Mark Jones
Wed, 27 Sep 2000 13:48:20 -0700
-----Original Message----- From: Mark Jones [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 27 September 2000 18:58 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Climateconcern] forests, climate crisis, end energy crisis-- --and the article by fred singer for the herald tribune Paul Williamson wrote: > > > I agree, "There is nothing wrong with economically-based energy > conservation; Unfortunately capitalism does not work like this. It is a grow-or-die system and the elites who personify it (character-masks of capital) are not only not interested in making the kind of radical changes that are needed, they are not even capable of seeing the need for such changes. Even when they are deeply interested in the problems posed by global warming, even when they have spent a lifetime in the apparently disinterested pursuit of scientific knowledge about human imapcts on the ecosphere, even when they are people of sincere religious conviction, they are not capable of doing more than utter helpless prayers to the Almighty when faced with incontrovertible evdience of looming disaster. It is utopian and pointless to expect that appeals to reason will achieve anything. The 'know' much better than the average ingorant layperson, just how serious is the impasse capitalism has enetered; they 'know', they are perfectly clear, that industrial capitalism has created a mass extinction of species for which there are few parallels even in geological time. But they are not capable of registering this information or of mobilising around it. They are too embedded in the creature-comforts which their own elite lifestyles endow them with. All talk of reforms are, in context, playing quoits on the deck of the Titanic. It is wishful thinking to suppose that you can persuade those with power over you to do anything which runs against their immediate self-interest or which imperils their social position. They will not do it. As Karl Marx said, he whom you seek to persuade, you acknowledge master of the situation. It is *worse* than wishful thinking to try to ingratiate them by proposing schemes for making 'the markets' work to correct the catastrophe which the markets themselves have created. Human society dominates the natural world; its material throughputs exceed nature's. Human society is trapped between demographic inertial momentum, climate destabilisation, energy famines, and mass species extinction. Do not hope for justice, equity or reform. It will not happen. 3 billion people live on less than three dollars a day. They will be joined by at least 2 billion more in the next 30 years. To give them 'Western' living standards would mean creating 10 more US economies. It obviously cannot happen. Therefore at least 5 billion humans are doomed to lives without security, proper housing, education, health and welfare, without modern transport systems and urban infrastructure. And *this* is assuming things continue as they are; but they will not. They will get worse. We face water and energy famines. Oil production in the USA has declined continuously for 16 years (for 30 years in the Lower 48). Even Texas is now an net energy *importer*. World oil and gas production has peaked and the future will get worse, before it gets worse again. Population overburden and ecocide go hand in hand with capital shortages, energy famines and the collapse of agriculture. These things are already inevitable, even in the best case and whatever reforms people of good will try to implement if they come to political power (they won't). All the rainforest that can be hewn down, will be. All the fossil that can be burnt, will be. All the aquifers that can be pumped dry, will be. All the biomes that can be plundered, will be. No efforts will be made to reverse greenhouse emissions, on the contrary, they will accelerate. Billions of innocent people are walking around today, not knowing that their death certificates have already been made out. Start from this. Mark _______________________________________________ Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist