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. 

What If We Are the Bad Guys?

I started watching the adaptation of Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See on Netflix. I loved the novel and am enjoying the series. One thing I've noticed is that it's pretty obvious who the bad guys are. They wear Nazi uniforms and go around killing people.

There is a young Nazi soldier who must be a good guy because he refuses to reveal the location of the young blind girl who is now broadcasting on a radio frequency he used to listen to as a child. When confronted by a fellow soldier to reveal his secret, he responds by killing the evil Nazi and disposing of his body.

Nazis make great bad guys since there is little, if anything, they can do to redeem themselves in the eyes of the reader or viewer. Eventually, however, time moves on, and we need to look for other bad guys who come and go depending on the latest twist in the world of global politics. Russians and Serbs seem to have caught on because of their nasty accents. Arab terrorists also fit the bill, followed by Latin American drug dealers.

But what if the bad guys cannot be identified with a specific geographic location? What if the bad behavior is shared by billions of people? What if readers figure out that they are the bad guys? Will they keep reading?

It’s easy to portray the good guys. Make them victims and show them engaged in acts of kindness. Not so easy for the bad guys when the gang includes almost everyone I know, including myself.

I was born during the Great Acceleration. Houses were cheap. Cars were cheap. Gas was cheap. And life was sweet if you happened to be a white person living in North America. As I grew up, we were treated to what seemed to be a never-ending series of new consumer products and upgrades to existing ones.

I'm old enough to have started watching broadcast programs on a black-and-white television, then in color, to have the choices expanded with the advent of cable and VCRs, and finally to have been replaced by streamed programs distributed over the Internet.

Although I have chosen not to own a car, I have been a frequent flyer, taking advantage of cheap flights and visiting more than twenty-five countries around the world. In other words, I have been part of the problem, a member of the dinosaur-sized ecological footprint club.

Imagine the following scene from an American movie. It's Thanksgiving, a time of year when family members make the pilgrimage back to their parents' house for the traditional meal. Except this year, the youngest daughter has decided not to attend. She says she can't justify making a trip that will spew more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The rest of the family is appalled. How can she be so disrespectful to the sanctity of the family? What's her problem? Is showing her East Coast friends how woke she is more important than being with her family?

I seriously doubt a scene like this would make it to the big screen in movie theaters or the smaller screens scattered around the house. It cuts to the quick. There is a problem most families avoid talking about. How is our North American lifestyle contributing to the climate catastrophe now underway? Instead, let's deny that a problem exists. Let's vilify someone so we can all enjoy our gluttonous feast and give thanks that we're not sweltering in 50-degree heat nor ass-deep in floodwaters.

Scenes like this raise doubts about what the hell is going on. No doubt some viewers would interpret the scene as not supporting the dubious claim that there is something wrong with the daughter, but that there is something wrong with the family, something wrong with the way they live.

But people don't want to feel guilty, so they're not inclined to consume entertainment that evokes feelings of moral failure. Film and fiction distributors don't readily support such artistic visions. There's more money to be made in offering escape. Life is hard enough without being reminded of what lies ahead. The band plays on while the women and children scramble for the lifeboats.

I wonder if we have entered a new epoch of artistic expression. I remember studying Renaissance poetry, the Victorian novel, and 20th-century American literature at university. Perhaps my grandchildren will be able to recognize the film and fiction of the early Anthropocene period.

Living and Writing in the Anthropocene

I don't need to imagine a dystopian future. The Anthropocene epoch is already here. Extreme weather events are happening right now where I live in South America. Right now, there is a severe drought in the higher altitudes of the Andes in Ecuador and Colombia, the Amazon basin, and it extends further south into Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina, and Uruguay, and north into Panama, where the Panama Canal is drying up, causing a severe reduction in the number of ships passing through the canal, and also in Mexico, particularly Mexico City, where officials have begun to restrict water use as freshwater reservoirs continue to shrink.

How does this affect me?

The lack of rain has lowered the production of hydroelectric power where I live, leaving the Ecuadorian government no choice but to impose rolling blackouts throughout the country, which means that I am currently without electricity for two hours in the early afternoon every day.

Fortunately, my laptop is charged, and I can use the time to get back into a writing routine. For me, it's an inconvenience that I can easily take advantage of. Others are not so lucky. For them, the loss of electricity means a loss of income in a country where the average person earns only $6000 USD per year.

On the coast of Ecuador, we only have two seasons: the rainy and the dry. At the end of the last rainy season, it took almost two extra months for the savannah-like climate to return. A surplus of rain brought floods to my city, turning the normally dry vegetation into vast swaths of green.

We were warned that the onset of El Niño, the cyclical warming of the surface waters of the Pacific Ocean, now intensified by global warming, could bring extreme weather conditions. Drought and its impact on power generation were predicted. Fortunately, the early onset of heavy rains in the Andes has brought some relief, but what worries us now is the possibility of diluvial rainfall in the coming months, such as California received during the winter of 2022-23.

