One of the big hullabaloos during the campaign was around health care – Obama wanted to essentially socialize it, making coverage available through the government and force insurance companies to bring prices down, while McCain wanted to continue using the current system but give people money to pay for it. Opposition to Obama shrieked at the idea of socialism and opposition to McCain said the amount of money he proposed wouldn't cover the costs and many people would be worse off. For all of the Republican yakking about free markets and how much better everything is when it isn't run by the government, we sure have made a mess of health care. Not a single person in this country thinks our health care system works, except maybe the insurance companies (who have made out like bandits in a bigger and more blatant scam than the current home-loan debacle). Noam Chomsky said health care has long been the number one issue of the American people but only started to get talked about when big companies began complaining about the high cost of providing coverage. There are few instances in recent history when the complaints of companies are the same as of the people and we're at a moment right now where so many things are broken that if we take the time, we can put them together right and turn a bad situation into an incredible opportunity.
One of those broken things is our consumer-based economy. 76% of our GDP is made up of spending on consumer goods and they're related like a spiral. When spending is up, the economy does better, more jobs get created, people have more disposable income and they shop more. But when spending is down, like in a recession, the economy does worse, jobs get cut and people stop spending, increasing the speed of the downward spinning. Over the past few months, we've watched our lawmakers flailing around crying wolf and begging for bailout packages and stimulus packages without any real strategy. From where I sit, and I'm sorry for this analogy but it reminds me of a guy trying to regain his erection when the moment has already past. You can spend the next half hour working to get it back only to find that your partner doesn't care anymore, or you can just go do something else. I would like to propose that we do something else. I'm tired of watching my representatives trying to pump life into the economy by throwing money at it. The money doesn't build anything that will stimulate a long-term upward spiral, it might give us a short boost but then we'll fall limp again.
The thing that everyone is talking about is green tech and for a good reason. The warnings about global warming are getting louder and louder and to anyone paying attention, they make everything else seem a little trivial. The governor of California just issued a directive to the state to start preparing for rising sea levels and a new study from the University of California shows the state losing trillions of dollars of real estate to fires. Among the other expensive disasters in store for us are drought, energy shortages, earthquakes, loss in tourism revenue and massive agricultural losses. To not change RIGHT NOW is the dumbest thing this country can do. We voted change into the White House but as Obama keeps reminding us, it's also us who will have to change. The whole world is registering the effects of global warming and so why not rebuild our economy around an industry that is not at odds with what the people need, an industry that will not only grow our economic future but will also keep us from financial ruin? We already know that there aren't enough fossil fuels in the world to meet the future energy demands of the U.S., China and India and while I'm sure we'll keep fighting over oil until every last drop is gone, why not also implement other technologies? We can't afford to wait and the acquisition and consumption of oil is largely responsible for global warming anyway.
So here's an idea. Let's do two drastic things right now to change our economy. First, let's socialize medicine and kill the insurance companies or make them work for us instead of the other way around. If we remove the burden of health care from employers, we will make huge strides towards keeping businesses here and maybe even luring some back. Second, let's level the energy playing field and create huge financial incentives for corporations to go green. If we did those two things, we could massively grow the green sector – putting new products on the market, giving unemployed people jobs, slashing emissions and pollution, promoting innovation and retaining more of our smart people – and relieve the country of the massive health care burden – putting more disposable income into the hands of Americans, increasing company profits and decreasing fraudulent behavior. President Bush says we don't have to give up on free people and free markets, and I agree. There are times, however, when we should do something else. This is one of those times.
Showing posts with label Bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bush. Show all posts
Monday, November 17, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
The sky is falling!
