In response to the discussion questions: the World3 report makes logical assumptions and seems to present viable scenarios and solutions, in my opinion. However, the hitch seems to be getting governments and corporations to carry on the work and recommendations of this report. In analyzing our current society and cultural values, I see that the redistribution of resources between the rich and the poor is a major stumbling block to success, because the ‘haves’ do not see fit to share with the ‘have-nots’. There is not sufficient incentive (yet) for us to share.
I am not sure how to guess what might happen except to look at the rise and fall of other great civilizations throughout our recorded history. The rise and fall of the Roman Empire was predicated on abuse of the environmental resources combined with an over-extension of resources spent on its war-machine and the conquering of weaker nations.
I see many parallels with that extinct Roman culture and our own present-day culture, and I often wonder if our current civilization will face the same end. I also see the demand for clean, potable water as one that will soon outpace the Western need for fossil fuels. I can foresee that the last great war of this civilization may be framed around water resources. And given the fact of nuclear proliferation, I hope that we, as a civilization, can figure out how to redistribute the resources, before we suffer a catastrophic nuclear event that forever tips the scale towards irreversible destruction of the planet.
Freeda, I appreciated the information you left for us on this past two weeks of readings. I guess that I am feeling a little bit overwhelmed, when faced with the knowledge of the magnitude of the problems we face, ecologically. I agree that we CAN make personal changes, and influence others to do the same. And cumulatively, this will make a greater difference. This IS heavy stuff! KW
I like what Kathy brought up about the people that have most the wealth sharing with the people that do not have wealth. This is so important for our future because it teaches equality, compassion, and kindness for other living things. Another thing that gave me hope is when I was reading GEO3, and it said the forest is the most complex and self-perpetuating of all ecosystems. It is good to hear the forest can recuperate itself if we stop abusing it. Does anyone else feel the earth is totally amazing and deserves human respect and care?
What do you think of the predictions presented? What do you think might happen?
The GEO3 Outlook 2002-32 forecast offered four different scenarios upon which to base future predictions: Markets First, Policy First, Security First and Sustainability First. I found this very helpful in sorting out the possibilities. It was obvious to me from the readings and from analyzing the graphics and statistical data that a Markets First scenario will cause the most damage to the environment. This is the current administration’s policy. When I read the sentence, “Economic development outweighs social and environmental concerns in most international discussions” (Outlook 324), I immediately thought of Bush and the Kyoto accord. When officially rejecting the treaty, our president said, “The approach taken under the Kyoto protocol would have required the United States to make deep and immediate cuts in our economy to meet an arbitrary target. It would have cost our economy up to $400 billion and we would have lost 4.9 million jobs.” (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/20020214-5.html) It is clear that development and the economy are of far more importance to him and those in power than the environment. In other words, wealth of one nation in the short-term far outweighs health of the planet in the long-term. In my opinion, this is extremely short-sighted and selfish.
Perhaps the scariest scenario of the four was the Security First. I can see a nation of xenophobes, with high walls all around, cut off from the rest of humanity, caring and providing only for themselves and the rest of the world be damned. With affluent groups anxiously patrolling and policing borders, we have the potential of creating “bubbles of wealth” and “islands of prosperity in an ocean of poverty and despair” (Outlook 342). With security of paramount importance to a culture, the “I have mine” mentality tends to overwhelm any sense of shared responsibility for those less fortunate. As Chapter 3 on Human Vulnerability to Environmental Change predicts, developing countries with less capacity to adapt are the ones who are “more vulnerable to environmental threats and global change” (Human Vulnerability 303). That is why all those charts and graphs show Africa and Asia with the highest percentage of risk.
Taking only one adverse implication of the many presented – climate trends – and applying the four various scenarios, we can see from the forecasted predictions that a Markets First policy causes the most damage with respect to carbon dioxide emissions and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, but a Sustainability First policy causes the least amount of damage. In fact, the two graphs on page 351 of Outlook show that a Sustainability First approach would soon begin to stabilize and then reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere in the next 30 years.
Looking at the projections for populations living with hunger, we in the US can reduce the amount of our citizens currently living in hunger (6 million persons) to zero by using a Sustainability First scenario (Outlook 357). My SL Program partner, Noyo Food Forest, has taught me that humans can treat the earth kindly and produce enough food to feed our people by employing sustainable techniques. When and if the economics-driven Powers That Be come to realize that money is no substitute for healthy land and well-fed people, perhaps we can end world hunger. I am reminded of the portion of Al Gore’s movie where he shows a graphic of a scales with gold bars on one side and the Earth on the other side. Powerful stuff.