In fact, climatologists are warning that there is a good chance that this year's El Niño could bring catastrophic flooding the likes of which we haven't seen since 1998, when floods destroyed crops, roads, and bridges, caused landslides, soil erosion, and water contamination, and were responsible for 300 deaths and the displacement of more than 30,000 people.

Right now, the sea level is fifteen centimeters higher than normal, and the water temperature is three degrees warmer than average along the coast of Ecuador, which doesn't bode well for the immediate future. Reading this in a report, I couldn't help but think of Hurricane Otis, which recently devastated Acapulco, Mexico. In less than twelve hours, Otis went from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane, becoming the strongest storm on record to hit the Pacific coast of Mexico, taking dozens of lives and causing billions of dollars in damage.

I have reason to be concerned. I have reason to feel a twinge of eco-anxiety, but given the potential impact of El Niño on my life here in Ecuador, I feel remarkably calm. I guess all those years of watching news reports of catastrophic weather events in distant places have numbed me to the possibility that I could become a victim of climate change.

Until it happens to you, it's someone else's problem. In other words, if you don't realize that you're in harm's way, you'll just go on living your life like everyone else around you.

Ay, there’s the rub.

Those of us fortunate enough to have been born in the global North tend to take our collective comfort for granted, as if we had an inalienable right to live our lives in the lap of luxury, the right to indulge in the spoils of five hundred years of imperial conquest. However, as historical climate patterns enter an unstable, perhaps chaotic phase, there is no escape on the planet from the vagaries of the emerging hydrological cycle, which swings wildly from one extreme to another, making once-in-a-century weather events a regular occurrence.

At present, those with the most to lose are pinning their hopes on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to find a lasting solution to the most serious global threat since the deployment of nuclear weapons during the Cold War. Despite annual meetings of the COP, the UNFCCC's supreme decision-making body, no binding agreement has emerged to curb the production and burning of fossil fuels. As a result, greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere and global warming is accelerating.

With no viable solution on the horizon, it appears that the New Global Order has adopted the survival of the richest as its modus operandi, both within and between nation-states. Nations in the global South are being devastated by changing weather patterns due to the consumption patterns of those in the North. Calls for financial aid to respond to the economic and humanitarian disasters caused by extreme weather events are heard, but not acted upon. Having already been stripped of much of their natural resources during centuries of wealth extraction, first by Europeans and then by Americans, the poor nations of the global South are ill-equipped to meet the challenges of life in the Anthropocene.

Similarly, the treatment previously reserved for the colonized is now being applied to the population within the rich nations. Inflated asset values are driving up the cost of living for those who must work to live. In order to maintain a middle-class lifestyle, many are forced to increase the number of hours they work as side hustles become pervasive. Those "essential workers" who are unable to increase their income face the unenviable choice of paying rent and utilities or buying food. Worse, as affordable housing becomes scarce, the poor are forced to live out of their cars and vans or on the streets. No wonder life expectancy in the U.S. is declining, especially for people of color and those without college degrees.

What the rentier and the salaried classes have in common is an aversion to loss that prevents any meaningful reduction in the burning of fossil fuels. For the rentier class, global economic growth, which is predicated on fossil fuels, must continue in order to maintain the desired return on investment and increase the accumulation of financial wealth. For the salaried class, the transition away from fossil fuels can only be tolerated if there is no loss of material comfort. Together, both classes conspire to keep the industrial consumer civilization in place, allowing only marginal changes, such as the addition of renewable energy sources to the ever-increasing fossil fuel energy supply.  Consequently, we see a few electric vehicles on the road, a few solar panels on houses, and a few wind turbines in the distance, times whose presence gives the false hope that things are about to change, but in reality, there is little if any hope that humanity can prevent catastrophic global warming from taking place.

These are the in which we live.

As a writer, I feel the need to capture in a story my experience of watching a civilization collapse. I don’t think a post-apocalyptic tale will do. There is too much still in play, and future generations will want to know:

“What were you thinking?”

“How could you turn this beautiful planet into a living hell?”

“For what?”

“So, a few of you would never have to work and could enjoy the finest things that money can buy?”

“And you let them?”

“Your crimes against the future of humanity will never be forgotten.”

“May you find your just reward in the afterlife. May you feel the pain of those whose lives you have destroyed.”

 

It's good to feel my creative juices flow again. To return to the flow. 

The Lost Souls of Guayaquil

Spectacularly creative and emotionally gripping. The Lost Souls of Guayaquil is an original and thought-provoking novel about life, death, and what defines us in between.

This masterful piece of magic realism is intimately tied to class struggle, political violence, and social inequity. The straightforward narration is visceral, personal, and richly layered with cultural detail, bringing scenes and characters to believable life. The depth of detail depicting the spiritual and healing practices found in Ecuador is immersive and fascinating, while the author's intensely journalistic tone will leave jaws dropped with the sheer power of the prose.

This surreal plunge into the past and beyond is difficult to put down -- or forget.

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