About a year ago, when I was taking the bus down to San Jose every morning for my job, I subscribed to The Economist to have regular reading materials. I let my 6-month subscription lapse after noticing that every issue was filled with doom and gloom. At one point, though, I was going to blog about how little economists actually know and understand about how "the economy" works. I put it in quotes because what is it really? It's like the human body in that it's more complicated than anyone even realizes. We develop drugs to treat disease but because drugs only address symptoms, they have multitudes of side effects, some so severe that it's sometimes advisable not to even take the drug. Very little in medicine is holistic in that it addresses the health of the entire ecosystem (the body). This is how I see the economy being treated right now, like it has cancer and we're just going to give it a massive dose of chemo even though chemo has drastic side effects and, depending on the health of the subject, sometimes only makes things worse.
I had saved an in-depth interview with Ben Bernanke about the levers he was pulling a year ago. There must have been over 20 quotes that basically said that no one really knows how the whole thing works. He just either turns up or turns down the volume on various dials and sees what happens. The problem, he admitted, with that approach is that it takes time to see the results so every adjustment is followed by a period of growth or decline before another adjustment can be made. Even then, it's not reliable to assume that if raising interest rates was bad then lowering them must be good because everything affects something else. In every interview on NPR lately, I keep hearing that the system is far more complex than it used to be and "we're just discovering that now." The truth, I believe, is no one knows how it works. I wish I understood it just a little, because I feel like this whole thing is being grossly mishandled.
It eerily looks like the 9/11 scenario to me. In both instances, there were many warnings that a disaster was coming and nothing was done to prevent it from happening. I've been reading articles for a couple of years now about an impending housing crisis. These people making the loans knew there was a chance that the whole thing would blow up. They knew, but they didn't care. Why should they? There were huge profits to be made and like the Enron fiasco, some people still made out like bandits while the entire company lost their jobs and savings plans. Secondly, after the disaster, instead of investigating how it happened and figuring out how to prevent it from happening again, our leadership asked to have total control without any restrictions. This is no time for asking questions, they said! Instead, they invaded two countries, locked up hundreds of people without rights, restricted our civil liberties, skirted accountability and spent billions of dollars (not on our economy and infrastructure) and seven years later, we're still fighting the "war on terror" with no end in sight. How do we know this "bailout" won't be more of the same? I can't help wonder if this constant comparison to the Great Depression isn't just a way of scaring us into making a bad decision.
I heard the plan described as basically a way for these financial institutions to unload bad debt without any scrutiny and without having to make any promises in return about how they'll conduct business in the future. These are the same companies that have previously been treated with a "hands off" approach because the government shouldn't interfere, right? This is what we always hear about how the "free market" works and how it rights itself when unrestricted. Kind of like the explanation that when left to the market, the global warming crisis will just magically right itself without any interference from the government. So why does that approach suddenly get turned on its head when these companies, unfettered, behave badly and put everyone in a bad spot? Now they expect the government to bail them out? Bush says to just fork up the cash and not give any lectures. He threatens congress with being responsible for a total collapse of the economy if they don't ask fast enough, if they stop to ask questions or make demands, for instance. And yet no one's asking the question that should be asked which is why it's so difficult to afford a house in the first place.
There has been some speculation that Wall Street should just take the hit. People say that this could go on for much longer than we think. Bailout after bailout after bailout. Has anyone actually done an analysis on the long-term effects of this approach? Certainly, a parent could tell you that bad behavior that goes unpunished, and in fact rewarded, only encourages more bad behavior. Wasn't this the argument when last year, the government made it more difficult for individuals to file for bankruptcy? Why should it be easier for financial institutions to be bailed out while the executives make out with salaries of $10 million and more? Oh no, though, they say this is all for the taxpayer. It's to protect us from total disaster. But don't ask how it works.
I had saved an in-depth interview with Ben Bernanke about the levers he was pulling a year ago. There must have been over 20 quotes that basically said that no one really knows how the whole thing works. He just either turns up or turns down the volume on various dials and sees what happens. The problem, he admitted, with that approach is that it takes time to see the results so every adjustment is followed by a period of growth or decline before another adjustment can be made. Even then, it's not reliable to assume that if raising interest rates was bad then lowering them must be good because everything affects something else. In every interview on NPR lately, I keep hearing that the system is far more complex than it used to be and "we're just discovering that now." The truth, I believe, is no one knows how it works. I wish I understood it just a little, because I feel like this whole thing is being grossly mishandled.