So what do I think will happen? For my predictions, I need to finish all the readings and give it more thought. That will come in my next post.
June, What you brought up about the four major divides is important. The Environment Divide leaves some environmental regions of the world improved, while others are degraded. The Policy Divide leaves some regions of the world able to develop policies and implement them while other regions still cannot. The Vulnerability Divide leaves some regions more at risk of environmental change and disaster than others, and The Life Style Divide keeps a huge gap between the rich and the poor. I think if we do not solve these issues first we cannot work as a whole on the planet and will not be sustainable. I feel if we cant start working together it may destroy our current human society.
Yes Crystal, I'm with you in believing that the earth is totally amazing and deserves human respect and care! And June, I really appreciated your points about the 4 scenarios: Markets First, Policy First, Security First and Sustainability First. It seems like though, without sustainability first, all the other options/scenarios will become moot...
Crystal Yes, I agree with you that the earth is an amazing place. We should respect it and care for it. Trying to get our governments and other corporations to understand that if we continue on the path that we are going on we won't have an Earth. June and Kathy Thank you for your wonderful writing. You both say things that are in my heart. I always find it hard to write things down the way I really feel. All the reading that I have done also has been very powerful stuff, and sometimes it's really hard to digest what's really happening to the earth.
Kathy, I think you and I are on the same page. And June I agree, thanks for pointing out the Markets First scenarios. I have been following the U.S. economic developments fairly closely and yikes. Blame it on the Friedman mentality. All of the worst blights on human life have come from the fertile (as in fertilizer) minds of economists. Their economic experiments (Communism for instance) have wreaked havoc on human populations and the environment far more than once. Take a look at the former Soviet Union if you want to see an environment devastated by the musing of experiential economists.
But as for today, what you see in Gorge Bush (yeah, I know I left out the e) is the result of the neo cons (and I do mean cons) experimenting with the mental machinations of Milton Friedman and Supply Side Economics.
Book: The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein may be up for a Pulitzer as she explains just how ugly Capitalism can get.
Did I say Capitalism? Yep. And forget this blabbering about Free Market Economy the Republicans like to tout when they know well that as long as the Fed has control over interest rates there is absolutely no such thing in this country. Manipulated Market Economy should be the tag.
I don't want to say what I think will happen because we have been hit with a fair share of heavy reading this week.
But what I will say for myself is that the environmental movement, from my perspective should begin with changing how people think. No, not how they think about the environment, or plastic bags, or alternative fuel, but how they think about themselves.
Self-hatred leads to self-destruction. Whatever happened to the quest for enlightenment or at the least self-actualization?
And why do humans hate themselves so much? Is it because we were the last to be created??? Is it because we are naked beneath our clothes and wouldn’t last a winter without them? Is it because we are inferior to all other species that somehow have mastered a self-sustaining lifestyle on their own without paper or pen, faxes or email, dollars or sense?
I wonder. Is it that we know that we are NOT superior to other creatures and have no business thinking we are the “stewards” of anything?
What we need is a massive healing. Not just the earth, but the parasitic growth that feeds from it.
It occured to me after the readings in the last few weeks - that we seem to be doomed - it is acceptable for our society not to even insure or deliver basic human rights like food and shelter, even in our own society! How can we hope to secure environmental rights when we can't even deliver human rights to our own population, let alone, the world's citizens! K
I feel your writing is so fantastic. When you mention the environmental movement should began with changing how people think, and I love how you ask why do humans hate themselves so much because if we really loved ourselves would love and care for the environment we live in.
To bring up The Story Of Stuff again, I feel that the media and our cultural norms have a strong influence on how much we hate ourselves. They tell us what to buy, wear, act, see, and think about ourselves and the people around us.
Christine, you also say we need massive healing on our planet and I think you are so right. It is very scary the state our plant is in. It is like we are flying full speed ahead into a brick wall, and our governmental leaders, elite, and people that have the strongest ability to change the situation just do not care.
Since this class started I notice the people around me more and how they feel about the state of the world. It looks like more people choose to ignore the situation than try fix it, like all they care about is what they can get now. I'm worried and I hope we can save the plant and be sustainable. I would like to live on an earth where people cared for each other had compassion for others and all other living life forms.
I suppose the first step to this is all of us practicing these good actions in our daily lives and habits. Keeping our ecological commitment contracts after the semester ends, starting change from the grassroots level like we are learning about, and speaking out how we feel and why we feel the way we do, even when others think we are being thoughtless hippies.
