the disgruntled democrat
Exposing the cultural myths underlying our political economy
Tuesday, July 1, 2025
Saturday, June 21, 2025
Why We Can’t Wake Up: Climate Collapse and the Architecture of the Human Mind
We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words. (Ursula Le Guin)
Sorry to disappoint you, but when it comes to climate change, the human brain hasn’t evolved sufficiently to make the necessary large-scale changes to avert climate catastrophe.
Like the neighborhoods of an old city, our brains have evolved in a patchwork manner, layer upon layer. In older cities, as conditions changed and the economic fortunes of some improved, the lucky ones were able to build and maintain their residences. Meanwhile, the less fortunate had to leave and live elsewhere. No city planning involved. The remaining structures were built to last and repurposed by their inhabitants, who adapted to societal disruptions in order to survive and thrive. Natural selection at work. The gentrification of neighborhoods today demonstrates the evolution of cityscapes.
Similarly, over a much longer period of time, the human brain evolved to adapt to changing environments and exploit niches that allowed for reproduction.
Our reptilian brain, located at the base of our skulls, is responsible for regulating vital bodily functions such as heart rate, breathing, and temperature. It also manages automatic, self-preserving behavior patterns and basic social communication.
The mammalian brain, grafted upon the reptilian brain, corresponds biologically to the limbic system. It is primarily responsible for emotional processing, social behaviors, and memory functions. It evolved after the reptilian brain and is more prominent in mammals.
Lastly, humans evolved a neocortex, which enables creative endeavors, moral reasoning, and long-term planning. This provides a foundation for culture, science, and advanced social interaction. This part of the brain enables conscious thought processes that can override more primitive instincts and emotional responses governed by the reptilian brain and limbic system.
Although it is a somewhat oversimplified model of how the human brain evolved, the triune brain functions quite well as a metaphor, pointing to the glaring challenge that humans face when trying to come to grips with the possibility that humanity’s collective actions might bring about its own demise.
In other words, as a species we know cognitively that we are screwing up, but we can’t muster the willpower to change because our reptilian brain doesn’t interpret the situation as an immediate threat to survival. This means there is no fight-or-flight response, and our limbic system cannot generate sufficient emotional energy to bring about the required behavioral changes.
Consequently, the neocortex of the Western world, particularly the prefrontal cortex, prioritizes the immediate rewards of a business-as-usual approach in perceived normal circumstances. Given the potential risk posed by catastrophic climate change, we should refer to this phenomenon as hypernormalisation.
Sound familiar? Have we seen this before in recent history?
We have.
Alexei Yurchak, a Russian-born anthropology professor, coined the term “hypernormalisation” to describe the paradoxes of Soviet life during the 1970s and 1980s. Put simply, everyone in the Soviet Union knew the system was failing, yet no one could envision an alternative to the status quo. Both politicians and citizens were resigned to maintaining the pretense of a functioning society. Eventually, this mass delusion became a self-fulfilling prophecy. With the exception of a small group of dissidents, this became the new normal for most of the Soviet population.
For the most part, people in the former Soviet Union could live day-to-day without facing an immediate threat to their survival. In fact, openly opposing the system posed a greater threat to survival than living with impoverishment and political oppression.
However, some critics, such as filmmaker Adam Curtis, assert that the concept of hypernormalisation applies equally to the West’s decades-long slide into authoritarianism, including Donald Trump’s 2.0 reign.
Personally, I don’t think the term applies to the current situation in the United States. The US is a large, diverse, and polarized nation. Millions of Americans do not believe they are living in a functioning society. They are fighting hypernormalisation through the courts and by protesting in the streets.
I wish this were the case with regard to climate change and the risk of climate catastrophe.
Although the dynamics of climate change hypernormalisation differ greatly from those that occurred in the former Soviet Union, the end result is similar. Today, only outliers and neurodivergents can imagine a different socioeconomic reality in which life on Earth is not in danger and to be prepared to act.
I would venture to say that at least 80% of people in the West are aware of the risks of climate change. However, rather than confronting this inconvenient truth, they prefer to continue living in the new normal.
They witness repeated reports of extreme weather events while maintaining the fantasy that their comfortable lifestyles can continue indefinitely, like lifelong smokers who are diagnosed with lung cancer but refuse to quit.
In my opinion, humanity’s addiction to the material pleasures derived from unabated consumption of fossil fuels and exponential growth carries a similar prognosis.
