Questions Nov 2-4

GND -190

• The big question today, Nov.4, is of course: how do you feel? And how does the climate future look to you now?
• Are you ever called a "spoiled tree hugger who lacks a proper cause," or the like? What is (or would be) your response? 150
• Were you aware of carbon offsets as a form of "green colonialism" and "green human rights abuses"? Should carbon offsets be repudiated entirely? 152
• Do you agree that war, poverty, racism, and the climate crisis, and their remedies, are interconnected? 153
•  What's the best way to confront and counter stereotyping, "othering," and "orientalism"? 155

• Why don't we hear so much anymore about mountaintop removal? 156
• COMMENT: "Growth is our religion, our way of life." 158
• Is it a form of essentialism that lets capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy "off the hook" to label this era the Anthropocene? 158-9
• Is it enough to think seven generations ahead, to be a "good ancestor"? 

It's time for humankind to recognize a disturbing truth: we have colonized the future. In wealthy countries, especially, we treat it like a distant colonial outpost where we can freely dump ecological damage and technological risk as if there was nobody there... It could be hard to grasp the scale of this injustice, so look at it this way: There are 7.7 billion people alive today. That's just a tiny fraction of the estimated 100 billion people who have lived and died over the past 50,000 years. But both of these are vastly outnumbered by the nearly seven trillion people who will be born over the next 50,000 years, assuming current birth rates stabilize. In the next two centuries alone, tens of billions of people will be born, amongst them, all your grandchildren, and their grandchildren and the friends and communities on whom they'll depend. How will all these future generations look back on us and the legacy we're leaving for them? ...over the past decade, a global movement has started to emerge of people committed to decolonizing the future and extending our time horizons towards a longer now. This movement is still fragmented and as yet has no name. I think of its pioneers as time rebels. They can be found at work in Japan's visionary Future Design movement, which aims to overcome the short-term cycles that dominate politics by drawing on the principle of seventh generation decision making practiced by many Native Americans communities...How is it that other species have learned to survive and thrive for 10,000 generations or more? Well, it's by taking care of the place that would take care of their offspring, by living within the ecosystem in which they're embedded, by knowing not to foul the nest, which is what humans have been doing with devastating effects at an ever-increasing pace and scale over the past century... (transcript)

• Any COMMENT on the "aridity line," the "brutal landscape of the climate crisis"? 162
• COMMENT (with respect to the Paris Accords "lie," the "sacrifice zone mentality, and xenophobia generally):  "Home is everywhere on this planet." 165-168
• Do you like Klein's definition of a green job? 179
• Do you like Klein's reply to the charge that the Leap (or the GND) is too ambitious? 180
• When Klein says "attempts to sever [indigenous] relationships to the land were so systematic," including schools and missionaries, does this imply to you a deliberate conspiracy or an just an unacknowledged and unexamined prejudice? 189 

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GND -148

• Do the risks associated with any of the geoengineering ideas mentioned by Klein seem acceptable to you? 105
• At what point in the next decade should we decide that it's too late to "change our behavior"? 109
• Have we yet reached a point at which you think your being a "citizen" may soon require you to be arrested? 112
• What kinds of "radical and immediate de-growth strategies" have a chance of working in the US? 115
• How will we know that the current climate movement has become a "revolution"? 118

• Klein says the climate crisis was hatched at the end of the 80s, but wasn't it already on the horizon at the beginning of the 70s with the first Earth Day etc.? What do you think prevented the earlier ecology movement from forestalling the era of deregulated capitalism? 120
• Is there any way to free ourselves from being "trapped in the forever now" of social media (without actually giving up social media)? 121
• What part does shopping play in forming our/your identity, community, and self-expression? 122
• Is our culture still moving too fast for us to appreciate the urgency of climate action? 123
• Do you attempt to discover the "abusive conditions under which [your] clothing and gadgets were manufactured," or do you try not to think about it? 126
  
• Do you plan eventually to "stop somewhere" and really get to know it as your "homeplace"? 127-8

The concept of limitlessness is a fantasy, and so is the notion that we can have limitless economic growth. The concepts of enough and plenty have been replaced with “all you can get” and “all you can make.” The Thought of Limits in a Prodigal Age

"We don't have a right to ask whether we're going to succeed or not. The only thing we have a right to ask is, what's the right thing to do?"

• Any comment on "Germany's energy transition"? 130
• Is New York City on track to reach its 2025 climate goals?
• Do you agree that you cannot do anything, as an "atomized individual," to change the world? 132-3
• Have you supported a CSA program? What was your experience with it? 134
• "Think globally and act locally": is that wrong? 135
• Are all humans equally capable of "conversion," ecological or otherwise? 137f.
• Revisiting the question of "stewardship," do you agree that it's more rooted in duty than in passion and love? 142-3
• What does intersectionality mean to you? 148

Can you Blame Boomers? Look at the "Information" they were getting Fed...

Do you blame all "boomers," whether captains of industry or mere consumers, for not doing more to avert the present situation?

    I think most blame should go to the captains of industry back in the day using advertising and PR to push propaganda that was soley for advanceing corporate interests at the expense of human health  (tobacco, Fossil Fuels, unsafe cars, cancer-causing chemicals, etc.).  Its can be easy to place blame on all boomers, but we have to remember that we are living in an unprecedented age of information access.  My parents were early boomers, and at that time knowledge of the world came from very few sources.  You could listen to the radio, watch one of three channels on TV, read the newspaper, go to the library, talk to someone face to face or on the phone, or write them a letter.  (If you were really fancy you had a World Book Encyclopedia set at home, so your kids wouldn’t have to keep going to the library all the time for school projects.)  