I also hear Mendocino County is thinking of outlawing plastic bags. Does anyone else know when and where we can vote on this issue and help try to implement it.
Crystal I think the Mendo county board of Supervisors is considering the matter at their board meeting this week. You could contact David Colfax, (and the other four too for that matter) and voice your opinion.
I was listening to PBS this afternoon... Nineteen years after the occurrence, lawyers for the Exxon company, at the Supreme Court today, argued that Exxon should not be assessed $3 billion in punitive damages, on top of the $3.4 billion they have already paid to residents and the State of Alaska, in clean-up costs and fines over the 1997 oil spill, known as the Exxon Valdez. March 24, 1989, the 950 foot oil tanker ran aground and dumped 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound
A relapsed alcoholic who admitted he'd been drinking, the ship's captain radioed the coast guard that his ship had run aground. He later admitted that after navigating the ship to the mouth of the sound, he'd left the ship in charge to his 3rd mate - a violation of company policy. The midnight grounding of the ship on Bligh Reef was the largest incidence of a commercial oil spill yet recorded, which spread over ten thousand square miles.
Exxon vowed at the time to devote the resources needed to contain and clean-up the spill. Tens of thousands of birds and animals were killed in the spill, and the fishing industry there was virtually annihilated overnight.
In 1994, a jury awarded $5 billion in punitive damages to nearly 33,000 fisherman and residents. That award was later cut in 1/2 by appellate courts. Roughly 20% of the class of Alaskans bringing suit have died in the ensuing 19 years.
Exxon is arguing it should not be held liable for the captain's actions - a long maritime tradition holds that the ship owner is not liable for the crew, unless it directed the crew in some action. He said the ship's captain was not high-enough in the corporate hierarchy, to be considered a managerial agent. He also argued that the total of $8.2 billion total cost including the clean-up cost and punitive damages exceeds maritime law limits.
The plaintiff's lawyer, Jeffrey Fisher, a Stanford professor , said that the captain was definitely a managerial agent with hiring/firing and budgetary authority, as well as the capability to make decisions about when to leave port. He argued that Exxon considered the Exxon Valdez tanker one of twenty business units. In what was called an unusual move, they sent a DVD of the audio/video reports in the news at the time of the spill to show what the Alaskans went through at the time.
Justice Alito recused himself from the proceedings, (not even present in the hearing), because he owns stock in Exxon. This opens the possibility of a 4 to 4 split vote. At least some of the other eight remaining Supreme court justices seemed to be buying the plaintiff's argument that the ship's captain was a managerial agent for Exxon.
A 4 to 4 tie vote will leave the lower court's ruling in place, siding on the side of the plaintiffs and ordering punitive damages to the surviving Alaskans and fishermen.
This makes me have some hope that through the judicial system and the awarding of significant punitive damages, corporations will be forced to pay attention to and protect/respect the ecological systems that they operate within.
I posted to my blog too: http://envirosustain.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the kind and thoughtfilled comments, Crystal.
Seriously, and thanks Crystal for reminding me about the plastic bag thing. I listened to the Supervisor's meeting in which they discussed this issue.
They said that in Santa Barbara, what they decided to do instead of just turning to paper bags was to charge for paper bags. This way it would encourage people to bring their own.
I bring my own most of the time. But if I've cleaned out the car, sometimes I forget to put the cloth bags back... so on the spur of the moment you might see me request "plastic." Little did I know.
I don't know if the article in the paper went into how Europeans (dare I use that word in a Bush year??? ), Europeans have been bringing their own bags and shopping locally for years and years and years.
Much to learn from the feriners, if we ever have that chance again.
Kathy, Thank you for your up date on the plastic bag meeting at Town Hall, and Christine thank you for your comments about cloth bags and the knowledge of how the Europeans are way more advanced than us in the area of local food production and sustainability. Kathy you also mentioned that the Goe3 and other reading have left you feeling that the human race is doomed to destroy ourselves because we cannot even insure basic human rights of food and shelter in our own country let alone all world citizens. I totally feel where you are coming from. I cried for one half hour strait this morning. Thinking of the same stuff you are, how unfair America is and how are own society does not even care about each other. It feels like these big corporations and government officials’ just rape us little people and feel perfectly justified to do so. Sometimes I wonder how I can be alive in such an awful place where change, justice, and equality of all living life forms looks and feels impossible to achieve. We can just hope there is more to life than this suffering.
Crystal, I can thoroughly understand your anxiety and despair over the state of the planet. I have done my share of crying this week, too, as my mother is dying and may not last the weekend. Like Kathy, I feel the doom hanging over our heads as our planet slowly dies. I try not to hold onto negative thoughts too long though, because that tends to make you want to give up, and I don't want to do that.
