[Dialogue] The right question, continued

Wed Jul 18 09:24:38 PDT 2012

Gene,

Regarding contradiction B2, I believe there is at least one partial alternative vision emerging as articulated by Jeremy Rifkin inThe Third Industrial Revolution.  In a nutshell, it involves a kind of energy/ecological democracy.  Rifkin names 5 sources of alternative energy; solar, wind, hydro, bio-mass and geo-thermal.  Every home, factory and office building has proximity to at least one of those and can therefore produce energy for its own use and to spare at its own locale.  The surplus can be stored using hydrogen technology and distributed via an energy network modeled after the internet.

If you're familiar with Rifkin's work, he also insists that the "third industrial revolution" is not the final destination, but rather a stepping stone on the way to an "empathic (serving) civilization."

Randy 

"Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires."
-Martin Buber (adapted)

________________________________
 From: Ken Fisher <hkf232 at gmail.com>
To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net> 
Cc: Gene Marshall <jgmarshall at cableone.net> 
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 9:21 AM
Subject: Re: [Dialogue] The right question, continued

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 Alternativeswww.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
>>_______________________________________________
>>Dialogue mailing list
>>Dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net
>>http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net 
_______________________________________________
>Dialogue mailing list
>Dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net
>http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net
>
>

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