    Half of these sources of information were heavily dominated by corporations through advertising revenue, and for a while, direct sponsorship of programing like “Chevron Hall of Stars”, “General Electric Theater” (hosted by Actor Ronald Reagan none the less) or “DuPont Show of the Month”.  It was more than just product placement, stars and actors would have to talk directly to the camera at commercial breaks and shill products like cigarettes or tout the scientific frontiers that chemical companies were exploring to make “life easier and the future brighter”.  

    I think some boomers didn’t “care to know” but the majority just weren’t informed of the environmental toll that their way of life was taking on the earth, due to direct misinformation campaigns designed to protect profits, and by the time people started questioning the narrative it was too ingrained in society.  And its not like propaganda and purposeful misinformation ever went away, corporations do these same things every day, but it’s up to our generation to not fall for the well-oiled corporate propaganda machine.

10/29 this post

10/29 comment on Levi’s “Soma: Ignorance is Bliss... Right?”

10/29 comment on Tanner’s “Is Kim Stanley Robinson right this time, about inevitability?”

Weekly total 5

Grand total 50?

Are We Ready?

"Young people are ready for this kind of deep change" (52) -- But are enough of you ready?

Yes. Young people, as a whole, recognize that there is a problem, which is a great first step. However, there is certainly a divide in how us young people view our ability to fix these problems. Of course, there are some of us who don't think climate change is a fixable problem, or who don't think it is a big deal at all (I think they're likely in the minority). In contrast, there are lots of young people who are eager to jump in the fight, or perhaps already have. Somewhere in the middle, many young people are hoping for change but are unsure whether their efforts really mean anything. This is the category where I suspect most young people fall into. 

The good news is that little bit of hope this generation has indicates both a desire for something different and a belief that it can happen. Are most young people ready for this change? Absolutely. Are we ready to take action? That, I think, is a more complicated question. Many of us are already putting in the work, whether it be through lifestyle changes, advocacy, and/or voting. But the truth is, our generation won't be significantly represented in powerful political positions for many years. I am glad that AOC is where she is because I feel she is not only a representative of her district but for many young people concerned about the climate crisis, as well. Before we know it, more and more of us will be in these leadership positions too.

My wish is that between now and then, we won't let chronic disappointment erase that sense of hope and passion we have for meaningful change. It is also important that we don't wait until we represent the majority in leadership to work on these goals—for now, let's keep focusing on what we CAN do. Fortunately, I do think that enough of us are ready for change, and willing to work for it too!

--

Weekly Summary:

10/29 Posted this Blog!

10/27 Comment on “Questions Oct 26-28”

10/27 Comment on “Questions Oct 26-28”

Grand Total: 47

Can't Opt Out: Rawls and Climate Denialists

This post was inspired by the DQ: What would John Rawls say about climate denialists whose position is "core to his or her identity?"

Before answering the question, allow me to give you a brief overview of John Rawls' ideology (Note: all citations for Rawls can be found here on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).  Essentially, Rawls strives for reflective equilibrium, or the idea that each belief held by an individual must cohere with the rests.  There is a trickle-down effect where abstract interpretations of the world determine our convictions, which, in turn, determine our judgements/actions.  The traditional example (given by the Encyclopedia) is that the abstract belief that "all citizens are free and equal" leads to the conviction of "all citizens have basic rights," which leads one to believe that "slavery is bad."  Each idea is compatible and coherent with the rest.  

Appalachian Trail somewhere along the TN/NC border

A friendly reminder that the world is still beautiful

Stemming from this background, Rawls assumes that all individuals are rational and reasonable (since each individual would be employing rigorous intellectual activity necessary to reach reflective equilibrium).  He argues that if each individual was able to set aside their personality/beliefs/experience and operate from behind a "Veil of Ignorance" we would be able to agree upon certain principals.  Essentially, humanity would be able to construct a concept of justice that is both freestanding and compatible with each individual's belief.  The basic justification he offers is that assuming that we did not know what our life would look like--we could be a prince or a pauper--we would strive to make life as favorable as possible to as many people as possible out of self-interest.  For example, whenever my mother made brownies, whoever cut the brownies picked their piece last.  My siblings and I always sought to make the pieces as even as possible.  If the cutter made one massive piece, they were not likely to get that piece--not only had they not gotten the biggest piece, they had also short-changed themselves into smaller pieces.  Out of rational self-interest we were inclined to divvy up the brownies as equally as possible.  Rawls utilizes a similar mechanism that requires individuals to compromise and find common ground.  For example, a die-hard Yankees fan and a die-hard Red Sox fan can both agree that baseball is their favorite sport.  A die-hard Marvel fan and a die-hard DC fan can both agree that the comic book medium is their favorite genre.  

With a basic understanding of Rawls, we can look at how he would respond to climate denialists.  Ironically, the climate change issue is not the first time diverse personal beliefs have clashed with Rawls' liberalism.  If you want an interesting case study, I would point to Mozert v. Hawkins (1986) where religious fundamentalists objected to various programs in the local schools--most notably, the assigned reading.  Specifically, the families argued that the readings were unbalanced religiously and asked if their kids could be allowed to opt out. PLEASE NOTE: Rawls' theories do not inherently pit "science" against "faith," the Mozert case illustrates an instance where individuals protesting a public initiative because it infringed upon their individual beliefs--don't miss the forest for the trees.  The Mozert case has become a central feature in debates about how far liberal policies may extend.  One faction has argued that the religious opt-out feature violates basic liberal features of reasonable accommodation (by option out, it has been argued that kids are more likely to contribute the ongoing cycle of  religious partisanship).  Others have argued that the religious opt-out is innocent and sends a welcoming message to religious individuals.  

