Infinite Capacities

 

Now that the International Panel on Climate Change has released its unsurprising report confirming global warming as an ‘unequivocal’ reality, and concludes it’s our burning of fossil fuels that’s responsible, one might expect a rational response from both policy makers and the public alike.

So far, however, that doesn’t seem to be the case.  One can’t help being reminded of what 19^th century writer and critic Thomas Lounsbury once observed:

“It never ceases to surprise me at the infinite capacity of the human mind to resist the introduction of useful knowledge.”

Speaking as a Canadian living in the land of climate change denial, it wasn’t a surprise to see this report briefly discussed in the national media, and then quietly disposed of in favor of surfing dogs, celebrity tweets and hockey hockey hockey.  It would seem at the moment we are living in a cultural climate in which the mere mention of the word environment is akin to heresy and if you are someone who cares about responsible stewardship you are characterized as radical.

But who here is the radical?  Is it the scientist whose job it is to ‘introduce useful knowledge’ so people may be informed and create practical frameworks of understanding, or is it the policy makers and pundits who belittle and silence the voices of reason who are urging nothing more than a return to critical thought?

The IPCC report states that there is a 95 to 100 percent probability that the warming trends are in fact man-made.  Ironically, instead of dispelling the doubters, this lower bound 95 figure has given skeptics the room they needed to deepen their skepticism.  As if, in different circumstances, they would have no problems buying a car that had a 95% probability of catastrophic brake failure, or a cell phone that had a 95% probability of causing permanent brain damage.

It is simply not tenable to continually pursue policies now widely understood to be irreversibly harmful.   And not to be taken lightly, what does it say about our institutions when the brightest among us are forbidden to engage with an increasingly disengaged population?  There was a time not so long ago in Canada when such things as science literacy, respectful open dialogue and the humanities were considered positive and central attributes within the national character.  Now they are regarded as impediments to the fantastical notion of infinite economic growth at the expense of our ever-dwindling ecosystem.

And regarding the state of journalism, one can only imagine how surprised Thomas Lounsbury would be today to witness our modern media and their ongoing efforts to consciously promote unconsciousness within the society they purport to serve.

Infinite capacity indeed.

 

Bill Moyers and Richard Wolff

 

Economist Richard Wolff spoke to Bill Moyers not long ago about what he describes as capitalism running wild, or in other words how our current economic system actually functions in reality.

What stood out for me were his observations on his own educational experiences at some of most elite institutions like Harvard, Princeton and so on, in that he noticed in his area of study, economics, there were in fact two departments.  One was the economics department where theories about how the market knows best and equality of opportunity in an idealized world were taught.  Then there were the business schools where students were taught how the economy actually works outside of these theoretical abstractions.

What’s interesting is how he noticed that the economics department was the only one that boasted this sort of schizophrenia.  One didn’t have two anthropology departments, or two philosophy departments.  But economics did, which I suppose could lead one to the conclusion that out of all the departments within these institutions it’s the one that needs this partition because formal economic theories about infallible markets simply do not reflect what goes on in the real world.

Go figure.

 

Today’s Top Ten People Peeves

10. Politicians who think it’s a grand idea to defund such things as the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Science for fear they would produce, ironically, valuable information on climate, the environment and atmospheric science. Welcome to Canada, circa fifth century A.D.

9. People over the age of 25 who walk around wearing UFC or Sons of Anarchy t-shirts. I’m sorry, would you like some milk and cookies?

8. Politicians who blissfully fire 70% of climate scientists after they slash 30% of the operating budget from Parks Canada.  It must be comforting to know Ted Nugent is advising us on how to manage our environment.

7. People who write songs entitled I Love You So I Told You a Lie, Raw Dogs and War Hogs, and Kiss My Ass. What? Our environment minister has been writing songs for Ted Nugent?

6. Politicians who, in spite of advice from the vast majority of scientists and several previous Fisheries Ministers, decide to dramatically scale back oversight and regulation of the Canadian fisheries. Their logic?  Hey, since fish are brain food, they’re smart enough to regulate themselves, unlike politicians.

5. Politicians from Toronto who take to the airwaves Rush Limbaugh style to describe journalists as pricks, or scum, or a bunch of maggots. Lesson number two: don’t get high on your own supply.