If you’re still reading or listening, then I’m sure you understood the last sentence. It may have made some of you uncomfortable, but almost without exception, your fight-or-flight response was not activated.
Therein lies the problem.
Our Paleolithic brains are mismatched to our current environment. For instance, our stress response is designed to address temporary threats, not chronic, stress-inducing situations. However, modern life often involves chronic stress, which can lead to illness and premature death.
Furthermore, our brains and bodies are not equipped to handle today’s information overload, rapid changes, and uncertain future. As a result, depression and anxiety are at record highs, particularly among younger generations. For most people, the thought of taking action against what seems like an insurmountable problem is unthinkable.
The problem is made worse by dopaminergic addictions throughout society. On the one hand, we have financial elites who can never get enough. They are fixated on extracting more natural and human resources for monetization so they can accumulate more wealth and fuel their conspicuous consumption.
The rest of society struggles to maintain their level of material comfort rather than reduce their consumption. They are victims of the corporate consumerism complex, which knows all too well how to manipulate our dopamine-driven reward pathways.
Sometimes, I think only neurodivergent people grasp the gravity of the situation. Take Greta Thunberg, for example. The young Swedish neurodivergent climate and political activist was able to see through all the excuses her elders used to justify their inaction when it came to tackling climate change. In her famous address at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit, she scolded world leaders for their perceived indifference and inaction regarding the climate crisis:
How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!
When it comes to climate change, the emperor has no clothes. It takes someone like Greta, whose mind isn’t dominated by the modern mindset, to point that out without fear of recrimination.
The rest of us are sympathetic to varying degrees, but we simply do not perceive the threat as significant or urgent enough to require immediate behavioral changes. The long-term threat is not salient. It does not register.
In fact, it’s the opposite. Typically, a prefrontal cortex embedded in Western culture cannot justify stepping outside our societal norms for actions that benefit other species and the planet, actions that are not focused on bringing immediate rewards to the individual and might actually harm one’s ability to acquire material wealth.
In the calculus of the rational maximization of self-interest, becoming a climate change activist is a bad career move.
Moreover, we have become so addicted to our pursuit of material pleasure that our minds balk at the very idea of living differently. Those who do are considered “woke,” “tree huggers,” or under the influence of the mind-altering practices of indigenous peoples.
Why rock the boat? Go with the flow? Wait for the technological fix. In other words, the function of the neurotypical prefrontal cortex embedded in the Western world is to override the signals that, if acted upon, might disrupt the flow of dopamine through the reward pathways and the corresponding pleasures that modern life can and most often delivers if you play the game by the agreed-upon rules.
Given the hegemony of the Western mindset, it seems very unlikely to me that we will escape the ontological hold that its inherent set of beliefs has on humanity. Over time, we will simply adjust the best we can to the ever-increasing disruptions to our “normal” lives that climate change will inevitably bring.
What appears to be the greatest crime against humanity and other life forms on the planet is our decision to transfer the problem of cleaning up the mess to future generations while simultaneously diminishing their ability to rise to the challenge.
We need more Greta Thunbergs in this world if we are to avert the looming collapse and massive extinctions that await.
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
Thursday, June 12, 2025
Friday, December 15, 2023
Hear the Call
Have you ever stood alone in the wilderness, where the only sounds that break the silence are the breathing of the forest or the distant roar of the sea? Have you ever felt an unspoken kinship with the world around you amidst the rustling of leaves or the crashing of waves - a sense of belonging to a greater existence that thrives beyond the bustle of our busy lives? Reflect for a moment on this connection, this intimate dance with nature. Has it ever stirred within you a deeper calling, a quiet insistence that the natural world is not just a backdrop to human activity, but a living, breathing partner deserving of respect and care?
This call recognizes that every creature, every plant, every
microorganism, and the ecosystems they inhabit possess an inherent worth,
irrespective of their utility to humans. It's a call that echoes the innate
value of life in all its diverse forms, challenging us to look beyond our
anthropocentric worldviews.
It urges us to see past mere numbers and species lists, to
understand that biodiversity is not just a resource to be managed or conserved
for human benefit, but a complex tapestry woven from innumerable threads of
life, each significant in its own right. These myriad forms of life, with their
intricate interdependencies, craft the richness of the natural world, from the
vastness of the ocean's depths to the kingdom within a single droplet of dew.