The climate issue can be framed in a similar fashion; however, unlike middle school reading programs, you cannot "opt out" of the environment. According to my understanding of Rawls, he would draw the line between what is optional versus mandatory based upon the distinction of John Locke's harm principle (essentially individuals are free to commit self-regarding acts and other-regarding acts are subject to regulatory oversight).  Certain individuals have beliefs/lifestyles they hold near and dear.  Environmental activists and scientists have accurately identified a crisis and have pushed for public initiatives.  Rawls pushes for accommodations, but we have two factions that are unwilling to give any ground.  Extreme Right Wing conservatives have argued that renewable energy is a trojan horse for UN political agendas.  In contrasts, we have Left Wing activists actively pushing for straws to be banned.  If we are to find common ground that we can build a public initiative compatible, both sides must give in a bit.  

I know this seems counter intuitive since the underlying assumption (at least from what I have seen in this class) has been the environment is dire straights and we need to act now.  No quarter can be given when the future of humanity itself is at stake.  However, has one read through the text of the Green New Deal?  In addition to the drastic environmental/economic initiatives, the GND proposes to fix the following: Stop systemic oppression of marginalized communities (p.6, limes 8-17), overhauling financial investments (p.11, line 1-11), prohibitions against monopolies (p.14, line 8-11), and guaranteeing free health care for all Americans (p. 14, line 12-14).  Each of these policies is commendable, but if the Democrats want the resolution to pass, they will need to pick their battles.  Rebuilding the United State's economy in 10 years will require bipartisan efforts, and Democrats must strategically prioritize a platform that can appeal to all citizens.

In conclusion, what would Rawls say to climate denialists (and climate activists by extension)?  Easy: "get over yourself!"  Big government will be just as ineffectual as big corporations.  If we truly want to whether the storm, we must works towards building a better world the bottom up.  Each individual is entitled to their personal beliefs and convictions.  But as soon as those ideas and convictions move from the realm of self-regarding actions to other-regarding actions, those ideas must be filtered through the Veil of Ignorance to determine whether they are mutually agreeable.  

Sheroes

At this moment in history, I have a hard time not looking up to the people in my own generation as well as those in the generation ahead of me. I feel as if younger generations are going to be the ones who help us get out of this hole we have dug ourselves. Don’t get me wrong; I respect the older generations so much for what they have fought for and what they have put up with over these last few decades. However, I think it is time for older generations to set back, relax, and enjoy the show. Let the younger generations finish what you fought so hard to start. 

That is why people such as Greta and AOC are so important to me. Everyday they continue to prove that it does not matter how young you are, where you come from, what your gender is, we all have an equal opportunity to fight for what we believe and to fight for what is right. Greta was only 15 years old when she began her now famous School Strike for Climate. She has now done over 100 strikes. At just 16 she was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year and attended the UN Climate Action just last year. She is unstoppable and I cannot wait to see what else she accomplishes. 

As for AOC, I also cannot explain how much I look up to her. Just like Greta, she has accomplished so much in such a short period of time. Just two years before becoming the youngest congress woman in history, she was a bartender. Everyday it seems that she is literally being bullied by our president, but that just pushes her to do even more amazing things. There is a certain fire that she has within her that I will forever admire. Both AOC and Greta help to inspire and push so many others around the world to fight and I have faith that they will help lead us to the finish line.

This clip helps demonstrate one of the many reasons why I admire AOC

This tweet is just for fun. I don't really believe in conspiracy theories but I hope that this one is true.

 

Weekly Activity:
    - This post
    - Commented on Tanner’s Post
    - Commented on Savana’s Post
Grand Total: 35

Weekly essay

 Will the Democratic Socialist wing of the Democratic Party continue to grow? 30 Must it cultivate that affiliation in order to be effective in American politics, or has the time come for an effective 3d Party or Independent Party challenge? 

For immediate change it’s gonna have to be the second option. The main problem with this is that it will divide a party in two which will split the vote and effectively hand the reins to the Republican party. This has been done in the past to this effect. The first option is most likely going to be the more difficult, but less risky option because while we won’t be getting as many Progressives like Sanders, we will not be getting more policy dismantling conservatives like Trump. However with this method, the Democrat party has little incentive to appeal to the more liberal base. Thus, we will get more Joe Biden’s. 

I think our best chance for success would be to implement ranked voting. This way voters can vote for more “risky” options and not feel like they are throwing their vote away. For example, you can go to the polls and your three choices are between Sanders, Warren, and Biden. Let’s say Sanders gets the least amount of votes then your first pick would be discarded and now your vote would be for Warren. Assuming that they are the only two candidates left, whoever had the most votes at that point would win. Maine has adapted this new voting policy and I find it ridiculous that this is not implemented in more states. 

Both methods have their pluses and minuses but I think the more safe option is the first option because of that party vote split which would weaken that side. Unless we can implement the ranked voting system, then a third party would be most welcome and probably needed. 