As to the question: What do you think might happen? Kathy's prediction of Water War I may be quite accurate and not that long in coming to pass. I agree we are using up all our aquifers and polluting the replenishable waterways. Unless we can find some cost-effective and efficient way to desalinate and purify ocean water so it is potable, we face a future of thirst and dehydration.
One thing we should perhaps keep in mind when thinking Doom is that the Doom is for the humans and other vulnerable life forms; probably not for the planet itself. In its 4.5 billion year lifetime, earth has seen some pretty heavy-duty, harsh conditions. Even if humans manage to make ALL life on this planet extinct, the orb will still sit here, and in another 3 or 4 billion years, might cycle around to begin life again, this time perhaps with sane inhabitants. Therefore, I do not totally give up hope that this home of ours will one day revive. It may be a loooooong time coming, but the earth will still turn, the sun will still shine upon our planet, and the chance for a new start might eventually occur.
But that is a long-sighted view. What will happen in the short term is hard to predict, but it seems clear that our plight will inevitably get worse unless we can make considerable changes -- and soon.
Kathy, your summary of the Valdez case was exceptionally well done. I have been following that story myself in the newspapers lately. You make a good point that punitive damages can make a corporation sit up and take notice. However, it has been my experience that a majority of the laws and judicial decisions come down on the side of corporations. Big Oil especially. In fact, this week I noticed (buried in the back of Section E of my paper) that the House has approved a bill that would roll back $18 billion in oil company taxes so the money can be used to give incentives to alternative forms of energy, such as wind, solar and other renewable sources. Bush says if that bill passes Congress, he will veto it. http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080228/WIRE/802280339 Calling it spiteful, he says, “It punishes the oil and gas industry. This is wrongheaded.” Why is it spiteful and wrong to offer incentives to alternative energy developers? I just don’t understand that, so I think what he actually means is that this repeal of tax breaks for big oil would hit his buddies where it hurts the most, in the pocketbook. How on earth do we stand a chance of following the Sustainability First scenario if our highest elected official is in bed with big oil?
To close this overly long post (sorry gals, I tend to go on), I would like to offer a quote from my Service Learning Program partner, Sakina Bush of the Noyo Food Forest. She states, “Our long term goal is to ‘cultivate’ a healthy local food system. We try to create all the conditions so it will grow by itself. The three approaches to healthy cultivation of a food system are: (1) Opportunities for education; (2) Enterprise; (3) Community involvement through volunteer work.” If people have the right growing conditions, they can learn how to provide their own food systems and be less reliable on the big agricultural concerns that put questionable quality food on our tables. This is one way of furthering sustainability locally that can expand globally, if cultures like ours here in America will only lead the way. But speaking of leadership, before any of this growth can be accomplished, our leaders will need to climb out of the comfy bed they share with big oil and corporate industry and start thinking of the little people who put them in office (well….maybe we used to do that; I’m not sure anymore.)
At the suggestion of Julia van der Ryn, who left some very sweet and supportive comments on my Week 3 post, I have now added a box with links to all the SL Journal blogs from the HUM 3500 class. I still need to add Crystal's and Loretta's though. Can you gals give me your links?
Freeda and students! It is so gratifying to come and read this blog and the related SL blogs. I love the thoughtful and informed dialogue that is happening. I am smitten w/your SL journal/blogs. Thanks to all of you for doing such wonderful work. It is very inspiring. I come here just to feel good, even though there are some hard truths. That's what education is all about. One of you mentioned Naomi Klein's book The Shick Doctrine. There is an accompanying video on YouTube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=kieyjfZDUIc It is six minutes and gives an overview of her thesis. Very depressing but at the end she says that the best counter to oppression and manipulation is knowledge--we have to educate ourselves. I have shown this video to my students. Painful but important, I think. All the best, Julia
I watched the Shock Doctrine and it is indeed shocking. It is so true that people do not behave the same way as they normally would when they have recently received a shock or lived through a crisis. It is abhorrent that government officials would exploit that tendency for financial gain. We then become no more than prisoners in the interrogation chamber. How sad. How inhuman. I agree with Julia that the most powerful weapon against this type of shock therapy is knowledge. We have to be cognizant that others are attempting to manipulate our way of thinking, and if it is not in our best interests, we must learn to resist it.