It asks us to embark on a quest for harmony—a desire to
reclaim our place as respectful participants in nature rather than as
domineering conquerors. It implores us to recalibrate the scales and to tread
gently upon this Earth, our shared home, to fundamentally shift our sense of
self and our values in favor of an ecological self, one that inherently
recognizes our interconnectedness with the living world. We are invited to
ponder the sacred essence of life itself.
Imagine the fulfillment that courses through us when we
plant a tree whose shade we know we may never sit under. This is the essence of
intrinsic action—it is doing right by nature for its own sake, nurturing a bond
with the Earth that goes beyond what can be measured or quantified. It's an
acknowledgment of a shared existence, intrinsic motivation that fosters a deep
sense of purpose and connection with all forms of life.
This satisfaction is not just psychological—it's a profound
realization that our smallest gestures towards the earth echo our understanding
of its sacredness. The call urges us to defend and protect—it invites us to
feel the pulse of the living world in our veins, to hold it dear, and to act in
ways that affirm this fundamental truth of connectedness. Our intrinsic actions
become our silent oaths to the continuity of life, a solace to our spirits, and
a testament to the capacity for humanity to live harmoniously within the
greater ecological community. By embracing intrinsic action, we honor not only
the external ecosystems that sustain us but also the internal ecosystem that
is our conscience—a timeless, gratifying alignment with the heartbeat of the
world.
To plant a garden that nurtures biodiversity, to choose a
lifestyle that treads lightly upon the earth, to engage in community action not
for accolade but for the sheer rightness of the act—these deeds forge a deeper
satisfaction, the kind that external rewards can never kindle.
Empathy, too, plays its part. When we gaze upon the natural
world not as a stranger, but as a family member, our actions are no longer just
decisions, but gestures of love and protection. This empathy extends beyond our
human kin and unto the furthest reaches of life—an acknowledgment that we are
all interwoven into this great, intricate web of existence.
And then, there's moral responsibility: the cognizance that
our choices imprint upon the generations to come and the environments that
cradle them. To act in accordance with the call is to accept a guardianship
over the planet, a trusteeship solemn and profound. It is about living today
with the foresight of tomorrow's hindsight—choosing a legacy of stewardship and
respect over one of neglect and exploitation.
Motivation, when sparked by one's own value system and
empathetic connection to life, radiates a purpose so profound that it
transcends the mere act. It animates our spirits with an unbreakable resolve,
fortifying our journey through the oncoming storms of change with a courage
that is rooted, deep and true, in the very essence of what it means to be human.
It brings a peace that descends when our actions are in sync with a profound
respect for Earth’s myriad inhabitants; the happiness that bubbles up from living
a life of deliberate simplicity and purpose.
The intrinsic reward of aligning with the call taps into
something ancient, a primal and undiluted joy. It's the profound sense of
'rightness' that fills us when picking up trash along a riverbank, restoring a
swatch of wetland, or whispering gratitude to the trees canopying above—a
gratitude for the air they gift, the life they support. This joy stems from
knowing that every small gesture is a verse in the grand ode to life, each one
a stitch in the healing of the world's ailing fabric.
This spiritual dimension is not confined to traditional
religious contexts; rather, it is a universal thread, capturing an essence of
connectivity that binds us to the living tapestry. It's a daily communion with
the natural world, a meditation upon our shared breaths with all that grows and
glows, crawls and calls.
Listen then, to the symphony of those who have walked this
path, to the testimonies of transformation that shine like beacons. Envision
the man who built a sanctuary in his backyard, inviting butterflies and bees to
flourish, finding in their dance a mirror of his own renewed vibrancy. Consider
the woman who turned from consumer to conservator, who now delights in the art
of repurposing, in the sanctuary of sustainable living, and feels a richer
wealth for it.
Within these stories of alignment with the call, we uncover
a common thread – the realization that we are not just protectors of the
environment, but kin to it, woven from the same material, dancing to the same
rhythms. This alignment is where the cerebral melts into the spiritual, where
advocacy transforms into communion, and where action evolves into an
enlightened existence—a life cradled by a love so palpable for this planet that
each breath becomes an inhalation of joy, each step a signature of our deepest-held
convictions.
To embrace the call is to tap into a vein of emotional and
spiritual fulfillment that runs deeper than any river, and as eternal as the
mountains—anchoring our ephemeral human experience within the enduring legacy
of the living Earth.
Yet, even the most steadfast can find themselves shadowed by
doubts and challenges. The colossal scale of climate change, with its vast and
complex problems, looms large, and the contribution of any single individual
can appear, at times, as a mere whisper against a storm. In this sobering
light, we must confront the daunting truth that the ark of environmental change
cannot be lifted by our hands alone.