18 TED talks on climate

To fix our climate crisis, we'll need some new, ambitious *and* effective ideas. Here are 18 talks that explore everything from sustainability to growing our own batteries (really!): https://t.co/9HNVmFWhUS
(https://twitter.com/TEDCountdown/status/1321913371936104448?s=02)

Great Barrier Reef: Scientists find reef taller than Empire State Building https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54716546 

Some good news I thought I'd share since it made me happy.

AOC

 I had no previous knowlege of who AOC or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezrevi was prior to this post, so all of my words are a newly grounded assesment of AOC. She is an American politician and representative of the 14th district of New York. This area includes the Bronx, portions of Queens, and parts of Rikers Island. In 2018, previously working as a waitress and newly graduating from college she pulled an election upset against Joe Crowley making her the youngest woman to have ever served in congress at the age of 29. AOC used social media to heart to heart connect with her community, and thier needs, by standing her ground politically by backing medicare for all, the green new deal and by removing U.S immigration enforcement she gained trust and admiration from her people. This is admirable to me yes because of the policys she stands for, but it is more so admirable by seeing the nomological truths of what will become if we do not look towards the future. It is easy to politically live in the moment and think of all of the different ways that you may increase wealth for yourself and the people that endorse you. However, what truly takes courage is by innovatively taking steps that many will not agree with, but in the future may be regaurded as principal understood culture wide truths. I respect that courage more than I respect any policy. "Everything that is done in this world is done by hope" MLK. As human beings all we have to go by with a politicians word is the hope that they will do what they say they will do. We may agree with their policies but if they do not follow through with them all is for nothing. What lies between that ideology is just what MLK said, all that has ever been accomplished has been done through hope. AOC a waitress, taking orders and bussing tables with the perservering thinking that she will be something great one day had that hope and she did it, that is what I admire about her.

Greta Interview

...If they don't listen to and understand and accept the science, then there's really nothing that I can do. There's something much deeper that needs to change them.

Oliver Whang: What might that deeper thing be?

Greta Thunberg: That we live in a post-truth society today, and that we don't care that we have lost empathy. We have stopped caring for each other in a way. We have stopped thinking long-term and sustainable. And that's something that goes much deeper than just climate crisis deniers... (continues)

"I am a scientist"

One of the best ads of this or any election cycle! More scientists please!

(https://twitter.com/billmckibben/status/1309270972009271297?s=02)

The road ahead

We have some open dates ahead. What's your preference? 

Would you like us to identify more texts to read and discuss  as a class on those dates? (I have some ideas, but I'm open to yours as well.) Would any of us like to present final reports on those dates, in lieu of final blog posts later?** Other suggestions? 

In the absence of suggestions, I think we should each find a book, essay, article, video (see TED Talks, for instance), etc., each day, post a short description, and we'll talk about it.

M 9 - GND  -233

W 11 - GND  -291

M 16 - tba [We may wish to add other texts, or present final reports, or...]

W 18 - tba

M 23 - Final blogpost question tba

W 25 - Ed Craig...Last Day of Class

Thanksgiving

DEC
T 8 Final blogpost due (post earlier draft for constructive feedback)

==

** If you wish to choose this option, I leave it to you to select a topic and a style of presentation. Anything you can relate to the kinds of issues we've raised, read about, and discussed is fair game. You can present your thoughts extemporaneously, or read from a prepared text, or put up a blog post and talk us through it, or... 

Mountains, apples, & leaves

 Anyone else need a little moral holiday from the unrelenting parade of politics, electioneering, and environmental apocalypse? I've recently discovered the joys of virtual hiking and leaf-peeping (etc.) via YouTube channels like this one:

 

 

This guy hiked Mt. Marcy in the Adirondacks, where William James overtaxed his heart and hastened his demise. But the view...

Bernie

 Klein's interview with Bernie, as mentioned in class:

Is Kim Stanley Robinson right this time, about inevitability? (See the epigraph)

Kim Stanley Robinson states in the epigraph of On the Burning Case of a Green New Deal, “the future isn’t cast into one inevitable course.” She is claiming that we still have time to dodge “the sixth great mass extinction event in earth history”. I believe she is correct in stating this claim, but everyday it becomes increasingly less likely.

Or current presidential administration seems to have created an even greater schism between red and blue in which we can not even focus on issues like dodging the “sixth great mass extinction event in earth history”. Instead, it has grown into a Democrat versus Republican battle that raises the question, are you with us or against us? If you have not chosen a side, you have no say.

Unfortunately for us, the bare minimum of accepting climate change as real, happened to fall on the blue side of the spectrum, while denial of climate change seems to consume the conservative party. What is even more unfortunate for those of us who want to save our planet is that one of the biggest demographics of our country, white Christians, widely vote republican, not because they necessarily deny climate change, but because they view a republican pro-life stance as more important. I cannot tell you how many people I know only vote red because of this one issue which they attribute to their religion. In my opinion, it is going to be very difficult to grow a prosperous, long enduring planet if we do not start looking at issues as issues, rather than remaining subscribed to a party.

Gaia

 Your Gaia proposal has inspired me, Ed.

LISTEN. It was great Zooming last night with the whole far-flung family, celebrating Older Daughter's 25th birthday. When she was a toddler she once flung coins in the fountain outside the old Davis-Kidd bookstore in Green Hills and wished "we would all be together." And there we were last night, together again though she's in LA and her sister's in the 'boro.

Then the 2020 MLB season ended. For the record, I called it: LA in 6. Was hoping for 7, though. One of their stars was pulled after testing positive for COVID, and then joined the celebration. Unmasked, partly.