It eerily looks like the 9/11 scenario to me. In both instances, there were many warnings that a disaster was coming and nothing was done to prevent it from happening. I've been reading articles for a couple of years now about an impending housing crisis. These people making the loans knew there was a chance that the whole thing would blow up. They knew, but they didn't care. Why should they? There were huge profits to be made and like the Enron fiasco, some people still made out like bandits while the entire company lost their jobs and savings plans. Secondly, after the disaster, instead of investigating how it happened and figuring out how to prevent it from happening again, our leadership asked to have total control without any restrictions. This is no time for asking questions, they said! Instead, they invaded two countries, locked up hundreds of people without rights, restricted our civil liberties, skirted accountability and spent billions of dollars (not on our economy and infrastructure) and seven years later, we're still fighting the "war on terror" with no end in sight. How do we know this "bailout" won't be more of the same? I can't help wonder if this constant comparison to the Great Depression isn't just a way of scaring us into making a bad decision.
I heard the plan described as basically a way for these financial institutions to unload bad debt without any scrutiny and without having to make any promises in return about how they'll conduct business in the future. These are the same companies that have previously been treated with a "hands off" approach because the government shouldn't interfere, right? This is what we always hear about how the "free market" works and how it rights itself when unrestricted. Kind of like the explanation that when left to the market, the global warming crisis will just magically right itself without any interference from the government. So why does that approach suddenly get turned on its head when these companies, unfettered, behave badly and put everyone in a bad spot? Now they expect the government to bail them out? Bush says to just fork up the cash and not give any lectures. He threatens congress with being responsible for a total collapse of the economy if they don't ask fast enough, if they stop to ask questions or make demands, for instance. And yet no one's asking the question that should be asked which is why it's so difficult to afford a house in the first place.
There has been some speculation that Wall Street should just take the hit. People say that this could go on for much longer than we think. Bailout after bailout after bailout. Has anyone actually done an analysis on the long-term effects of this approach? Certainly, a parent could tell you that bad behavior that goes unpunished, and in fact rewarded, only encourages more bad behavior. Wasn't this the argument when last year, the government made it more difficult for individuals to file for bankruptcy? Why should it be easier for financial institutions to be bailed out while the executives make out with salaries of $10 million and more? Oh no, though, they say this is all for the taxpayer. It's to protect us from total disaster. But don't ask how it works.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Wired sells out to Monsanto
I picked up my new Wired magazine and immediately read their cover story, an inflammatory ‘environmentalists are full of shit’ piece. It really pissed me off. They end their series of anti-arguments based on facts focused around cutting carbon dioxide, with a “take it with a grain of salt" letter from the editor of Worldchanging.com. He basically says the article is a short-lens focus that could get us into even more trouble. Isn’t the damage already done with a cover like “Keep your SUV, forget organics and screw the spotted owl?” I suppose it would be okay if they were using it to get people reading but then dole out some actual wisdom inside, but they don’t.
Here are my reactions to the articles:
1) A/C is OK. Here they say it takes more energy to heat a house in a cold climate than it does to cool a house in a hot climate. Good point, but really do we want everyone to move to the Southwest? The area is already burgeoning and just beginning a mega-drought that could last up to 150 years, where are they going to get enough water to live? What about clamping down on cheap housing construction and passing ordinances requiring better insulation. We’ll all have to pay more per square foot but maybe it will have the doubly beneficial effect of making our houses use space more efficiently.