4. People who salivate over the progressively melting ice in Greenland since it would offer us the singular opportunity to create the world’s largest golf resort and country club. The moral of the corporate mindset: If the Titanic is sinking, might as well book the executive suite on the uppermost deck…

3. People who believe CNN, NBC or Fox news are still the vanguards for corporate misinformation and infotainment. What? The CBC isn’t available in your area?

2. People who make fun of the CBC. In these troubled economic times, it’s not fair to deny multi-millionaires and billionaires access to a public broadcast vehicle to peddle their wares and brands, at taxpayer expense.

1. Politicians who insist that the Alberta Tar Sands are as harmless and refreshing as a pail full of kittens.  What?  Ted Nugent is writing talking points for Joe Oliver?  Well, I Love You So I Told You a Lie.

 

The Unconscious Civilization

 

“The owners of this country know the truth, it’s called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.”

-George Carlin (1937-2008)

 

The UCD Philosophy Society Inaugural Lecture 2013

 

Among the seemingly endless array of truisms Professor Chomsky surveys in this timely discussion for the UCD Philosophy Society Inaugural Lecture 2013, are his important observations about our looming environmental disaster and the unlikely people trying to resolve it.

So-called western intellectuals often refer to pre-industrial societies as uneducated, since after all, they lack the many benefits a western education alleges to provide.  And yet, these pre-industrial societies are the ones mobilizing worldwide to help solve the problems of climate change, problems they had little to do with creating, while western countries, with the help of their intellectuals, accelerate the march towards the cliff.

It should, I think, make one pause to think about the price of a meaningful education.

 

Let Them Eat Cookies

Apologies, the bread and circuses truck is running late.  Do you want some milk and cookies?

No thanks, an answer to my question will do.

And what was the question again?

Why is it that within the richest countries on the planet, overwhelmingly, it’s those with the least having to pay for those with the too much?  Why is it that in times of unprecedented wealth, schools must cut back, hospitals must cut back, and roads and bridges must crumble under the weight of willful neglect?

These are very complicated and serious issues.  I’m afraid you simply don’t understand or appreciate the complexities.

Well then I’m lucky you’re here to explain them to me.

I could try, but sadly there are things involved here you just wouldn’t get.  I get them, of course, but then I’m a serious person, a person of letters and respect.

Well mister serious person, lay out the argument.

Now I don’t blame you for not understanding.  People like you, and bless you’re hearts, are just too busy to grasp the subtleties at play.  It’s best to just leave it to us, the serious professionals, to understand.

But you’re not saying anything.  You can’t even begin to answer what should be an obvious and straightforward question.  Why should financial elites, who in large part caused the current economic crisis through sheer recklessness, continue to benefit from taxpayer bailouts while the rest of us labor off the crumbs that remain?

Say, who do you think will make the playoffs?  A thousand dollars on the Habs!

What?

As an expert on these matters I’d advise you to move along.  There is nothing to see here.

You’re behaving like a police officer ushering me away from the scene of an accident.

I’m afraid you’ll just have to trust us, we experts, to determine what is important and what is not.  Relax.  Here, have some cookies.  No charge.

Could you be anymore condescending?

Oh sure.

Right.  Let’s try this one more time.  Why should anyone trust a failing system that continues to rely on the advice of the very people that crippled it?  And while we’re at it, does the term morality exist anywhere in your lexicon, or justice for that matter?

I’m sorry, what was that word?

M o r a l i t y.

Let me check.  Let’s see, I have markets, money, mislead, materialism, money, management, miserly, meanness, mammon, merciless, manipulation, mirage, misinformation, me, mine, money and more.  Sorry, no morality.

How about moderation.

I’m sorry, what was that word?

Never mind.

No, I’ve never heard of that word before.  And since it’s not in my official lexicon, as a professional expert serious person of letters and respect, I can assure you, it doesn’t exist.

You do realize the future you apparently toil to achieve, like your lexicon, is hopelessly abridged.

You superfluous types really amuse me.  Now, don’t forget, it’s not your place to think, we professionals will do that for you.  Wait, where are you going?

Mars.  Given our trajectory, I suspect the view will be much safer from there…

 

A conversation with Paul Krugman that might as well have gone something like:

 

“But Professor Krugman, you do realize that the fact the European economy is on the brink of total disaster proves our theories of austerity are working and working well!”

