[Dialogue] The right question, continued

Wed Jul 18 07:21:54 PDT 2012

From Gene

Dear Colleagues,

John Epp's summaries below reveal some great questions.  And clearly the revolutionary "We" needs to face such questions.  But questions are not all that we have.  We have a number of answers that are coming together in the very midst of this swirl of ever more baffling questions.

One of these coming togethers is the priority of the ecological crisis, especially the coming together of climate science and the clear, but shocking, implications of this imperative.  I will not document the truth of this imperative except to say that oil companies and other opponents typically minimize its importance.   Some are now saying that global warming is real, but we can adapt to it.  "Humans have always adapted before.  They will adapt again.  Therefore, we can continue to expand fossil fuel use and adapt to the consequences."  A beautiful theory for oil company power and profits, but exceedingly short on facts.

The truth is that the easiest and cheapest adaption is to phase out fossil fuels with all deliberate speed. The other adaptation is extremely costly: such as losing altogether a number of Pacific islands, a huge chunk of Bangladesh and Florida.  It might entail things like moving the whole city of New Orleans a hundred miles or so.  Even harder may be moving varies growing areas for crops.   Is this what these oil company blow hards mean by "adaptation."

There was a spectacularly wonderful pull together in the CCPA Monitor* on the contradictions (or "barriers" they call them) to dealing fully with the global warming imperative.  Here is the list:

Barrier 1: Inequality undermines trust that we are all in this together.

B2: A lack of a clear alternative vision.

B3: Individuals cannot do it alone. That is, social and governmental organization is required.

B4: An economic (and political) system that is captive to the oil and gas industry and its insatiable hunger for growth and profit. That is, government agencies will have to manage the long-run phasing out of fossil fuels because these companies consider that last barrel of profit making goo their right.

B5: Climate change is not merely an environmental problem for environments adherents.  It is the problem for every institution in society.

B6: People need hope, agency, and voice.  It is now the case that people feel powerless.  We need to see ourselves as the U-Turn generation on this topic. We need to experience stopping the expansion of the problem and experience instead an accelerating momentum of transition.

Here is the conclusion of that article: 

"The urgent immediate task is to prepare for ... tipping points.  To lay the policy groundwork. To seed the public discourse with bold ideas, in anticipation of these moments -- and they are coming -- when the seemingly impossible is suddenly inescapable. 

"There will be a transformation -- an effective response to the climate crisis -- though whether it occurs in a manner that is just and fair or unjust and repressive remains an open question.  Past industrial revolutions have cast aside whole populations on the scrapheap of history. Another revolution is coming.  Our challenge is to ensure that this one unfolds more equitably, democratically, and humanely."

A similar perspective we pulled together in our book The Road from Empire to Eco-Democracy.  My point here is that a consensus is emerging among the awakening forces of the planet.  That consensus and obeying its implications is more important than the sea of questions that a hundred years will not finish answering.  We will have to live with unanswered questions while we obey the answers that are becoming shockingly clear.

For a viable and flourishing humanity on planet Earth,

Gene

*The Monitor | Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
www.policyalternatives.ca/monitor/index.php

On Jul 17, 2012, at 6:03 PM, Ken Fisher wrote:

> 
> 
> Begin forwarded message:
> 
> From: "jlepps at pc.jaring.my" <jlepps at pc.jaring.my>
> Date: July 17, 2012 6:42:59 PM EDT
> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>
> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] The right question, continued
> Reply-To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>
> 
> Here's another take on the "right" question for our time:
> 
> The function of technology is to expand human potential.  Current research and inventions seem to offer undreamed of possibilities. Virtual meetings, satellite radio, microwave meals, robotic surgery, online shopping with digital assistants, self-driving automobiles, self-diagnosing body parts, space travel – even avatar immortality – are all either currently available or in pilot stages. The interior crisis occasioned by all this possibility is bewildering potential. We face a paralyzing complexity of possibility. Clearly the old structures are past their usefulness as we saw in the past decade. Now we are bewildered by pure potential for creating a new functioning civilization. Technology is no longer a constraint: we can do even more than we can imagine. Our imaginations, however, seem constrained by established images of systems and structures that no longer work. We don’t know how to think in new categories, or even what those categories might be. People often speak of this as a digital generation gap, and to be sure there is one. But I suspect even the brightest young geeks haven’t set themselves to thinking of new ways to operate as a global society. Pure potential is an abyss – a gap with no place to stand, no security, and no certainty. That’s the situation in which we find ourselves.
> 
> Our existential question is “How can we operate?” that is, “How can we be in this world together?” and even the “we” is not clear. At one time it could refer to the family or our network of friends or colleagues or the community or the state or party or nation or race or even in our more generous moments, humanity as an inclusive whole. Now even that seems inadequate. The environmentalists have expanded our horizons. All flora and fauna now seem to have a claim on us. Even the mineral resources which we’ve extracted and manipulated with abandon seem to be crying for attention. Neither our economic, political nor cultural systems are equipped to address those cries. 
> 
> John Epps
> 
> 
> At 09:38 AM 7/17/2012, you wrote:
>> Maybe Jim got it said (below)
>>  
>> In a message dated 7/16/2012 6:50:19 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time, jfwiegel at yahoo.com writes:
>>  Maybe the question is, how are we as a human species, going to generate a level of courage, wisdom, care and creativity that is more than adequate to meet the challenges of this new century?
>> 
>> Because it deals with the human dimension, which is what, as EI and ICA, that is what we have recognized.
>>  
>> Karen Bueno
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net
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