Will there be a Spring Training? Hard to see past Nov.3, with the larger fate of the human game so uncertain. I'll still be counting the days 'til pitchers and catchers are supposed to report, starting now. 110...

How many days 'til we can report springtime for Gaia? In Environmental Ethics today we wonder: If the earth is a "living organism" is that metaphorical or literal? Does it matter? What part of the organism are humans?

The first time I taught the course in '06 we read The Revenge of Gaia, James Lovelock's second book exploring his controversial Gaia hypothesis that "Earth functions as a self-regulating system" and "living meta-organism." This view

conceives of the Earth, including the atmosphere, oceans, biosphere and upper layers of rock, as a single living super-organism, regulating its internal environment much as an animal regulates its body temperature and chemical balance. But now, says Lovelock, that organism is sick. It is running a fever born of the combination of a sun whose intensity is slowly growing over millions of years, and an atmosphere whose greenhouse gases have recently spiked due to human activity. Earth will adjust to these stresses, but on time scales measured in the hundreds of millennia. It is already too late, Lovelock says, to prevent the global climate from “flipping” into an entirely new equilibrium state that will leave the tropics uninhabitable, and force migration to the poles. The Revenge of Gaia explains the stress the planetary system is under and how humans are contributing to it, what the consequences will be, and what humanity must do to rescue itself. g'r

Yesterday in CoPhi we were talking about Peter Singer, Michael Pollan, and the ethical/ecological case for veganism. Lovelock: “I think that we reject the evidence that our world is changing because we are still, as that wonderfully wise biologist E. O. Wilson reminded us, tribal carnivores. We are programmed by our inheritance to see other living things as mainly something to eat, and we care more about our national tribe than anything else. We will even give our lives for it and are quite ready to kill other humans in the cruellest of ways for the good of our tribe. We still find alien the concept that we and the rest of life, from bacteria to whales, are parts of the much larger and diverse entity, the living Earth.”

Lovelock turned 101 in July ('The biosphere and I are both in the last 1% of our lives') and celebrated with the paperback release of his new book, The Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence. “The experience of watching your garden grow gives you some idea of how future AI systems will feel when observing human life.” Has he been talking to Ray Kurzweil?
He argues that the anthropocene - the age in which humans acquired planetary-scale technologies - is, after 300 years, coming to an end. A new age - the novacene - has already begun.

New beings will emerge from existing artificial intelligence systems. They will think 10,000 times faster than we do and they will regard us as we now regard plants - as desperately slow acting and thinking creatures. But this will not be the cruel, violent machine takeover of the planet imagined by sci-fi writers and film-makers. These hyper-intelligent beings will be as dependent on the health of the planet as we are. They will need the planetary cooling system of Gaia to defend them from the increasing heat of the sun as much as we do. And Gaia depends on organic life. We will be partners in this project.

It is crucial, Lovelock argues, that the intelligence of Earth survives and prospers. He does not think there are intelligent aliens, so we are the only beings capable of understanding the cosmos. Maybe, he speculates, the novacene could even be the beginning of a process that will finally lead to intelligence suffusing the entire cosmos.

Hmm. “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.” Lovelock is clearly a sort of Humean, reason as slave of the passions etc., but without so many skeptical scruples.

I don't know about the "novacene" and all that, but I do hope I'm still dreaming incredible dreams of the (more-or-less) human/post-human future when I'm in my last 1%. I hope we all are.

And I hope I'm a cheerful centenarian then, too.

Klein's perspective applied in 2020

 I find it fascinating, the escalation of chaos that this year has brought to the American people (really all people but we are particularly damned it seems). In everything presented in the book thus far, Klein's points are only amplified by our country's current status. "Wild West economics is failing the vast majority of people around the world" (83); this is more true now than ever. With a record breaking unemployment rate, grocery stores constantly having shortages of goods, record numbers of evictions, we are seeing our country fail us before our eyes. Helping the planet, as Klein says, is completely antithetical to current capitalism. Corporations will continue to preach that things will be "made right", while 50,000 people were evacuated due to wildfires in California yesterday. The escalation of the climate crisis, on top of a pandemic has caused a world of issues for the Western world. As climate deniers have been saying, as well as Klein supporting the sentiment, climate change can only be approached in an entire new take on our economic and social structure. 

Rosa Luxenburg said "Socialism or Barbarism". I am inclined to agree with this, as it seems Klein is as well. Especially in a time where billionaires collect more billions by the day, we are not in a place to discuss simple regulations or limits on corporate greed. We must eliminate corporations all together. We can either allow people the right to live without slave labor, or we can continue to fall deeper into our own demise.

Weekly points

10/27- Essay, Comment on questions, comment on Patrick's post :p

Blame the Boomers?

Question October 26-28

Do you blame all "boomers," whether captains of industry or mere consumers, for not doing more to avert the present situation? ("You don't learn these things [anthropogenic climate change etc.] in school.... "You sold our future, just for profit!"... "You have failed us all so terribly." 3 )

    I don't think I'd go as far as blaming all boomers for the environmental situation we are currently in. While I feel that they would have had the advantage of controlling this crisis at its start, there are other aspects to think about when considering their liability. For example, maybe the majority of that generation was unaware of the consequences that would arise from their way of life that became increasingly industrial. Back then, being environmentally conscious wasn't something you read about in ads or heard about while protesting. Moreover, there have been numerous studies showing that Boomers are now more eco-conscious than millennials. While their inventions have caused a lot of damage to the environment, our current generation is just as guilty for being consumers of this industry. This is due to the convenience they desire, and it is put as a higher priority compared to being eco-friendly. If people of our generation didn’t take part in the different industries Boomers have created that destroy our environment, they wouldn’t survive, and those industries would die off.

