God but it's nice to read inspirational stuff first
thing in the morning! If we are undergoing a massive transformation, I do
wonder which way we are heading. To avoid paying parking downtown, I ride
the bus a lot. What I see ever so much of is people, men mostly because
the women are busy on their cellphones, holding a little device in their
hands, starring at it and poking at it with a finger. From my
childhood, I recall seeing a picture of an early hominid, perhaps Homo Erectus,
behaving exactly the same way, but with a stone in hand.
I've recently done some work involving oil and gas
development in the Arctic and the concept of sustainable development. I
regard the latter concept as one of the greatest of all hoaxes we have laid upon
ourselves. When it first emerged in the 1970s, global population stood at
approximately 4 billion. It has since risen to some 6.5 billion and may exceed 8
billion by 2030. With rapidly growing industrialization and modernization in
China, India, Brazil and other parts of southeast Asia and Latin America, the
demand for hydrocarbon energy the only ubiquitous form of energy now available
is growing even more rapidly than population. American and European
consumption will also continue to grow. Once brought to market, hydrocarbon
resources from regions like the Arctic, now under consideration
because of dwindling or increasingly inaccessible conventional resource stocks,
will last only a few decades given growing global demand. One has to have
a lot of faith in human ingenuity to make oneself believe that the lights won't
go out or, if that doesn't totally happen, that we will continue to be able to
fly to Mexico for a holiday or even drive to the grocery store.
One of my pet theories of human development is that
we learn catastrophically. Perhaps, once we have laid waste to the world
as it now exists and populations have declined to levels that are sustainable
with what is left, we will become transformed into something that is better able
to cope with the realities of living on a tiny, finite speck of dust.
Or, more hopefully, we may see the precipice before we actually hit it and give
some meaning to the notion of sustainable development.
Yours in pessimism,
Ed
>
> I think that the human species is undergoing a massive transformation. It is
> inadvertent, but it is also self-propelled. It is without blue-print, and
> without automatic assurance that the transformation will be for the better.
> I think we hang between possibilities: for real systemic problems, or for
> great systemic improvement and the release of human creativity and energy.
>
> So it is difficult to point to specific reasons for optimism, because
> everything we might do or try seems to be enveloped in such a massive
> environmental reality that our influence may seem trivial. Having said
> this, it is also true that we can be as influential as the next person, and
> that those who are active will have the lion's share of the influence. The
> activists will create the transformation, to the extent that it is created.
> And I would prefer to see it created than left to happenstance, or the
> inertia crated by individual ignorance and greed of a few.
>
> I have no formulae for action at this point, though do have a book in the
> works that seeks to make sense of this and propose a course of action.
>
> Meanwhile, though I live in the heart of the monster and have to deal with
> the stupidities of Bush and his group every day, I see no reason for
> pessimism on the evolutionary grand scale. Bush et al will be miserable
> footnotes soon enough...
>
> So I hope you will craft a little faith for yourself at this point; and not
> give up on the notion of applying your considerable talents to helping build
> that more beneficial world....
>
> Cheers,
> Lawry
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brad McCormick,
> Ed.D.
> Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2006 11:39 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Cc: 'Karen Watters Cole'; [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [Futurework] Bush in Pakistan and Cheney in the bush....
>
> Harry Pollard wrote:
>> Brad,
>>
>> You nattering nabobs of negativity are all the same.
>>
> Some "people" (i.e., instantiations of unreflected social conditioning
> on the hoof as opposed to self-reflective self-accountable human
> individuality) accuse me of "negativity" -- and also of being against
> "change".
>
> I find it hard to be positive about things that I perceive
> as threatening the lower levels of my safe grounding in
> satisfaction of Maslow's
> hierarchy of needs, and I am indeed against change for
> the worse.
>
> I'd really like to be upbeat! Solidly grounded
> reasons [substantive, not just semantic...]
> therefor are always welcome, along
> with their bearers!
>
> I once came up with a criterion for "honoring" others:
>
> I honor that person who raises me up.
>
> Conversely, in the area of theo-cosmology (the hierarchy of
> heavenly beings):
>
> No person rises so high
> that they cannot reach a hand down to help another up.
>
> Well, I've personally known at least two persons who had
> risen so high that they could not reach a
> hand down to help their *employees* up! I guess they
> are now somewhere above the thrones and dominations,
> and still increasing velocity....
>
> \brad mccormick
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