War on climate change? I say Bullshit!

[Jackpine Radical]

War on Drugs. War on Terror. War on Poverty.

War.
…War.
……War.

Seems to me we have never won one of those "wars."

Wars on abstractions don't work because they play on the wrong metaphor and lead us to do the wrong things in confronting problems.

I don't see why we need any war metaphors. Wars are about destruction, and we need to be about creation.

Climate change is the greatest challenge to our survival that the species has faced, at least since the Toba near-extinction event of 70,000 years ago (which is thought to have left only 15,000 humans alive).

We must make rapid and profound changes in our behavior and in our worldview if we are to salvage an existence worth living, or perhaps existence at all.

One of the toughest changes we will need to make is to shift onto a cooperative cultural model. War is one of the destructive pastimes the species needs to leave behind. We must commit to finding and implementing rational solutions, we must overcome our own childish, self-centered impulses.

We need a "new New Deal" in which we build a new, green infrastructure with public labor. How about a maglev train from NY to LA? Get the planes out of the air and a lot of cars off the highways. Modernize the rest of the rail system & get all those semis off the roads. A super-internet. Wind & sun farms. Pour resources into developing new battery technologies. Urban gardens. Universal education for everyone, as far as their abilities will take them.


What we have to do is not to fight a war, but to grow up.

[spanone]

1. yep, k&r...

[loyalsister]

2. It's an ironic metaphor for climate change

I think that endless war combat might be worse than death.

[NoOneMan]

3. We may not need a war-like effort, but a lack of effort

The problem is over production. Lets stop "doing" so much. Our entire society revolves around the notion of doing more from one year to the next, infinitely (measured in GDP). Its a pathway to destruction.

There are more paths than trying to figure out how to burn energy to keep growing, yet not die of climate change (mainly in form of famine). An alternative is burn less energy, and shift our civilization's focus to other goals (like happiness, leisure, quality of life, etc).

We work more, we do more, we are sicker (mentally and physically), and the environment is dying. How can we keep these things up and expect that magically one day it will all start working out for us (and by us, I mean all humans including Africans as well)?

[Jackpine Radical]

5. I endorse everything you say.

[Locrian]

15. agree with everything you say, but....

I was in China last year, and I don't see it stopping. The amount of coal plants, pollution etc is apocalyptic.

I just don't know how we can put the brakes on all that momentum, and address all the inequality in the world.

But yeah, finite resources will be the reality - it's how we handle it that will define the future.

[NoOneMan]

18. Im not sure its possible to stop the momentum as well

Thats why all proposed solutions so far have centered on how to preserve growth and industrial civilization, while still magically reducing emissions; the system cannot produce a solution that contradicts its purpose.

Maybe we have a shot after this all goes to hell. Maybe we never did.

[lunasun]

26. At one time the US could have led the way but instead was the sandbag stopping it

Now look at what is coming in larger countries and if we want it to stop we have to start in our own space first.
Not many people want to listen to a nation of hypocrites

15 yrs ago in a large city in China it was 3 -4bike lanes across and 2 for cars and buses
then about 4 yrs ago upon return it was almost reversed - who knows now - it could be like a city here with just one bike lane

edit to add the rail system in China was in use by many and more timetables, as in Europe
Here not so much and although I use it here it is just not that good or plentiful.

rec OP!

[tularetom]

4. We're not so good at these bogus "wars"

Because somebody immediately figures out how to make a buck off them. And they turn into huge money drains with negligible results.

So what we have to do is discover a way to make it profitable to try to slow down climate change.

You make some excellent suggestions and I have no doubt they will all eventually become public policy. But time is definitely not on our side. For now the profit motive outweighs the sense of urgency.

I think we need to change course in my lifetime. And I will be 72 this year.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. I KNOW we need to do it within my lifetime, but then

I'm a mere sprout of 68.

[valerief]

7. You don't understand. "War on **insert abstract noun here** simply means

gives TONS of money to rich people.

That's all it means. That's all it ever meant.

[Jackpine Radical]

9. Well, that's part of it.

The rest of it, at least since Nixon, is often "Surrender some more Constitutional rights to a new bunch of armed & jackbooted thugs." DEA, DHS, etc.

[valerief]

10. Yes, but only so that even MORE money can be given to rich people. nt

[Jackpine Radical]

23. Interesting question--

Which is primal, money or power? At some point they're indistinguishable.