But let us remember that there is power, undeniable and
potent, in each environmentally conscious choice we make, in every seed of
sustainability we plant, irrespective of its immediate impact on the grand
tableau. In a world craving for change, the transformation of one life still
sends ripples through the collective consciousness, and these ripples have a
way of merging into waves.
It is here, in the recognition of our own agency and the
potency of our personal narrative. Through individual acts of environmental
stewardship, we not only cultivate an ecologically harmonious lifestyle for
ourselves but also lay the paving stones for others to follow. In the quietude
of personal conviction, we discover that the smallest actions carry within them
the blueprint for a grander vision—a world where each gesture of respect for
the Earth nourishes the roots of global transformation.
Thus, while we acknowledge the critiques and the
complexities of championing a greener Earth, let us also reaffirm our belief in
the cascading impact of individual efforts. Each of us can strive toward an
existence that honors every facet of the planet we call home—asserting, through
the power of personal example, a profound truth: every step toward ecological
balance, no matter how solitary it may seem, is a solid stride toward a future
enriched with the fruits of harmony.
The tapestry of life—a vibrant, pulsing thing—wraps the
globe in a silent plea for attentiveness and care, germinating the seeds of
individual change that can collectively breathe vitality back into the world's
wilted corners. It invites us to look inward, to consider the deep-seated
convictions that spur us into motion, and to cherish the intrinsic actions that
manifest them.
In this spirit, let us heed the call to action—an invitation
to reflect upon our daily choices, our beliefs, and our silent promises to
future generations. Look upon your life as a canvas of possibility, each
brushstroke an opportunity to enact change through simplicity, through conservation,
and through a heartfelt alliance with the natural world. Let us rise above
disheartenment and instead, embrace the inherent power of our deeds, no matter
the scale.
May we move forward with a resolve as resilient as the
ancient forests, as purifying as the mountain streams, and as boundless as the
skies above—empowered by the knowledge that in caring for the Earth, we are
truly caring for ourselves. In the delicate balance of the ecosystem, as in the
whispers of our own spirits, lies the affirmation that to live in harmony with
this planet is to touch the very essence of what it means to be alive.
Thursday, December 7, 2023
We Can't Get There From Here
The thing about deciding to write a story set in the future is what to make of the present and how it creates a trajectory of plausible events, scenarios, and themes projected into the future. At the moment, dystopian futures seem to be the most likely setting. This shouldn't come as a surprise, given the gap between the promises made to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the results achieved. Every year, representatives of the world's nation-states gather to confirm that something must be done to stop the planet from sliding towards global climate catastrophe, while emissions increase every year.
In what has been hailed as a landmark agreement, 196 parties
at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in December 2015 signed the Paris
Agreement, a legally binding international treaty on climate change that aims
to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees
Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the
temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. To
achieve this, GHG emissions must peak by 2025 at the latest and fall by 43% by
2030.
That ain’t gonna happen. We can’t get there from here.
According to the World Meteorological Organization, 2023
will already be the hottest year on record, with September 2023 being the
hottest September ever. The Copernicus Climate Change Service also reports that
on two days in November 2023, the global average temperature exceeded two
degrees above pre-industrial levels. Finally, ahead of COP 28 in Dubai, the
United Nations released a "chilling" report stating that the world is
heading for a temperature rise of around 3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial
levels by the end of the century, even if countries fully implement their
Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) or action plans to reduce emissions
of planet-warming gases.
Obviously, something is amiss. It’s as if the right hand
doesn’t know what the left is doing. Or maybe it does and doesn’t give a shit.
For example, the United States is on pace to extract a record 12.9 million
barrels of crude by the end of 2023, which is more than double what was
produced a decade ago.
Here’s the thing.
We can’t get anywhere near the GHG emission targets as
stipulated in the Paris Agreement as long as we remain in the existing global
political economy. Following four hundred years of imperial conquest and the
war that was supposed to end all wars, the League of Nations was formed with
the aim of creating a peaceful global order. It failed to do so. Less than
thirty years after its birth, the world was plunged into an even greater
bloodbath, the Second World War. Out of the ruins, the United Nations took over
the mandate of the League of Nations and sought to become the center where
member nations could work together to solve international problems of an
economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian nature. As could be expected, it is
failing miserably in the fight against catastrophic climate change.
