Are Big Enviro Groups ‘Holding Back’ Anti-Warming Movement?
For author and radical environmentalist Derrick Jensen, the obstacles to faster changes presented by the US political system, illustrate the need for more-holistic measures.
“None of [the solutions presented by mainstream groups] address the power structures,” Jensen said. “None of them address corporations. None of them address a lack of democracy…. The environmental groups are not questioning this larger mentality that’s killing the planet.”
Too bad they held off until the end of this write up to get to acknowledge what I believe is the core point, but something is better than nothing, I guess.
on April 11th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
Turn Down the Spigot!
Ever hear of global warming? A few scientists have and they have exciting “solutions”. Aren’t we lucky? Unfortunately, they remind me of a story.
A man turned the water on in his sink and let it run. Initially the sink was able to handle the flow, but each day he turned the water on a little faster. Eventually the flow exceeded the capacity of the sink and the water started flowing onto the floor. Not concerned, he continued to turn up the spigot each day. Finally, some people suggested he had a problem.
Experts showed up. Scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, researchers, academics. You know, the ones with all the “answers.” They came up with ingenious solutions. One said that millions of tiny buckets could collect the water so it could be trucked away. Another envisioned giant hair dryers evaporating the water. Another suggested pouring massive amounts of chemicals to grow algae to absorb the water.
“These are “great” ideas,” they all said. “They will cost trillions of dollars but before we can help we need to do more research. Continue turning up the flow each day and we’ll eventually come back to save you.”
Absurd? Hardly. This is the “reality” we live in.
“Top” scientists and “intelligent” minds are conjuring up techo-scenarios like these to “combat” global warming. Each day our industrialized, corporatized, militarized, consumerized, super-sized human population continues to increase the spewing of toxic pollutants into our air, water and land. We have ignored the consequences of our behavior for years. Now our earth is reacting to this abuse. It is a serious, life-threatening problem. (that is, except for the government/corporate elite who continue to make profits off of the increasing pollution.)
Yet not to worry, the same “experts” and engineers that brought us this mess have conjured up magical solutions to make the problem go away. Here are a few that NASA is about to share in a report:
The Man-Made Volcano: Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen and scientist Edward Teller propose spewing tens of thousands of tons of volcano-like sulfate particles into the atmosphere each month to reflect sunlight back into space, thus cooling the earth.
The Geritol Solution: A private company, Planktos, Inc. proposes dumping 30,000 tons of iron dust into the ocean. This will artificially elevate the plankton and algae which will drink up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Solar Frisbees: Roger Angel of the University of Arizona wants to launch 20 million rockets and release 16 trillion flat, reflecting disks to reflect 2% of the sun’s energy back into space. Cost? $4 trillion dollars.
Artificial ‘Trees”: Hundreds of thousands of 200 foot tall steel towers with CO2 absorbing filters are the brainchild of Columbia Professor Klaus Lackner. These devices, meant to mimic real trees (clever, but doesn’t nature already do this for us?) will require enormous energy as they change CO2 into a liquid and pipe it away.
It’s interesting isn’t it? These people ignore what any 5th grade student would find obvious: Turn down the spigot! Unfortunately this option, the only viable one, does not fit in with the corporate agenda. That would be anti-growth, anti-business, anti-American. (i.e. anti-profit.) Government and corporations get us to buy into the doctrine of “endless-more,” ignoring the limits of nature. Continuing this myth is suicidal. Our gluttony has real consequences. We are deluding ourselves and writing humankind’s final chapter if we believe that we can technologically “solve” the problem while ignoring the source.