“Well no, the facts, predictably, show the opposite.  If history has taught us anything, and it has, in times of depression what’s needed is stimulus and revenue, not austerity.  I’m sorry, but this is just basic economics 101.”

“But rich people need more yachts and I want homeless people to pay for them.”

“That’s nice.”

“Furthermore, I want the government to drown in my Baldi Rock Crystal bathtub so I can avoid paying any taxes whatsoever.”

“But if the government drowns, who will bail you out when you’re transparently ideological agenda tanks the entire economy, once again and perhaps for good?”

“Homeless people.”

“That’s nice.”

 

Speaking of Copernicus

 

As the Canadian government expands its policy of preventing scientists from discussing their findings to include U.S. scientists with whom they collaborate, one could reasonably imagine what the CPC would have done in the time of Nicolaus Copernicus:

 

But sir, I can assure you that the Sun, not the Earth, resides at the centre of our solar system.

You are hereby forbidden to discuss these findings with anyone without our explicit consent.

But sir the population has a right to know the truth.

As it is the governments’ official position that what we say in fact constitutes the truth, you will instead read aloud the following statement.

But sir, it states that the Earth is flat, resides at the centre of the universe and votes conservative.

Is there a problem?

I’m afraid as a Renaissance scientist and a man of honor, I have an ethical and professional duty to…

The heretic shall be silent!

 

Elizabeth May and the Politics of Oil

 

As Canada continues to organize its economy around the one resource it desperately needs to wean itself from, fossil fuels, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May continues to fight the good fight, despite the odds.

As the business of consciousness raising continues, it would be nice to think Canadians could perhaps skip Coaches Corner for once and donate twenty minutes of their time to learn the back story behind plans to ship the bituminous material from the Alberta tar sands not only south and perhaps east, but also west along the hazardous B.C. coastline.

One would hope.

 

The World Bank Report on Climate Change

 

In this Mondays’ edition of Truthdig, Chris Hedges details a report from the World Bank entitled Turn Down the Heat on the probable impacts of climate change for the coming decades, and to be frank, it’s not pretty.

All current climate model scenarios point to at least a 4 degree Celsius rise in mean global temperatures by the end of the century, resulting in not just hotter weather, but as the authors say in their forward,

“…the inundation of coastal cities; increasing risks for food production potentially leading to higher malnutrition rates; many dry regions becoming dryer, wet regions wetter; unprecedented heat waves in many regions, especially in the tropics; substantially exacerbated water scarcity in many regions; increased frequency of high-intensity tropical cyclones; and irreversible loss of biodiversity, including coral reef systems.”

“And most importantly, a 4°C world is so different from the current one that it comes with high uncertainty and new risks that threaten our ability to anticipate and plan for future adaptation needs.”

The report not only details the physical changes anthropogenic climate change will have on the environment, but also the practical effects on the ways we live.  The economic and social fabric, such as they are, will simply unravel if we destroy the very thing on which they depend: the environment.

I think it’s worth noting that these predicted effects are not merely remote or hypothetical.  We are experiencing, if you’ll pardon the pun, the tip of the iceberg at this very moment.  The more we tax the environment, the faster nature collects.

“It is clear that we already know a great deal about the threat before us. The science is unequivocal that humans are the cause of global warming, and major changes are already being observed: global mean warming is 0.8°C above pre industrial levels; oceans have warmed by 0.09°C since the 1950s and are acidifying; sea levels rose by about 20 cm since pre-industrial times and are now rising at 3.2 cm per decade; an exceptional number of extreme heat waves occurred in the last decade; major food crop growing areas are increasingly affected by drought.”

“Despite the global community’s best intentions to keep global warming below a 2°C increase above pre-industrial climate, higher levels of warming are increasingly likely. Scientists agree that countries’ current United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change emission pledges and commitments would most likely result in 3.5 to 4°C warming. And the longer those pledges remain unmet, the more likely a 4°C world becomes.”

“This report is a stark reminder that climate change affects everything. The solutions don’t lie only in climate finance or climate projects. The solutions lie in effective risk management and ensuring all our work, all our thinking, is designed with the threat of a 4°C degree world in mind.”

Turn down the heat indeed.