6. Towards Reasonable Environmentalism

Videos Pending . . .

Most people who have studied the Environmental Movement’s ‘progress’ for the last 40 years, whether they are for or against it, generally conclude that it has not been very successful. There has been a great deal of debate, and this page offers some clarity (hopefully) regarding how to find a new path forward. . . (add pics)

Let’s talk about the largely failed, thus far, apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists such as Rachel Carson and Paul Erlich i.e. >Check out the wired article from a Wall Street Journal Colmnist: ”Apocalypse Not” . . . Here is the concluding paragraph> “Just as policy can make the climate crisis worse—mandating bio-fuels has not only encouraged rain forest destruction, releasing carbon, but driven millions into poverty and hunger—technology can make it better. If plant breeders boost rice yields, then people may get richer and afford better protection against extreme weather. If nuclear engineers make fusion (or thorium fission) cost-effective, then carbon emissions may suddenly fall. If gas replaces coal because of horizontal drilling, then carbon emissions may rise more slowly. Humanity is a fast-moving target. We will combat our ecological threats in the future by innovating to meet them as they arise, not through the mass fear stoked by worst-case scenarios.” <Note the individual creativity/ technological solutions versus cooperative synergy ‘policy’ approach dialectic manifesting itself, again, in this analysis.

An interesting interview with Naomi Klein about climate change, here.

This is a link to a video on a Amazon Indian trip that still lives in a state of nature. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SW0jzXTS6A

Link to videos with beautiful reasonable realistic attempts at portrayals of what space exploration may have in store for humanity’s environmental evolution:

On Mars - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRiIn3gSGGM

On exploring, via robotics, an extra solar earth like planet - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNLfNe12BKE

Thesis #1. Contemplation of the Rose Mandala reinforces the obvious statement that: Homo Sapiens is an animal. We may indeed be ‘spiritual’ animals, but when we say that we are just spiritual, or that we are another sort of being altogether, that we are qualitatively fundamentally above animals, than that is almost certainly our unreasonable inflated egos speaking; speaking out of the fear of the death, or the insignificance in the grand cosmos, of our ego inhabited bodies, and, ironically to some, the denial that we are animals is profoundly irreverent to any loving description of a/the ‘higher power’ (which or who is typically called ‘God‘).

Thesis #2. Contemplation of the compelling reason and logic of the Rose Mandala forms the rational basis for a core environmental ethos: Ensuring the long term survival of your genes is a central part of rationally and ethically adhering to ‘the meaning of life’, and though the human ego rebels, because successful organism’s genes should continue far beyond the death of the individual, and, in Homo sapiens’ case among others, that means beyond the death of one’s ego. Understanding and adhering to the genetic continuum portion of the meaning of life is the core value humanity needs to cultivate in order to better ensure our survival, and as a corollary in order to create a gracefully sustainable civilization. (another thesis?) The problem, again, is that evolution, nature, or what have you, has left us with egos that are over-sized relative to the power that we can weld over our environments, so therefore without conscious redirection we are maladapted, with a naturally skewed value system. See the Rose Mandala, and the Meaning of Life.

Thesis #V?. Wilderness and Freedom ~ Freedom and Wilderness. There is an old, and emotionally evocative, idea of freedom that predates the idea of freedom to own property, and the socialistic idea of freedom from want: Ed Abbey said it pretty darn well (with a simple pdf download) here (that is, if you ignore the American exceptionalist parts of his analysis of some of the world’s cultures). The first chapter of Jack Hunt’s Abstract Wild also says it well (here). And perhaps most famously, Henry David Thoreau says it in Walden (here), on pages (?).

Thesis #L > U?. Environmentalist Values regarding: Pantheism, Humanism, Capitalism/Libertarian ism, Socialism, Christianity, Islam, Paganism

Thesis #x?. Environmentalist are not reasonable, not even true environmentalist, and do not benefit the ’cause’ when they attack humanity, verbally or otherwise, in an ad-hominem fashion. Why?

Thesis #z?. Deep ecology, where we are to see all species as of equal value to humanity is based on an ethical system which is too skewed from the scientific definition, and (according to the logic of the Rose Mandala) therefore ‘Meaning,’ of life, and consequently our own evolved psychological make up, to work to achieve deep ecology’s own values. However, the values of Deep Ecology, are still close to correct. (Explain)

Thesis # y?. When considering the inherent value of Capitalism one should bear in mind that modern Capitalism as we know it, (with it’s core premise that competition will benefit all due to endless exponential growth such that all can continuously better thier lives) was born during the exponential exploitation of easy energy from fossil fuel, which is finite on the very human scale of lasting probably no more then a few 100 years.

Theisis #y+1?. As a corrolary the failed Socialist experiments of the 19th and 20th centuries, posited as they partially were implicitly on human wealth becoming easier to attain, were also responding to the same optimism.

Objective (hopefully) arguments for a strong response to the issues of peak oil and climate change:

1. Responding to the Biogenisis theory.

2. examinig our own ability to be objective when considering the vast amount of data avialble.

Resolving the Debate

6. Towards Reasonable Environmentalism