2) Live in cities. Yes, for the most part, urbanization is cool and better for the environment but they make an argument that exurbs are the same as living in a truly rural area surrounded by trees. People don’t live in exurbs to be closer to nature, they sprouted up because people (like in Los Angeles) couldn’t afford to buy houses in the city so developers bought cheap land 50 miles out of town in the desert and built affordable housing there. The article points a finger at lawnmowers (a product of the suburb/exurb) and I totally agree that lawnmowers are a waste of energy. But why not encourage people with land to plant trees and grow a garden to feed themselves instead of trying to get them to move to a city? Not everyone wants to live in an apartment.
3) Organics are not the answer. This one really burns me up. They say we should screw organic because it takes 25 organic cows compared to 23 industrial cows for the same milk and they put out 16 percent more greenhouse emissions. Are they f’ing kidding me? We should drink hormone-laced pus-filled milk from sick suffering cows for that differential? The only smart thing they say in this article, albeit stuffed in the middle, is that if you really want to do something for the environment, stop eating meat altogether. It’s true that we can’t go organic at our current rate of consumption but we (in industrialized countries) eat and waste too much food anyway. Instead, I think we should go organic 100% and patronize restaurants that serve reasonable proportions of quality food.
4) Farm the forests. The only good thing in this section is about culling dead wood out of the forests, it does prevent fires and with the climate heating up, we can’t afford the kind of fires it’s going to bring. But the rest of it, about becoming full time forest farmers and cutting down old growth trees is total bullshit.
5) China is the solution, not the problem. I agree! (See next post) China has become the number one producer of alternative energy solutions for export and use in their own country. Due to decades of rapid and untethered production and growth, their feet are now much closer to the proverbial fire than ours; they will likely find and implement environmental solutions quicker than us.
6) Accept genetic engineering. If I read one more thing about biofuel, I’m going to be sick. They just made the point that we should use more public transportation in the “move to the city” argument but now they’re talking about how we should embrace genetic engineering so we can grow more biofuel. They attack fertilizer and say nothing of chemical sprays, but fertilizer is necessary because of our addiction to monocrops (and profits). Thousands of years ago, farmers rotated crops and used trees and companion plants that naturally kept bugs away or attracted complimentary insect relationships (like worms) and enrich the soil to the benefit of certain crops. The author mentions Monsanto as some kind of wonder company here to save our lives. Monsanto is a chemical company that produces the world’s best-selling “herbicide,” a chemical that kills everything. They then got into the agriculture business producing 90% of the GMO crops on the planet, specifically engineered to resist their herbicide. Roundup kills everything except the crops they engineer. They are corporate bullies who use lawsuits and threats to wipe out local farmers. "Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food," said Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications. "Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job." Unchecked, everything we eat will be engineered by Monsanto. If Wired really gave a shit about us and the environment, they’d do a full report on how they control our food supply.
7) Carbon Trading doesn’t work. I agree, good idea that needs improved.
8) Embrace nuclear power. There’s been a lot of talk that the only way we’ll produce enough energy for the billions of us on the planet in the future is from nuclear. They call it the cleanest of the fossil fuels because of the low emissions, uh, but what about the huge volume of nuclear waste produced? We already have tons of it buried in leaking containers under the ground in Washington and other states, we have no safe way to dispose of it and it remains toxic for thousands of years. Let’s focus on energy saving and efficiency before we make feeding our voracious appetites the top priority, eh?
9) Used cars not hybrids. Okay, I get the argument. New cars cost a lot of energy to make. If you’re driving a ten-year old fuel-efficient Toyota like my RAV, it’s better for the environment to keep driving it than to buy a new car. Except that my RAV will never end up in the landfill, there will always be someone waiting to buy it. They suggest (again, to be inflammatory) by the same logic you’re better off driving a Hummer because making a Hummer contributes less carbon to the environment (because of the nickel in Prius’ battery). They say nothing about the fact that cars in Europe are twice as fuel-efficient as ours and are the same as a Prius, which is why you don’t see hybrids there. It’s all a bunch of crap. We’re sold gas-guzzlers on purpose so the hybrids look good in comparison. While it doesn’t affect our carbon output, the quiet drive of the hybrids has many other benefits.