The problem arises from the fact that the UN is a collection
of sovereign nation-states that retain the right to govern themselves without
external interference. As a result, the member nations can choose to simply
ignore whatever UN resolutions they feel impinge on their right to
self-determination, such as the USA’s desire to increase its oil and gas
production, regardless of what this means for the likelihood of meeting agreed
upon GHG emission targets. The same goes for the other major climate change
culprits, China and India.
The crux of the problem is that the sovereign nation-state
is a historical anomaly, born on European soil and then transplanted to the
rest of the world with disastrous consequences. As an organizing principle, it
came into being in a world that no longer exists.
Looking back, it's worth remembering that the rise of the
nation-state coincided with the expansion of corporate capitalism and imperial
conquest. This was because the return on investment was greatly enhanced by the
capture of natural resources, and then emerging markets on foreign soil. In other
words, corporations and nation-states co-evolved because they needed each other
to expand their reach, economic power, and profits. For example, the rise of
the British Empire was made possible by the unscrupulous practices of the East
India Company, imitated by the Dutch and the VOC (United East India Company),
and perfected by the Americans with their numerous corporate giants ranging
from Coca-Cola, General Motors, Exxon Mobil to Microsoft and Apple.
Although in the eyes of the United Nations each member
nation remains sovereign, in the realpolitik of the 21st century, the power of
big money rules the nation-state. People elect their representatives, but big
money calls the shots. In this political economy, the role of government is
limited to providing the physical and social infrastructure that allows for
commerce, as measured by each nation’s GDP, to grow and to keep the locals
happy enough to continue working at their soul-sucking jobs that create
incredible wealth for those at the top.
Indeed, when it comes to the power of big money to
accumulate capital, nation-states and their governments have become a
hindrance. So much so that huge corporations now register themselves in the
jurisdictions that have the lowest corporate taxes. Likewise, their
shareholders whisk their portions of the earned profits to offshore tax havens
located in the "nations"—in reality, former or current colonies, like
the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and the British Virgin Islands—in order to take
advantage of the low or zero-income taxes, strict secrecy laws, and easy access
to global financial markets.
In a sense, the legal fiction we call the corporation has
evolved to the point where it no longer needs its host, the nation-state, and
in the process has dragged its shareholders to live and function on a different
playing field from those parties limited to toiling away in the landlocked
nation. As a result, big money is free from the physical and social constraints
normally experienced by most people.
Therein lies the problem. The global economy was built and
continues to grow on the basis of extracting and burning fossil fuels from
geographical locations located in spaces governed by nation-states in their
various forms: democratic (Norway), pseudo-democratic (Canada, USA, UK, and
Australia), family dynasties (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab
Emirates) and the despotic (Venezuela and Russia). However, the companies that
grew and prospered while protected by their national interests, British Petroleum,
Shell, and Exxon Mobil, have become cash cows for private investors living in
their havens, soon to be armed lifeboats, around the world.
In short, climate change creates catastrophic weather
extremes that have the biggest impact on people living in land-locked nations
with no means of escape, but limiting the probability of their occurrence means
reducing the enormous wealth created by the global fossil fuel economy. Without
oil and gas, the global economy will collapse, and with it, the revenue streams
that flow to the richest .001% of the earth’s population.
Let’s not kid ourselves. The ultra-rich are not going to
kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Instead, they will organize media events like COP 28, a
global conference on fighting climate change, hosted by the oil-exporting
United Arab Emirates and presided over by Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, who is
currently the chief executive officer of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, at
which the keynote speaker was King Charles, the hereditary monarch and head of
state of the UK, a nation that has recently approved yet another coal mine,
expanded oil and gas exploration in the North Sea, and delayed a ban on the
sale of fossil fuel-powered vehicles. WTF? It’s like hosting a Weight Watchers
meeting at an all-you-can-eat buffet where the guest speaker is the CEO of
McDonald’s.
This does not bode well for the future.
The other thing to bear in mind is that the power of big
money has an institutional lock on the way the world's political economy
operates. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the so-called end of history,
there are no alternatives to the way life is organized on the planet,
notwithstanding the continued existence of indigenous communities in the
remaining isolated bio-diverse regions where, for one reason or another,
corporate invaders are not allowed to exploit the natural resources there.
So, it looks like humanity, or at least most of it, is
royally fucked.
As I sit down to start my next novel after Christmas, I can
only foresee a future setting in which the current global industrial consumer civilization
collapses, leaving behind a few scattered individuals trying to pick up the
pieces of what remains, while trying not to repeat the mistakes of the past.