As far as education in school, we can argue it lacks a lot of information that useful to know. From how to do taxes, to learning how to achieve good credit, practical knowledge is kind of abandoned when it comes to public education. Another important lesson is the environment and the impact we have on it. You would think geography and science classes at the least would implement this into their curriculum, but I can’t even remember learning about it.

GAIA – A NAME FOR A MOVEMENT

If the earth is a "living organism" is that metaphorical or literal? Does it matter? What part of the organism are humans? One answer to that question is found in the Gaia hypothesis, which was presented by James Lovelock, a British chemist, in his 1979 book, Gaia. He says that “if you are someone wanting to know for the first time about the idea of Gaia, it is the story of a planet that is alive in the same way that a gene is selfish. It is not the biosphere alone that [does] the regulating [of life on earth] but the whole thing, life, the air, the oceans, and the rocks. The entire surface of the earth including life is a self-regulating entity and this is what I mean by Gaia.… [When I started to write this book] I began more and more to see things through [Gaia’s] eyes and slowly drop off, like an old coat, my loyalty to the humanist Christian belief in the good of mankind as the only thing that matters. I began to see us all as part of the community of living things that unconsciously keep the Earth a comfortable home, and that we human beings have no special rights only obligations to the community of Gaia.”

The idea of Gaia, that the earth is in some sense alive, was initially, and perhaps today, rejected by earth scientists. Lovelock speculates that it is because the idea was born of insight and not from reasoning; that it is irrational. Its basic, rational, idea is now treated under the field of geophysiology, which purges any reference to mystical notions of Gaia the Earth Mother. But this is precisely what appeals to me (as a disciple of Spinoza’s God, a/k/a Nature). I am now studying Parmenides and Plato, and they tell us that true knowledge and understanding can only come from insight. That truth is found in the insight we find in mythology. Loveloch says that the insight he most enjoys is that we humans are as significant for the further evolution of Gaia as were the plants. We, like the first plants, are heavily polluting to the rest of life. This is not an aberration. It is a natural consequence of releasing something as powerful as oxygen or intelligence. We should see that our pollution is much more than combustion products like CO2. Intelligent animals like us also excrete information in its many forms. Perhaps dogma, spam and certainty are among the smog that chokes the world of ideas?

One book that made a strong impact on me was The Power of Myth (1988), a transcription of a series of conversations between journalist Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell (died 1987), the world’s foremost authority on mythology. Campbell said that “the only myth that is going to be worth thinking about in the immediate future is one that is talking about the planet, not the city, not these people, but the planet and everybody on it. That’s my main thought for what the future of myth is going to be.”

‘Climate change’, ‘global warming’ and all the other ways we refer to the crisis facing us are rational concepts that require rational thought to appreciate. We need to have a name with emotional appeal. We need that myth about the planet. I propose we work with Gaia, and the understanding that comes from the insight that reflecting on Her and seeing the world through Her eyes brings.

 Weekly Participation Summary

10/27 This post

10/26 Posted segment of presidential debate  

10/28 Comment on DQ  why do they continue to support policies that favor deep water drilling and extraction?

10/29 Posted Greta Interview

Week Ten Point Total – 5

Ten Week Cumulative Point Total – 50

  

A question for Carolin, perhaps: Why has Germany invested so heavily in renewables? Was there a particular quality of leadership that made that possible there?

Even though I have not voted for her party in the past election, I think Angela Merkel is doing a great job and she is one of the best leaders we have had. She has been in office since 2005 and was elected at the age of fifty-one. Obviously I am bias when it comes to Germany, but this is one of the reasons why I think Donald Trump and also Joe Biden are not good fits for the White House, because they are just very old. Granted, Angela Merkel is now sixty-six, but she is also in the process of giving up her offices after she has been leading a country for 15 years. I think our future will be and has to be green and I do believe Merkels age and her extraordinary leadership skills have been a great help in making Germany one of the top leaders in efforts to become environmentally more sustainable. 

I think the reason we also invested more heavily in renewables is because we saw that it was way more future-oriented and it does not only help our environment but also our economy. This field is giving job opportunities, universities and research centres are involved in making progress as well. Another thing is the public funding, because we do pay a lot of taxes and mostly I have the feeling that they are being used for good things such as this. I also think that there is less of bad blood between parties, which is why there is more support of the government. I can vote for one party to give them more seats, while still supporting and liking the party and the leader that is actually in charge. Another perk of having a multi-party system. 

Of course, not everything is great and we still have a lot to do, to really make a positive long-lasting impact on our environment but I think we are on a good path and leadership skills are definitely very important in this.

Points are in the comments.

Will the Democratic Socialist wing of the Democratic Party continue to grow? 30 Must it cultivate that affiliation in order to be effective in American politics, or has the time come for an effective 3d Party or Independent Party challenge? 

 

Coronavirus has really shifted many people’s political ideologies. I noticed as soon as the pandemic hit, the ideas that were once radically socialist and labeled as communist were suddenly very popular amongst the american people. Things such as universal income, higher minimum wage, and free healthcare are now topics up for debate whereas just a few months ago people were calling Bernie Sanders and AOC fascists for trying to improve the lives of suffering americans. It is unfortunate that it has taken over 200,000 american lives for us to come to the realization that our government is not running as efficiently as it should. Even according to republicans we are now labelled the socialist party and they will compare politicians such as kamala harris to bernie sanders as if they are even comparable in terms of policy. 