10) Prepare for the worst. Yes, things are going to get much hotter and much worse before they get better and we do need to accept that and prepare. They quote Stewart Brand who says, "We are as gods and might as well get good at it" and suggest that we take over completely by using our technology to fix the things we've broken like helping birds migrate, for example. We're destroying their natural habitat, building over open spaces that break up long migration journeys, disrupting communication with our noise and killing them and their food with pesticides but the scientists are going to save the birds with assisted migration? Then again, they mention that Monsanto, who brought us Agent Orange, PCBs and Bovine Growth Hormone, will save us with genetic engineering. What is this issue sponsored by Bush and the chemical industry?
I agree we better figure out ways to adapt and continue to innovate but we are consuming and disrupting the natural order of the planet at an unsustainable rate and technology alone will not save us (or the birds). We need to continue to make our small but impactful changes like eating locally produced food, driving less, taking a tote the store instead of using plastic bags, planting trees and food in our yards if we have them, installing energy efficient appliances, using less energy by unplugging what we aren’t using, and continuing to pay attention, support innovation and demand responsibility from corporations and governments.
Here's the first part of a two hour-long show about Monsanto:
Here are my reactions to the articles:
1) A/C is OK. Here they say it takes more energy to heat a house in a cold climate than it does to cool a house in a hot climate. Good point, but really do we want everyone to move to the Southwest? The area is already burgeoning and just beginning a mega-drought that could last up to 150 years, where are they going to get enough water to live? What about clamping down on cheap housing construction and passing ordinances requiring better insulation. We’ll all have to pay more per square foot but maybe it will have the doubly beneficial effect of making our houses use space more efficiently.
2) Live in cities. Yes, for the most part, urbanization is cool and better for the environment but they make an argument that exurbs are the same as living in a truly rural area surrounded by trees. People don’t live in exurbs to be closer to nature, they sprouted up because people (like in Los Angeles) couldn’t afford to buy houses in the city so developers bought cheap land 50 miles out of town in the desert and built affordable housing there. The article points a finger at lawnmowers (a product of the suburb/exurb) and I totally agree that lawnmowers are a waste of energy. But why not encourage people with land to plant trees and grow a garden to feed themselves instead of trying to get them to move to a city? Not everyone wants to live in an apartment.
3) Organics are not the answer. This one really burns me up. They say we should screw organic because it takes 25 organic cows compared to 23 industrial cows for the same milk and they put out 16 percent more greenhouse emissions. Are they f’ing kidding me? We should drink hormone-laced pus-filled milk from sick suffering cows for that differential? The only smart thing they say in this article, albeit stuffed in the middle, is that if you really want to do something for the environment, stop eating meat altogether. It’s true that we can’t go organic at our current rate of consumption but we (in industrialized countries) eat and waste too much food anyway. Instead, I think we should go organic 100% and patronize restaurants that serve reasonable proportions of quality food.
4) Farm the forests. The only good thing in this section is about culling dead wood out of the forests, it does prevent fires and with the climate heating up, we can’t afford the kind of fires it’s going to bring. But the rest of it, about becoming full time forest farmers and cutting down old growth trees is total bullshit.
5) China is the solution, not the problem. I agree! (See next post) China has become the number one producer of alternative energy solutions for export and use in their own country. Due to decades of rapid and untethered production and growth, their feet are now much closer to the proverbial fire than ours; they will likely find and implement environmental solutions quicker than us.