Inevitably, my audience will be dispersed in space and time.
Hopefully, my grandchildren will read the novel and say that Grandpa’s heart
was in the right place.
Tuesday, November 28, 2023
Living On A Different Planet
Something is off. I can feel it, and I’m not the only one.
There’s something fundamentally wrong. It’s not at the
periphery. It goes much deeper than that.
It’s as if a huge crack has emerged at the foundation of Western
civilization, threatening to bring the whole thing crashing down.
There are no quick fixes.
It's about how we imagine reality and our place in it.
The modern sense of reality has been long in the making and
has come to dominate the planet and all other ways of being on Earth. It was
born on European soil, took root in the minds of many, and guided the great
enterprise of imperial conquest, the slave trade, the rise of the nation-state,
the industrial revolution, a world at war, the great acceleration, the
information revolution, globalization, and climate change.
Some would have us believe in its narrative of progress: of
humans moving from dank caves, huddled around fires, to finally finding their
place among the stars. Others would invoke the myth of Icarus, the boy in Greek
mythology who soared high above the sea on wings of feathers and wax, but,
ignoring his father's warning, flew too close to the sun, which melted his
wings and sent him plummeting to his death.
Perhaps, reaching for the stars in itself is not an act of
hubris, but the way we have chosen to place ourselves above nature, separate,
almost god-like in the way we are changing life on the planet is, and we do so
at our peril.
Humanity is experiencing an ontological conflict: two groups
of the same species living on a different planet. On the one hand, we have
those who believe that a Judeo-Christian God gave humans dominion over the
earth and all the creatures in it, based on the idea that humans are superior
and possess a God-given right to control and exploit nature for their own
benefit, implying that humans are distinct, totally separate, with man being
the measure of all things. Later, with the rise of rationalism in the 17th and
18th centuries, nature became viewed as a machine, to be measured, analyzed,
and manipulated by humans. By the 21st century, this worldview has come to
dominate and direct what takes place on the planet.
But the modern worldview, though dominant, has not
eliminated other ways of being in the world. There are those who do not believe
that humanity is above and separate from nature. On the contrary, they do not
share the anthropocentric belief that humans are the center of the universe,
entitled to disregard and devalue other forms of life and the ecosystems that
sustain them. Rather, as the keystone species on the planet, humans have a duty
of care to ensure that life, in all its myriad forms, thrives in the present
and for future generations.
It is the presence or absence of this duty of care that
creates a fundamental conflict between those who subscribe to the modern
worldview and embrace a rapacious desire to extract as much wealth as possible
from the world's natural resources with a devil-may-care attitude toward the
consequences of their actions, and those who would impose limits on human
behavior in order to exercise humanity's collective responsibility to ensure
that life flourishes.
It appears that, for now, the desire to be free of all
constraints and the belief in freedom’s guarantee of a better life, manifesting
in unencumbered individuals trading freely in free markets, has won the day.
Surprisingly, philosophic beliefs dating back to the Enlightenment, when there
were less than a billion people on the planet, have remained essentially
intact. Attempts to redirect a small portion of the extracted wealth to support
the ecosystems and the people who dwell in them are met with savage attacks
that seek to demean and denigrate anyone who dares to suggest that a
redistribution of this wealth is in order. So powerful are the voices and
interests that protect and advance the global industrial-consumer way of life
that nothing, including the dissenting opinions of the international scientific
community, will stop them from cranking up the global thermostat (now at 422
ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere), which will render many parts of the planet
inhospitable for both human and other-than-human life.
It is as though we are held captive in a prison of our own
making while smoke and fire creep closer and closer, threatening to engulf the
inmates and those who keep the prison running. Clutching the keys to the gate,
the overseers are deaf and blind. Undeterred, they follow the orders on how to
create an ever-expanding global economy. Their rationality prevents them from
responding to the warning signs. They are like men made of tin, unable to feel
the suffering of others because they have no hearts and refuse to imagine how
things could be different.
The algorithms of wealth extraction churn on, and as
expected, the biosphere, which supports all life, continues to degrade.
As I watch this sad spectacle unfold in slow motion, I
wonder if Daedalus ever lived to rue the day he attached the wings made from
wax and feathers upon his son. His neglect of his duty of care led to a tragic
result. Likewise, our collective neglect of our duty of care for future
generations is the stuff that tragedy is made from.