[valerief]

32. Yeah, like time and space. nt

[Jackpine Radical]

40. Great frame.

[A Simple Game]

12. Exactly, wars never meant to be won, and that even included traditional wars. n/t

[99Forever]

8. Agreed on all counts...

.. very well stated.

I wish we would declare PEACE on our one and only living space, our Mother Earth, myself.

[zeemike]

11. But we love our wars.

Half of the movies are about war...and I think every si fi movie in the last 30 years has been about war in space....as if we are convinced that if there is life out there it must be more advanced and so have war on a much bigger scale....like a Battle Star of something.
And our favorite game is about war...Football even uses war terminology.... what kid growing up in this society could not love war?

And it is not to be won.

The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.
George Orwell

[ErikJ]

13. We need a WWII mobilization effort worldwide...or its all over.

I heard an expert say that even if all CO2 output was stopped today global warming would still be increasing for another 20 years.
With the currrent global CO2 output we may well reach a tipping point of no return global warming runaway which would raise the earths temp by +10 degrees which is inhospitable to all life.

FDR mobilized 1/3 of the US economy for WW2. The equivalent of that today would be about $5 trillion/year for the US alone. Probably $20 trillion for the globe. Here's an article that proposes a modest more realistic $1 trillion a year effort.

We Need a World War II Effort to Tackle Global Warming and the Great Recession

DEC 12, 2011 Jon Rynn
If the government doesn't go bold on the environment, the economy and the earth will continue to suffer.

The news from the world of global warming science is grim. We need to keep the planet from warming by more than 2 degrees centigrade or the climate could become extremely dangerous. To stay below that level would require a drastic decrease in greenhouse gas emissions in the next several years. Many commentators, from Al Gore to Thomas Friedman to Lester Brown, have argued that we need a World War II type effort to prevent the worst of global warming. Such an effort would have the bonus effect of reviving the economy. When FDR was confronted with a world war, he converted as much as one third of the economy to that effort, with the federal government in the lead. The result: fascism was defeated along with what was left of the Great Depression. Can we do something similar today?

When World War II started, the federal government converted several industries, including the automobile industry, to make tanks, planes, and other military goods. A planning department was set up, and all resources that were necessary for the war effort were carefully counted and controlled. At the peak of the war, about one third of all output (GDP) in the United States went into the military. One third of today's economy would be about $5 trillion dollars.

While there is a debate about whether the war actually ended the Great Depression, it certainly finished off the scourge of high unemployment. The construction of new machinery for the factories laid the groundwork for the post-war boom, as well as enlightened policies like the G.I. Bill, which paid for college for returning soldiers and made housing loans available through the government.

Today we have a different problem, but it could become just as deadly as a world war. Modern global civilization will become difficult if not impossible to maintain if the planet overheats, according to a new report. Our society is not designed to deal with increasing sea levels, indefinite droughts in some areas and unpredictable deluges in others, forests destroyed by warm weather pests, dead oceans, and disappearing glaciers that lead to the destruction of many of the world's most important rivers.

So what would a World War II-type program to prevent global warming and end the Great Recession look like? As I argued in my book, Manufacturing Green Prosperity, we would need to spend on the order of one trillion dollars per year, for 20 years, in order to build the necessary transportation, energy, urban, and agricultural infrastructure. And by "we" I mean "we the people" -- that is, the federal government.

I recently completed a chapter for a book about a green energy economy that should come out in 2012, and I proposed that with a budget of $1.2 trillion dollars per year we could employ about 24 million people, of which over 5 million would be manufacturing jobs. A revival of manufacturing sparked by this program is vital to ending the Great Recession.