6) Accept genetic engineering. If I read one more thing about biofuel, I’m going to be sick. They just made the point that we should use more public transportation in the “move to the city” argument but now they’re talking about how we should embrace genetic engineering so we can grow more biofuel. They attack fertilizer and say nothing of chemical sprays, but fertilizer is necessary because of our addiction to monocrops (and profits). Thousands of years ago, farmers rotated crops and used trees and companion plants that naturally kept bugs away or attracted complimentary insect relationships (like worms) and enrich the soil to the benefit of certain crops. The author mentions Monsanto as some kind of wonder company here to save our lives. Monsanto is a chemical company that produces the world’s best-selling “herbicide,” a chemical that kills everything. They then got into the agriculture business producing 90% of the GMO crops on the planet, specifically engineered to resist their herbicide. Roundup kills everything except the crops they engineer. They are corporate bullies who use lawsuits and threats to wipe out local farmers. "Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food," said Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications. "Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job." Unchecked, everything we eat will be engineered by Monsanto. If Wired really gave a shit about us and the environment, they’d do a full report on how they control our food supply.
7) Carbon Trading doesn’t work. I agree, good idea that needs improved.
8) Embrace nuclear power. There’s been a lot of talk that the only way we’ll produce enough energy for the billions of us on the planet in the future is from nuclear. They call it the cleanest of the fossil fuels because of the low emissions, uh, but what about the huge volume of nuclear waste produced? We already have tons of it buried in leaking containers under the ground in Washington and other states, we have no safe way to dispose of it and it remains toxic for thousands of years. Let’s focus on energy saving and efficiency before we make feeding our voracious appetites the top priority, eh?
9) Used cars not hybrids. Okay, I get the argument. New cars cost a lot of energy to make. If you’re driving a ten-year old fuel-efficient Toyota like my RAV, it’s better for the environment to keep driving it than to buy a new car. Except that my RAV will never end up in the landfill, there will always be someone waiting to buy it. They suggest (again, to be inflammatory) by the same logic you’re better off driving a Hummer because making a Hummer contributes less carbon to the environment (because of the nickel in Prius’ battery). They say nothing about the fact that cars in Europe are twice as fuel-efficient as ours and are the same as a Prius, which is why you don’t see hybrids there. It’s all a bunch of crap. We’re sold gas-guzzlers on purpose so the hybrids look good in comparison. While it doesn’t affect our carbon output, the quiet drive of the hybrids has many other benefits.
10) Prepare for the worst. Yes, things are going to get much hotter and much worse before they get better and we do need to accept that and prepare. They quote Stewart Brand who says, "We are as gods and might as well get good at it" and suggest that we take over completely by using our technology to fix the things we've broken like helping birds migrate, for example. We're destroying their natural habitat, building over open spaces that break up long migration journeys, disrupting communication with our noise and killing them and their food with pesticides but the scientists are going to save the birds with assisted migration? Then again, they mention that Monsanto, who brought us Agent Orange, PCBs and Bovine Growth Hormone, will save us with genetic engineering. What is this issue sponsored by Bush and the chemical industry?
I agree we better figure out ways to adapt and continue to innovate but we are consuming and disrupting the natural order of the planet at an unsustainable rate and technology alone will not save us (or the birds). We need to continue to make our small but impactful changes like eating locally produced food, driving less, taking a tote the store instead of using plastic bags, planting trees and food in our yards if we have them, installing energy efficient appliances, using less energy by unplugging what we aren’t using, and continuing to pay attention, support innovation and demand responsibility from corporations and governments.
Here's the first part of a two hour-long show about Monsanto:
Friday, February 29, 2008
Intelligence is in the mind of the beholder
There’s a fantastic article in National Geographic this month about animal intelligence, which apparently is a pretty recent concept. Alex, an African Gray Parrot, knows that what’s the same between a green cup and a green key is their color and he knows that what’s different is their shape. Betsy, a Border Collie, knows 15 people by name and can link photographs with objects they represent. The male African Cichlid, a fish with a brain the size of a pea, will disguise itself as a female to steal food from another male’s territory. The Asian Elephant sees itself in a mirror and will touch a part of its head with its trunk when it sees a spot painted on it that doesn’t belong. The Ring-tailed Lemur can repeat arbitrary sequences and gets better each time, learning how to learn.
