Now that’s something to look forward to.
Tuesday 31 May 2011 12:34 pm
Yes it will kill us the concentrations of greenhouse gasses are estimated to hit 1000 ppm or something like that by the end of the century. I don’t worry too much I’m convinced that the fossil fuel industry has no future.1) only finite quantities exist, and 2) within the next 30-40 years science, technology, research and development will prove oil, gas and coal to be nothing more than transitional sources of energy.
Tuesday 31 May 2011 12:38 pm
RJ,
What’s your take on Peak Oil?
Tuesday 31 May 2011 6:33 pm
I think that dismantling the state would drastically cut fossil fuel consumption, at least in personal automobiles and the trucking industry. The amount of energy we consume driving on and maintaining our vast freeway and street systems is down right ridiculous. Without those subsidies, we’d be living in Traditional Cities, probably.
http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2011/050111.html
City dwellers use far less energy per capita than suburbanites. I think if we focused on saving people money by creating highly energy efficient, aesthetically pleasing and fun urban environments then we’d be taking a huge step toward cutting green house gas emissions.
I’m all for no growth economics and living a happy, fulfilled life rather than reaching for what we can’t afford, anyway.
http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2009/041909.html
Tuesday 31 May 2011 10:34 pm
I see Peak Oil as a major exploit but at the same time I can’t come to understand crude oil as a possible infinite resource. Solar power, geothermal, tidal, wind, these are truly infinite resources. Now this is not to say that I agree with the peak oil theory. I wouldn’t believe the elites if they told me today was Tuesday. So how can I not be skeptical of the given rates of global petroleum production. I agree that if more refineries were built and different resources were tapped, oil prices would drop dramatically. OPEC supports the argument for peak oil because if people believe there’s not enough oil no one will want to invest in building refineries, and so OPEC and the oil elites stay at large. But I also think there are western elites who are very much interested in bankrupting OPEC and integrating renewable clean muscle technologies *if* they can find a way to equally benefit from it.
So I disagree with the left that the world is literally on the verge of running out of oil–but agree on most whoas of the fossil fuel industry and that crude oil is probably not an infinite resource. I think the Right is correct to say that peak oil allows elites to create artificial scarcity and drive the prices through the roof but I disagree with the Right’s idea of maximum production as a complete “myth.” If it were, peak oil wouldn’t work. Just like the state, the idea of the state is not a total myth, the state works in many areas. But this is not to say that things wouldn’t work without the state.
I should probably note that I am much more frustrated with the Right’s reaction to peak oil (“coal is great!”) and this bizarre belief in unlimited future production of oil supplemented by dog-eat-dog global conglomerate style capitalism and sympathy for filthy production.
Wednesday 1 June 2011 3:24 am
maximum extracton* as a complete myth, sorry about that
“I think that dismantling the state would drastically cut fossil fuel consumption, at least in personal automobiles and the trucking industry. The amount of energy we consume driving on and maintaining our vast freeway and street systems is down right ridiculous.”
@vince, Have you seen this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-16-ships-create-pollution-cars-world.html – 16 supertankers create as much pollution as all the cars in the world. Even more disturbing is the fact that transpo does not top the list of state-capitalism’s most devastating operations to the environment.
Wednesday 1 June 2011 4:42 am
The author of the New World Economics site has an interesting hypothesis: as you pack people into urban environments they spend more money on “experiences” and less money on useless crap because A.) Square footage to store stuff, warehouse stuff, and shelf space for stuff is expensive in the city and B.) urban environments are a lot of fun. So you end up walking to the corner restaurant to eat dinner with friends, where the most expensive inputs are non fossil fuel burners such as the chef’s skills and the pleasant atmosphere, rather than drive to Wal Mart and by a plastic piece of crap made on the other side of the world. Complete speculation on his part, but it makes sense to me.
I also wonder how much of trans oceanic shipping is due to backwards economic policy. Like minimum wage and welfare in this country which basically ensures the poor remain out of work and no minimum wage and no welfare in SE Asia, where all of our manufacturing jobs are going.