Kathryn posed the question "Are you of the mindset that, when it comes to addressing the climate crisis, "someone will find a solution" (i.e. in terms of technologies, etc)? Is this on blind faith? Does your belief excuse you from taking actionable change? Is this a moral stance?". I think there are a couple things to address with this topic. Firstly, I think we already have our solution. Of course, the term solution infers that we will go back to before, back 1.5 degrees Celsius, back thousands of square miles of uprooted forests, back several species that are now extinct, back to before. This in itself is not possible. We can begin to assess the issues we have and are worsening, but we will not solve it. The "solution" of sorts is a complete restructuring of how the world operates on a material and on a human level. I hate to be a constant repeating robot, but we know, and have read, who is to blame for the earth's damage. We know who purposefully spread false information to the World Petroleum Congress about the earth's temperatures regulating. We know who these people are, and it isn't working class individuals who have to use gasoline instead of electricity to get to their minimum wage paying job. It's the CEO's, the ones who have the money and the power to affect the entire planet. So, on the surface it seems that I do very little for the environment: I use my car daily, I use plastic bags and access packaging, I do not recycle unless it's immediately convenient. But, my belief is that these issues cannot and will not begin to change at all until our power structures are not controlled simply in the name of money, and thus in the name of fossil fuels. In that regard, I work quite a bit in the name of environmentalism. I am big on spreading information and knowledge, I work to hopefully eventually abolish these systems that lock us into eternal compliance, and thus silence. We will not see change until we have a system that allows it. So no, I do not have blind faith that someone will come save us from our own destruction, but I also do not have blind faith in my recycling a couple cardboard box making any affect on the current state.
Points:
This essay
Comment on Ed's post
Comment on Patrick's post
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I believe holding the systems that regulate our daily life accountable is a form of actionable change! I would posit that simply existing and hoping science makes a grand breakthrough is a form of blind faith, but raging against the machine? Quite the opposite.
ReplyDeleteI, too, believe our answer lies in altering our structures. Namely, like Hope Jahren alluded to, vastly curbing our desire for exponential growth. I've mentioned it before, but I believe we need to follow a model of degrowth.
So, yes, we have the answer we need, and it's been staring us in the face all along: cut ties with our economic model. But in order to do that, the powers that be must be swayed, so it's easier for a lot of people to bank on a miracle cure all that some white coat savant will cook up.
I know I'm always making reading/podcast recommendations, but if anyone is interested, the topic of degrowth is covered in this episode of one of my favorite podcasts: https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-108-how-gdp-fetishism-drives-climate-crisis-and-inequality
DeleteI agree very much with everything you have stated in your post. I would also like to vent and say how infuriating it can be that the main people we should hold accountable for most of this, are the ones who don't even acknowledge what is happening. I am all for having beliefs like you do you, but when your beliefs are harmful to others, such as the CEO's you point out in your post, it is inexcusable.
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