Across the country republicans are losing their seats to more and more democrats because the American people are sick of the government that has done nothing for them. This is because the democratic establishment has finally woken up and is actually taking advice from people like Bernie Sanders. The democrats are quickly realizing progressive policies are popular and get people to show up to polls. The Green New Deal was a joke just a few months ago and i doubt anyone thought it would get passed even by democrats, but now it is the foundation for Joe Biden's climate plan. So long as we keep applying pressure and replacing those who are in politics solely for their own gain then we have a good shot at being the country we have always said we are. 

I don’t believe a third party is necessary and would only serve to waste more time in congress/senate. The republican party is growing more and more unpopular, and their representatives know this. This is why the republican party has essentially turned into the Trump party. His base may be small but they are a very loud minority. This is why Trump has the control he does, any republican who goes against Trump is forfeiting their chances for reelection. If we can just get past Donald Trump then I believe the Republican party will be no more, or at least a pathetic shell of what it once was. I have a lot of hope for the country if we can manage beating him and his goons.

Japan commits

Japan – the world's 3rd largest economy – has committed to carbon neutrality by 2050. I applaud PM Yoshihide Suga for his leadership, along with Minister Koizumi, in setting this target. Major countries can achieve ambitious climate goals by seizing clean solutions available now.
(https://twitter.com/algore/status/1320770663779622912?s=02)

Worth Watching - Protect the Oil Industry or the Environment?

 

A burning thing

 LISTEN. Went to see the otherworldly Chihuly at Cheekwood exhibition the other night. Highly recommended, especially when it's not raining. 

 

Chihuly.com

Today in Environmental Ethics we turn to Naomi Klein's On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal. "Delving into topics ranging from the clash between ecological time and our culture of “perpetual now,” to the soaring history of humans changing and evolving rapidly in the face of grave threats, to rising white supremacy and fortressed borders as a form of 'climate barbarism,'" she has Greta's endorsement as "an inspirer of generations.” 

And she endorses Kim Stanley Robinson's rejection of resignation in the face of inevitability. It ain't over 'til it's over. (Go Rays.)

Speaking of Greta and the generations, the stinging chorus of scolding young voices ("You don't learn these things [anthropogenic climate change etc.] in school"..."You sold our future, just for profit!"... "You have failed us all so terribly") should bother all "boomers," whether captains of industry or mere consumers. But of course the Exxons and BPs and Shells have more oil on their hands, and in our oceans. 

"If emissions have to stop, then we must stop the emissions. To me that is black or white," Greta says. 

Klein has authored The Leap Manifesto, calling not for a leap of faith but of conscience and commitment. 

We could live in a country powered entirely by renewable energy, woven together by accessible public transit, in which the jobs and opportunities of this transition are designed to systematically eliminate racial and gender inequality. Caring for one another and caring for the planet could be the economy’s fastest growing sectors. Many more people could have higher wage jobs with fewer work hours, leaving us ample time to enjoy our loved ones and flourish in our communities.

We know that the time for this great transition is short. Climate scientists have told us that this is the decade to take decisive action to prevent catastrophic global warming. That means small steps will no longer get us where we need to go.

Will a Green New Deal take us where we need to go? What's actually in H. Res. 109? 

This resolution calls for the creation of a Green New Deal with the goals of

• achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions;
• establishing millions of high-wage jobs and ensuring economic security for all;
• investing in infrastructure and industry;
• securing clean air and water, climate and community resiliency, healthy food, access to nature, and a sustainable environment for all; and
• promoting justice and equality.

The resolution calls for accomplishment of these goals through a 10-year national mobilization effort. The resolution also enumerates the goals and projects of the mobilization effort, including

• building smart power grids (i.e., power grids that enable customers to reduce their power use during peak demand periods);
• upgrading all existing buildings and constructing new buildings to achieve maximum energy and water efficiency;
• removing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation and agricultural sectors;
• cleaning up existing hazardous waste and abandoned sites;
• ensuring businesspersons are free from unfair competition; and
• providing higher education, high-quality health care, and affordable, safe, and adequate housing to all.

Some call that socialism, and some are sadly incapable of thinking beyond tired old cliches. "How are we going to pay for it?" We're going to pay a far steeper price if we don't leap. We'll pay with tomorrow. 

But won't it be nice to look back, from the other side, and realize how smart it was to be bold?

Do we have a right to be hopeful? With political and ecological fires raging all around, is it irresponsible to imagine a future world radically better than our own? A world without prisons? Of beautiful, green public housing? Of buried border walls? Of healed ecosystems? A world where governments fear the people instead of the other way around?

“A Message From the Future II: The Years of Repair” is an animated short film that dares to dream of a future in which 2020 is a historic turning point, where the lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic and global uprisings against racism drive us to build back a better society in which no one is sacrificed and everyone is essential.

The film is a sequel to the 2019 Emmy-nominated short film “A Message From the Future” with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez... Produced with The Leap, https://theleap.org... Watch Part 1 "A Message from the Future" with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9uTH... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m8YACFJlMg

"Young people are ready for this kind of deep change," I just hope enough of them are ready and willing to vote out the old people who are standing in their way. Early voting here lasts through Thursday, folks.