18 comments:
In response to the discussion questions: the World3 report makes logical assumptions and seems to present viable scenarios and solutions, in my opinion. However, the hitch seems to be getting governments and corporations to carry on the work and recommendations of this report. In analyzing our current society and cultural values, I see that the redistribution of resources between the rich and the poor is a major stumbling block to success, because the ‘haves’ do not see fit to share with the ‘have-nots’. There is not sufficient incentive (yet) for us to share.
I am not sure how to guess what might happen except to look at the rise and fall of other great civilizations throughout our recorded history. The rise and fall of the Roman Empire was predicated on abuse of the environmental resources combined with an over-extension of resources spent on its war-machine and the conquering of weaker nations.
I see many parallels with that extinct Roman culture and our own present-day culture, and I often wonder if our current civilization will face the same end. I also see the demand for clean, potable water as one that will soon outpace the Western need for fossil fuels. I can foresee that the last great war of this civilization may be framed around water resources. And given the fact of nuclear proliferation, I hope that we, as a civilization, can figure out how to redistribute the resources, before we suffer a catastrophic nuclear event that forever tips the scale towards irreversible destruction of the planet.
Freeda, I appreciated the information you left for us on this past two weeks of readings. I guess that I am feeling a little bit overwhelmed, when faced with the knowledge of the magnitude of the problems we face, ecologically. I agree that we CAN make personal changes, and influence others to do the same. And cumulatively, this will make a greater difference. This IS heavy stuff!
KW
I like what Kathy brought up about the people that have most the wealth sharing with the people that do not have wealth. This is so important for our future because it teaches equality, compassion, and kindness for other living things. Another thing that gave me hope is when I was reading GEO3, and it said the forest is the most complex and self-perpetuating of all ecosystems. It is good to hear the forest can recuperate itself if we stop abusing it. Does anyone else feel the earth is totally amazing and deserves human respect and care?
What do you think of the predictions presented? What do you think might happen?
The GEO3 Outlook 2002-32 forecast offered four different scenarios upon which to base future predictions: Markets First, Policy First, Security First and Sustainability First. I found this very helpful in sorting out the possibilities. It was obvious to me from the readings and from analyzing the graphics and statistical data that a Markets First scenario will cause the most damage to the environment. This is the current administration’s policy. When I read the sentence, “Economic development outweighs social and environmental concerns in most international discussions” (Outlook 324), I immediately thought of Bush and the Kyoto accord. When officially rejecting the treaty, our president said, “The approach taken under the Kyoto protocol would have required the United States to make deep and immediate cuts in our economy to meet an arbitrary target. It would have cost our economy up to $400 billion and we would have lost 4.9 million jobs.” (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/20020214-5.html) It is clear that development and the economy are of far more importance to him and those in power than the environment. In other words, wealth of one nation in the short-term far outweighs health of the planet in the long-term. In my opinion, this is extremely short-sighted and selfish.
Perhaps the scariest scenario of the four was the Security First. I can see a nation of xenophobes, with high walls all around, cut off from the rest of humanity, caring and providing only for themselves and the rest of the world be damned. With affluent groups anxiously patrolling and policing borders, we have the potential of creating “bubbles of wealth” and “islands of prosperity in an ocean of poverty and despair” (Outlook 342). With security of paramount importance to a culture, the “I have mine” mentality tends to overwhelm any sense of shared responsibility for those less fortunate. As Chapter 3 on Human Vulnerability to Environmental Change predicts, developing countries with less capacity to adapt are the ones who are “more vulnerable to environmental threats and global change” (Human Vulnerability 303). That is why all those charts and graphs show Africa and Asia with the highest percentage of risk.
Taking only one adverse implication of the many presented – climate trends – and applying the four various scenarios, we can see from the forecasted predictions that a Markets First policy causes the most damage with respect to carbon dioxide emissions and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, but a Sustainability First policy causes the least amount of damage. In fact, the two graphs on page 351 of Outlook show that a Sustainability First approach would soon begin to stabilize and then reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere in the next 30 years.
Looking at the projections for populations living with hunger, we in the US can reduce the amount of our citizens currently living in hunger (6 million persons) to zero by using a Sustainability First scenario (Outlook 357). My SL Program partner, Noyo Food Forest, has taught me that humans can treat the earth kindly and produce enough food to feed our people by employing sustainable techniques. When and if the economics-driven Powers That Be come to realize that money is no substitute for healthy land and well-fed people, perhaps we can end world hunger. I am reminded of the portion of Al Gore’s movie where he shows a graphic of a scales with gold bars on one side and the Earth on the other side. Powerful stuff.
So what do I think will happen? For my predictions, I need to finish all the readings and give it more thought. That will come in my next post.