Does anyone else find it astoundingly arrogant that humans came up with the idea of intelligence, defined its characteristics and then proceeded to assign an abundance of it to ourselves and claim that other animals are merely responding to a series of instincts, not really thinking? Our brains are the biggest so we must be the smartest! We also decided that many of these dumb beasts also don’t experience fear and pain; a tragic miscalculation for most animals we come into contact with.
We’ve spent even less time wondering if plants have intelligence even though they literally transformed a ball of lava and toxic gas into a lush paradise, making it possible for all of us to live here. In fact, I’d say we’ve spent far more time and money looking for intelligence in outer space, on the desolate moon and the red hot Mars, than we have on our own planet.
I blame the Bible and its story of Eden that teaches people we are God’s special creatures and everything else is here for our exploitation. Again, isn’t it unbelievably arrogant to assert a single creation myth? Every civilization that’s ever lived has boasted one just as glorious and awe-inspiring, many not resembling the one in the Bible at all!
In a discussion with a friend yesterday about our religious upbringing – he’s Irish Catholic, I was raised an atheist – I told him that after years of exploration and experimentation, I decided that I believe in nature. Every living thing on this planet is made of DNA, a blueprint to create all living matter. We still know so little (and yet claim to know so much!) that we’ve deemed 80-90% of our own DNA as “junk.” Which means, in yet another arrogant move, that we don’t know what it does so it must not do anything. Also interesting is that some creatures that we consider far simpler are made up of a lot more DNA. (In their universe, they must think they’re smarter than us because they have more DNA).
That we all share this incredibly complex code is proof enough for me that we are all part of the same thing. There is overwhelming evidence that each living being’s presence and activity on this planet affects every other living being’s experience. We are not living ON this planet, we ARE this planet and this planet is all of us; it changes constantly and always has.
If we really are the most intelligent creatures, shouldn’t we be able to figure out a way to stop global warming? In fact, we should be able to at least agree that a) we have a considerable impact on this planet and everything on it and b) we have choices as to what that impact is. I don’t think the majority of people have accepted those things yet. If they believed in nature instead of God, maybe they would.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb in one of my PopTech! lectures talks about what he calls "epistemic arrogance," which describes how we focus only on what we know and what we think we know and ignore everything else, which as it turns out, is most things. It's the reason that we are lousy as forecasting everything. Our world, our brains, even our own bodies are far too complex for us to fully comprehend.
In another really good PopTech! lecture by Dan Gilbert, he says we aren’t equipped mentally to deal with global warming. He says we have an enormous capacity for change and can mobilize against a common enemy with swift force. The problem in this situation is defining the common enemy.
These are his four reasons that we will fail to do so:
1) It doesn’t have a human face. We’re obsessed with humans; we see their faces in clouds and other abstract objects. Global warming isn’t human enough.
2) We aren’t morally repulsed by it. It’s bad, it’s yucky but it doesn’t literally make us sick the way abortion, torture, the death penalty, child abuse and gay marriage do to some. Those are hot issues for a reason.
3) We tend to think about the future but live in the present. We can't react to that is going to happen in the same way as what is happening now, like ducking when someone throws a baseball your head. We have the capacity to recognize future threats but still lack the brainpower to react to them.
4) We react to relative change and, ironically, environmental changes aren't happening fast enough. We have enough time to adjust and think that drying coral, trees, and animals are the way things are.
President Bush had all of those things on his side when he took us to war:
1) A human face – Osama bin Laden
2) Moral revulsion – “freedom haters,” people who oppress women, blow themselves up and train kids to be killers
3) Present threat – 9/11
4) Relative change – laws passed to tap our phones, get our library records, detain people without cause, long lines at the airport
This ties back into my earlier post about how we just need better marketing and PR for global warming. But first, I might have to start the church of nature and start proselytizing!