Today in CoPhi we finish the Little History with Rawls's Veil, Searle's Chinese Room, Turing's Test (and Depp's Transcendence), and Singer's Effective Altruism.

And then we'll begin Susan Neiman's Why Grow Up? She says you're fooling yourself if you think youth is the happiest time of life. Ask Grandfather Philosophy. Enlightened maturity is best, though her hero Kant was more about deserving than actually achieving happiness. We should go for both. You should not have to "renounce your hopes and dreams" to get what you want and need. 

So again: please vote.

AOC + millions

Polls show that a majority of Americans support a #GreenNewDeal

https://t.co/jarBdaZmMo https://t.co/uoxudnW0PU
(https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1319472282885120000?s=02)

#MessageFromTheFuture produced by @NaomiAKlein

Honored to be part of #MessageFromTheFuture produced by @NaomiAKlein. Loved being able to harness my experience & creativity to co-write the film with Avi Lewis. @mollycrabapple illustrations are everything! Hoping all who watch feel affirmed and inspired. https://t.co/bAkeK7o7ht
(https://twitter.com/opalayo/status/1311697971025776641?s=02)

The prequel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9uTH0iprVQ&t=7s

Minority rule is not democracy

"Democracy is supposed to be a game of numbers: The party with the most votes wins. In our political system, however, the majority does not govern," write political scientists Steven Levitsky and @dziblatt https://t.co/7PeyZbczxN

"...Critics of reform assert that counter-majoritarian institutions are essential to liberal democracy. We agree. That’s what the Bill of Rights and judicial review are for: to help ensure that individual liberties and minority rights are protected under majority rule. But disenfranchisement is not a feature of modern liberal democracy. No other established democracy has an Electoral College or makes regular use of the filibuster. And a political system that repeatedly allows a minority party to control the most powerful offices in the country cannot remain legitimate for long."

(https://twitter.com/nytopinion/status/1320383630900924421?s=02)

#1

I was listening to @PodSaveAmerica today, and @JoeBiden opened by saying: "Climate change is the number one issue facing humanity, and it's the number one issue for me."
Yes he'll have to prove it--but that's a new thing for a president to say. Vote!
https://t.co/FfgQXDe0ej
(https://twitter.com/billmckibben/status/1320111591946420224?s=02)

Questions Oct 26-28

M 26 - GND Introduction

• Is Kim Stanley Robinson right this time, about inevitability? (See the epigraph)
• Do you blame all "boomers," whether captains of industry or mere consumers, for not doing more to avert the present situation? ("You don't learn these things [anthropogenic climate change etc.] in school.... "You sold our future, just for profit!"... "You have failed us all so terribly." 3 )
•  Is it time to drop the "grandchildren" rhetoric? 5-6
• Do you admire Greta?
• Is Greta right, "we autistic are the normal ones... if emissions have to stop, then we must stop the emissions. To me that is black or white." 15
• Thoughts on The Leap Manifesto? 
• Thoughts on H. Res. 109, the Green New Deal? 25f.
• Are "ideas about nature's boundlessness" and the perpetual quest for "new new worlds" necessarily bound up with "theories of white and Christian superiority"? 19-20
• Will the Sunrise Movement (22) continue to grow?
• Do we really now have less than ten years? 25
• Do you admire AOC?
• Will the Democratic Socialist wing of the Democratic Party continue to grow? 30 Must it cultivate that affiliation in order to be effective in American politics, or has the time come for an effective 3d Party or Independent Party challenge? 
• Klein advocates "systemic economic and social change" (33). Does that mean reform, internal to a capitalist system, or frank "dismantling" of the system as we know it?
• Will the climate crisis become dire enough, if it "will never feel as menacing as Nazis,"  to make a new WPA attractive enough to voters? 34-5
• A question for Carolin, perhaps: Why has Germany invested so heavily in renewables? Was there a particular quality of leadership that made that possible there? 37
• Is it now really "possible to change all aspects of society on an extremely tight deadline"? 39
• How, besides voting out eco-fascists obviously, should we confront eco-fascism? 40f.
• "Young people are ready for this kind of deep change" (52) -- But are enough of you ready?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fs5I6_wpmg

W 28 - GND -p.103

• If the earth is a "living organism" is that metaphorical or literal? Does it matter? What part of the organism are humans? 54
•  Do most Americans, particularly those living on the Gulf Coast, really believe that oil spills irreparably and permanently diminish those ecosystems? If they do, why do they continue to support policies that favor deep water drilling and extraction? 57
• Is the positive-thinking, motivational culture of American business ("If you knew you could not fail..." etc., 60) intrinsically arrogant and greedy?
• How would Teddy Roosevelt respond to Republicans who think caring about the environment is "for sissies"? 62
• Is it necessarily mythic to call the earth sacred, or spiritual in a naturalistic sense? 67
• Are you surprised or disappointed that Obama chose BP's former chief scientist as undersecretary of energy? 67
• What do you think of the Heartland Institute (and similar organizations) that devote themselves to providing pseudo-scientific platforms for "die-hard denialists" and claim that the climate movement is "suicidal"? 72-3
• What would John Rawls say about climate denialists whose position is "core to his or her identity"? (75)
•  Are progressives who deplore "the perils of unrestrained greed" merely the flip-side of denial? 77
• Is Klein's "inconvenient truth" something she shouldn't so openly acknowledge, or should she embrace and publicize it? 78
• Can there be a policy of "free trade" that does not devolve into a reckless ally of corporate malfeasance?85
• Is our choice between "trashing the system or crashing the planet"? 87