June,
What you brought up about the four major divides is important. The Environment Divide leaves some environmental regions of the world improved, while others are degraded. The Policy Divide leaves some regions of the world able to develop policies and implement them while other regions still cannot. The Vulnerability Divide leaves some regions more at risk of environmental change and disaster than others, and The Life Style Divide keeps a huge gap between the rich and the poor. I think if we do not solve these issues first we cannot work as a whole on the planet and will not be sustainable. I feel if we cant start working together it may destroy our current human society.
Yes Crystal, I'm with you in believing that the earth is totally amazing and deserves human respect and care!
And June, I really appreciated your points about the 4 scenarios: Markets First, Policy First, Security First and Sustainability First.
It seems like though, without sustainability first, all the other options/scenarios will become moot...
Crystal
Yes, I agree with you that the earth is an amazing place. We should respect it and care for it. Trying to get our governments and other corporations to understand that if we continue on the path that we are going on we won't have an Earth.
June and Kathy
Thank you for your wonderful writing. You both say things that are in my heart. I always find it hard to write things down the way I really feel. All the reading that I have done also has been very powerful stuff, and sometimes it's really hard to digest what's really happening to the earth.
Kathy, I think you and I are on the same page. And June I agree, thanks for pointing out the Markets First scenarios. I have been following the U.S. economic developments fairly closely and yikes. Blame it on the Friedman mentality. All of the worst blights on human life have come from the fertile (as in fertilizer) minds of economists. Their economic experiments (Communism for instance) have wreaked havoc on human populations and the environment far more than once. Take a look at the former Soviet Union if you want to see an environment devastated by the musing of experiential economists.
But as for today, what you see in Gorge Bush (yeah, I know I left out the e) is the result of the neo cons (and I do mean cons) experimenting with the mental machinations of Milton Friedman and Supply Side Economics.
Book: The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein may be up for a Pulitzer as she explains just how ugly Capitalism can get.
Did I say Capitalism? Yep. And forget this blabbering about Free Market Economy the Republicans like to tout when they know well that as long as the Fed has control over interest rates there is absolutely no such thing in this country. Manipulated Market Economy should be the tag.
I don't want to say what I think will happen because we have been hit with a fair share of heavy reading this week.
But what I will say for myself is that the environmental movement, from my perspective should begin with changing how people think. No, not how they think about the environment, or plastic bags, or alternative fuel, but how they think about themselves.
Self-hatred leads to self-destruction. Whatever happened to the quest for enlightenment or at the least self-actualization?
And why do humans hate themselves so much? Is it because we were the last to be created??? Is it because we are naked beneath our clothes and wouldn’t last a winter without them? Is it because we are inferior to all other species that somehow have mastered a self-sustaining lifestyle on their own without paper or pen, faxes or email, dollars or sense?
I wonder. Is it that we know that we are NOT superior to other creatures and have no business thinking we are the “stewards” of anything?
What we need is a massive healing. Not just the earth, but the parasitic growth that feeds from it.
Christine's SL Journal is at HUM3500@blogspot.com
Thanks for the nice comments from those who have visited.
Do me a favor, please and list your's again, (pweety pwease.)
It occured to me after the readings in the last few weeks - that we seem to be doomed - it is acceptable for our society not to even insure or deliver basic human rights like food and shelter, even in our own society! How can we hope to secure environmental rights when we can't even deliver human rights to our own population, let alone, the world's citizens!
K
Christine,
I feel your writing is so fantastic. When you mention the environmental movement should began with changing how people think, and I love how you ask why do humans hate themselves so much because if we really loved ourselves would love and care for the environment we live in.
To bring up The Story Of Stuff again, I feel that the media and our cultural norms have a strong influence on how much we hate ourselves. They tell us what to buy, wear, act, see, and think about ourselves and the people around us.
Christine, you also say we need massive healing on our planet and I think you are so right. It is very scary the state our plant is in. It is like we are flying full speed ahead into a brick wall, and our governmental leaders, elite, and people that have the strongest ability to change the situation just do not care.
Since this class started I notice the people around me more and how they feel about the state of the world. It looks like more people choose to ignore the situation than try fix it, like all they care about is what they can get now. I'm worried and I hope we can save the plant and be sustainable. I would like to live on an earth where people cared for each other had compassion for others and all other living life forms.
I suppose the first step to this is all of us practicing these good actions in our daily lives and habits. Keeping our ecological commitment contracts after the semester ends, starting change from the grassroots level like we are learning about, and speaking out how we feel and why we feel the way we do, even when others think we are being thoughtless hippies.