Does anyone else find it astoundingly arrogant that humans came up with the idea of intelligence, defined its characteristics and then proceeded to assign an abundance of it to ourselves and claim that other animals are merely responding to a series of instincts, not really thinking? Our brains are the biggest so we must be the smartest! We also decided that many of these dumb beasts also don’t experience fear and pain; a tragic miscalculation for most animals we come into contact with.
We’ve spent even less time wondering if plants have intelligence even though they literally transformed a ball of lava and toxic gas into a lush paradise, making it possible for all of us to live here. In fact, I’d say we’ve spent far more time and money looking for intelligence in outer space, on the desolate moon and the red hot Mars, than we have on our own planet.
I blame the Bible and its story of Eden that teaches people we are God’s special creatures and everything else is here for our exploitation. Again, isn’t it unbelievably arrogant to assert a single creation myth? Every civilization that’s ever lived has boasted one just as glorious and awe-inspiring, many not resembling the one in the Bible at all!
In a discussion with a friend yesterday about our religious upbringing – he’s Irish Catholic, I was raised an atheist – I told him that after years of exploration and experimentation, I decided that I believe in nature. Every living thing on this planet is made of DNA, a blueprint to create all living matter. We still know so little (and yet claim to know so much!) that we’ve deemed 80-90% of our own DNA as “junk.” Which means, in yet another arrogant move, that we don’t know what it does so it must not do anything. Also interesting is that some creatures that we consider far simpler are made up of a lot more DNA. (In their universe, they must think they’re smarter than us because they have more DNA).
That we all share this incredibly complex code is proof enough for me that we are all part of the same thing. There is overwhelming evidence that each living being’s presence and activity on this planet affects every other living being’s experience. We are not living ON this planet, we ARE this planet and this planet is all of us; it changes constantly and always has.
If we really are the most intelligent creatures, shouldn’t we be able to figure out a way to stop global warming? In fact, we should be able to at least agree that a) we have a considerable impact on this planet and everything on it and b) we have choices as to what that impact is. I don’t think the majority of people have accepted those things yet. If they believed in nature instead of God, maybe they would.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb in one of my PopTech! lectures talks about what he calls "epistemic arrogance," which describes how we focus only on what we know and what we think we know and ignore everything else, which as it turns out, is most things. It's the reason that we are lousy as forecasting everything. Our world, our brains, even our own bodies are far too complex for us to fully comprehend.
In another really good PopTech! lecture by Dan Gilbert, he says we aren’t equipped mentally to deal with global warming. He says we have an enormous capacity for change and can mobilize against a common enemy with swift force. The problem in this situation is defining the common enemy.
These are his four reasons that we will fail to do so:
1) It doesn’t have a human face. We’re obsessed with humans; we see their faces in clouds and other abstract objects. Global warming isn’t human enough.
2) We aren’t morally repulsed by it. It’s bad, it’s yucky but it doesn’t literally make us sick the way abortion, torture, the death penalty, child abuse and gay marriage do to some. Those are hot issues for a reason.
3) We tend to think about the future but live in the present. We can't react to that is going to happen in the same way as what is happening now, like ducking when someone throws a baseball your head. We have the capacity to recognize future threats but still lack the brainpower to react to them.
4) We react to relative change and, ironically, environmental changes aren't happening fast enough. We have enough time to adjust and think that drying coral, trees, and animals are the way things are.
President Bush had all of those things on his side when he took us to war:
1) A human face – Osama bin Laden
2) Moral revulsion – “freedom haters,” people who oppress women, blow themselves up and train kids to be killers
3) Present threat – 9/11
4) Relative change – laws passed to tap our phones, get our library records, detain people without cause, long lines at the airport
This ties back into my earlier post about how we just need better marketing and PR for global warming. But first, I might have to start the church of nature and start proselytizing!
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