Tea for two, times two times two times two . . .

We have a social disease, and I’ve taken the presumptuous liberty to name it: exponentiosis stupiditus (”ES” as it is known among expo therapists). It’s a condition characterized by gleefully pursuing endless growth until its inherent impossibility clobbers us to smithereens. Generally incurable, it is highly contagious and endemic in the population of industrialized nations, with a prevalence of around 99%. Once infected at an early age, victims are afflicted with a compulsion to acquire stuff regardless of consequences. Many cultures and civilizations have suffered and expired from ES, but never before has it afflicted humans on such a planetary scale.

Despite the varied political rhetoric of the last few mercantile centuries, the issue is neither capitalism nor communism nor fascism nor socialism nor any ism. The issue is the prevalent cultural delusion that we can grow our portfolios of acquisitions without limits; indeed, if we don’t we’ll die.

Unfortunately, the opposite is true. And most of us have no idea why.

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Why bother? Why indeed . . .

Meet the Futilitarians

Who are the Futilitarians? They are the majority of us, from silent to noisy, who acknowledge that global warming is a problem and want to do something about it. But they can’t bring themselves to believe - let alone act on - the demands of climate reality and the consequences of the general chaos delivered by our relentless exponential growth (more next time on exponentiation, i.e., the wonders of multiplication by two).

The Futilitarians are those whom I regularly and duly malign (although they have my sympathies), who expect material “progress” to proceed apace regardless of the limitations of the natural world. (more…)

If it ain’t fixable, don’t break it . . .

One of the recurrent quotable quotes in the climate biz goes something like “if we act now, we can avoid the worst effects of global warming.” Well, I went to my files to find a recent example for you - but I almost couldn’t. With the accelerating change observed in the past few months, the invocation of such optimism seems to be waning.

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Death, destruction and the end of civilization seem pretty inconvenient to me . . .

Thanks in no small part to the spectacular success of “An Inconvenient Truth” - which was built on years of foundational work by thousands of researchers, investigators and journalists, as well as Gore’s own study and writings over the years - the American public is rapidly awakening to the irrefutable existence of the climate crisis. That’s the good news.

Here’s the bad news:

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If all we’re after is 80% by 2050, it’s hardly worth the effort . . .

Everybody who’s anybody is coming up with ideas for turning down our earthly thermostat. From Al Gore who’s nudging us towards climate reality (1), to the aptly-named Nicholas Stern who has direly warned how many coins it will cost to continue cooking our Earth (2), to the business-sponsored website U.S. Climate Action Partnership for whom money speaks the truth (3), to some of the stars of the environmental movement such as pioneer Bill McKibben (for whom I have the greatest respect) (4), and many, many more - all of these voices are telling us that we have to cut back on our carbon emissions, “dramatically.”

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