I also hear Mendocino County is thinking of outlawing plastic bags. Does anyone else know when and where we can vote on this issue and help try to implement it.
Crystal
I think the Mendo county board of Supervisors is considering the matter at their board meeting this week. You could contact David Colfax, (and the other four too for that matter) and voice your opinion.
I was listening to PBS this afternoon...
Nineteen years after the occurrence, lawyers for the Exxon company, at the Supreme Court today, argued that Exxon should not be assessed $3 billion in punitive damages, on top of the $3.4 billion they have already paid to residents and the State of Alaska, in clean-up costs and fines over the 1997 oil spill, known as the Exxon Valdez. March 24, 1989, the 950 foot oil tanker ran aground and dumped 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound
A relapsed alcoholic who admitted he'd been drinking, the ship's captain radioed the coast guard that his ship had run aground. He later admitted that after navigating the ship to the mouth of the sound, he'd left the ship in charge to his 3rd mate - a violation of company policy. The midnight grounding of the ship on Bligh Reef was the largest incidence of a commercial oil spill yet recorded, which spread over ten thousand square miles.
Exxon vowed at the time to devote the resources needed to contain and clean-up the spill. Tens of thousands of birds and animals were killed in the spill, and the fishing industry there was virtually annihilated overnight.
In 1994, a jury awarded $5 billion in punitive damages to nearly 33,000 fisherman and residents. That award was later cut in 1/2 by appellate courts. Roughly 20% of the class of Alaskans bringing suit have died in the ensuing 19 years.
Exxon is arguing it should not be held liable for the captain's actions - a long maritime tradition holds that the ship owner is not liable for the crew, unless it directed the crew in some action. He said the ship's captain was not high-enough in the corporate hierarchy, to be considered a managerial agent. He also argued that the total of $8.2 billion total cost including the clean-up cost and punitive damages exceeds maritime law limits.
The plaintiff's lawyer, Jeffrey Fisher, a Stanford professor , said that the captain was definitely a managerial agent with hiring/firing and budgetary authority, as well as the capability to make decisions about when to leave port. He argued that Exxon considered the Exxon Valdez tanker one of twenty business units. In what was called an unusual move, they sent a DVD of the audio/video reports in the news at the time of the spill to show what the Alaskans went through at the time.
Justice Alito recused himself from the proceedings, (not even present in the hearing), because he owns stock in Exxon. This opens the possibility of a 4 to 4 split vote. At least some of the other eight remaining Supreme court justices seemed to be buying the plaintiff's argument that the ship's captain was a managerial agent for Exxon.
A 4 to 4 tie vote will leave the lower court's ruling in place, siding on the side of the plaintiffs and ordering punitive damages to the surviving Alaskans and fishermen.
This makes me have some hope that through the judicial system and the awarding of significant punitive damages, corporations will be forced to pay attention to and protect/respect the ecological systems that they operate within.
I posted to my blog too: http://envirosustain.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the kind and thoughtfilled comments, Crystal.
Seriously, and thanks Crystal for reminding me about the plastic bag thing. I listened to the Supervisor's meeting in which they discussed this issue.
They said that in Santa Barbara, what they decided to do instead of just turning to paper bags was to charge for paper bags. This way it would encourage people to bring their own.
I bring my own most of the time. But if I've cleaned out the car, sometimes I forget to put the cloth bags back... so on the spur of the moment you might see me request "plastic." Little did I know.
I don't know if the article in the paper went into how Europeans (dare I use that word in a Bush year??? ), Europeans have been bringing their own bags and shopping locally for years and years and years.
Much to learn from the feriners, if we ever have that chance again.
Kathy,
Thank you for your up date on the plastic bag meeting at Town Hall, and Christine thank you for your comments about cloth bags and the knowledge of how the Europeans are way more advanced than us in the area of local food production and sustainability.
Kathy you also mentioned that the Goe3 and other reading have left you feeling that the human race is doomed to destroy ourselves because we cannot even insure basic human rights of food and shelter in our own country let alone all world citizens.
I totally feel where you are coming from. I cried for one half hour strait this morning. Thinking of the same stuff you are, how unfair America is and how are own society does not even care about each other. It feels like these big corporations and government officials’ just rape us little people and feel perfectly justified to do so. Sometimes I wonder how I can be alive in such an awful place where change, justice, and equality of all living life forms looks and feels impossible to achieve.
We can just hope there is more to life than this suffering.
Crystal, I can thoroughly understand your anxiety and despair over the state of the planet. I have done my share of crying this week, too, as my mother is dying and may not last the weekend. Like Kathy, I feel the doom hanging over our heads as our planet slowly dies. I try not to hold onto negative thoughts too long though, because that tends to make you want to give up, and I don't want to do that.
As to the question: What do you think might happen? Kathy's prediction of Water War I may be quite accurate and not that long in coming to pass. I agree we are using up all our aquifers and polluting the replenishable waterways. Unless we can find some cost-effective and efficient way to desalinate and purify ocean water so it is potable, we face a future of thirst and dehydration.
One thing we should perhaps keep in mind when thinking Doom is that the Doom is for the humans and other vulnerable life forms; probably not for the planet itself. In its 4.5 billion year lifetime, earth has seen some pretty heavy-duty, harsh conditions. Even if humans manage to make ALL life on this planet extinct, the orb will still sit here, and in another 3 or 4 billion years, might cycle around to begin life again, this time perhaps with sane inhabitants. Therefore, I do not totally give up hope that this home of ours will one day revive. It may be a loooooong time coming, but the earth will still turn, the sun will still shine upon our planet, and the chance for a new start might eventually occur.
But that is a long-sighted view. What will happen in the short term is hard to predict, but it seems clear that our plight will inevitably get worse unless we can make considerable changes -- and soon.
Kathy, your summary of the Valdez case was exceptionally well done. I have been following that story myself in the newspapers lately. You make a good point that punitive damages can make a corporation sit up and take notice. However, it has been my experience that a majority of the laws and judicial decisions come down on the side of corporations. Big Oil especially. In fact, this week I noticed (buried in the back of Section E of my paper) that the House has approved a bill that would roll back $18 billion in oil company taxes so the money can be used to give incentives to alternative forms of energy, such as wind, solar and other renewable sources. Bush says if that bill passes Congress, he will veto it. http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080228/WIRE/802280339
Calling it spiteful, he says, “It punishes the oil and gas industry. This is wrongheaded.” Why is it spiteful and wrong to offer incentives to alternative energy developers? I just don’t understand that, so I think what he actually means is that this repeal of tax breaks for big oil would hit his buddies where it hurts the most, in the pocketbook. How on earth do we stand a chance of following the Sustainability First scenario if our highest elected official is in bed with big oil?
To close this overly long post (sorry gals, I tend to go on), I would like to offer a quote from my Service Learning Program partner, Sakina Bush of the Noyo Food Forest. She states, “Our long term goal is to ‘cultivate’ a healthy local food system. We try to create all the conditions so it will grow by itself. The three approaches to healthy cultivation of a food system are: (1) Opportunities for education; (2) Enterprise; (3) Community involvement through volunteer work.” If people have the right growing conditions, they can learn how to provide their own food systems and be less reliable on the big agricultural concerns that put questionable quality food on our tables. This is one way of furthering sustainability locally that can expand globally, if cultures like ours here in America will only lead the way. But speaking of leadership, before any of this growth can be accomplished, our leaders will need to climb out of the comfy bed they share with big oil and corporate industry and start thinking of the little people who put them in office (well….maybe we used to do that; I’m not sure anymore.)
Here's where you can find my SL Journal:
http://junelemosblog.blogspot.com/
At the suggestion of Julia van der Ryn, who left some very sweet and supportive comments on my Week 3 post, I have now added a box with links to all the SL Journal blogs from the HUM 3500 class. I still need to add Crystal's and Loretta's though. Can you gals give me your links?
Freeda and students!
It is so gratifying to come and read this blog and the related SL blogs.
I love the thoughtful and informed dialogue that is happening. I am smitten w/your SL journal/blogs.
Thanks to all of you for doing such wonderful work. It is very inspiring.
I come here just to feel good, even though there are some hard truths. That's what education is all about.
One of you mentioned Naomi Klein's book The Shick Doctrine. There is an accompanying video on YouTube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=kieyjfZDUIc
It is six minutes and gives an overview of her thesis. Very depressing but at the end she says that the best counter to oppression and manipulation is knowledge--we have to educate ourselves. I have shown this video to my students. Painful but important, I think.
All the best,
Julia
I watched the Shock Doctrine and it is indeed shocking. It is so true that people do not behave the same way as they normally would when they have recently received a shock or lived through a crisis. It is abhorrent that government officials would exploit that tendency for financial gain. We then become no more than prisoners in the interrogation chamber. How sad. How inhuman. I agree with Julia that the most powerful weapon against this type of shock therapy is knowledge. We have to be cognizant that others are attempting to manipulate our way of thinking, and if it is not in our best interests, we must learn to resist it.
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