Here are the federal programs needed to create a full-employment green economy, along with the annual budget required:

1. An Interstate Wind System that would generate all of our electricity, which is currently provided mostly by coal and natural gas plants at $150 billion

2. An Interstate Electricity Grid that would be able to carry all of this electricity throughout the continent at $85 billion

3. Solar photovoltaic panels that would generate a quarter of our current electricity needs, which would make up for the electricity that the wind system would require at $150 billion

4. Geothermal heat pumps under all residential buildings that would provide all heating and cooling needs at $50 billion

5. Weatherizing half of the homes in the country at $25 billion

6. A 17,000 mile Interstate High-Speed Rail System at $30 billion

7. An expanded freight, medium-speed, and commuter rail system at $25 billion

8. A vastly larger transit system at $60 billion

9. A 100 percent organic agricultural system at $10 billion

10. Recycling/reusing almost everything at $100 billion

11. Last but not least, housing half of the population in dense, walkable neighborhoods, which would cost $500 billion per year if 100,000 250 unit apartment buildings were constructed

clip.....................more>

http://www.nextnewdeal.net/we-need-world-war-ii-effort-tackle-global-warming-and-great-recession

[RoccoR5955]

25. At the rate things are going

We need a bigger output than that. This has to be the biggest thing. Unfortunately, it seems that those in power don't seem to want to deal with it.
I agree that if we don't do something about climate change within a year or two, it's over for future generations. I give it about 20 years, at the rate that we are polluting the environment.

[ErikJ]

30. I agree, we should go the full $5 trillion /yr.

And get the rest of the world to do the same.
If we and Europe built windmills and solar plants/panels as fast as we were building planes and tanks in WW2 I think its possible.

[Locrian]

14. nailed it

Quote:

We must make rapid and profound changes in our behavior and in our worldview if we are to salvage an existence worth living, or perhaps existence at all.

One of the toughest changes we will need to make is to shift onto a cooperative cultural model. War is one of the destructive pastimes the species needs to leave behind. We must commit to finding and implementing rational solutions, we must overcome our own childish, self-centered impulses.



THAT^^^ is it. We have to get off the zero sum game and competition track or we're all (well, most of us) doomed.

Everything in our culture and most of our history goes against this. However, it's not written in stone: evolution is full of examples of competition but also COOPERATION.

[blackspade]

16. I totally get your point.

If not 'War on' then what?

Climate management?
I think the whole use of the 'war' metaphor is to denote the extremity of the need to mitigate climate change.
But your point that this metaphor seems to always lead us to go after problems in totally the wrong way is spot on.

Should we call the endevour the 'Great Climate Mitigation?'
It just doesn't have that 'ring' to it.

[Jackpine Radical]

31. Maybe a race against extinction?

You raise a very interesting question. We need something that will fit on a bumper sticker. It's eminently worthy of thought & brainstorming.

[blackspade]

35. I like that, a "race" rather than a war.

In this case a race that if we finish, we win, no matter how tired and rung out we are.
If we don't finish, we have laid down and died.

I'll all for running! How about the rest of you?

[Blue_In_AK]

17. We just got back from seeing "Chasing Ice"

an absolutely stunning documentary that should be required viewing. No one could argue that global warming isn't taking place after viewing the radical changes to our glaciers in just a few short years.

[agent46]

19. Thank You n/t

[freshwest]

20. Best post ever.

[blkmusclmachine]

21. All these phony "wars." Somebody's getting rich off them. $$$$$$$$$$$

[Beartracks]

28. We need a "War on War." n/t

[Scuba]

22. Sane talk in a crazy world.

[Initech]

24. It's only a war if someone finds a way to get rich off it.

[Beartracks]

27. What's this Toba near-extinction event?

Never heard of it before. I've heard of the meteor that fell near the Yucatan...

Edit: Ah, never mind. Found it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory

=================

[Uncle Joe]

29. Kicked and recommended for a most profound insight.

Thanks for the thread, Jackpine Radical.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

33. I'm thinking that the high testosterone worship

That drives so many societies has to change.

Men need to redefine themselves and change the power focused territorialism hanging on from early evolutionary needs. We should be past having to piss on everything to prove it's ours.

Those men and women who have overcome the primitive urges are important role models.

(This is just one factor among many.)

[Jackpine Radical]

34. Maybe we were already there once, Blanche.

And I, for one, am ready to go back.

Some writers (e.g. Riane Eisler) have speculated on a great era of Partnership Culture in the past. Here is a summary of her book on the topic:

The Chalice and the Blade

Print PDF Cite
At a glance:

First Published: 1987
Type of Work: Feminist History
Genres: Nonfiction, Women’s literature, Anthropology
Neolithic art and funerary practices demonstrate that women were the equals of men. Religion celebrated life and nature, with the Goddess (symbolized by the chalice) being the primary figure of worship. Minoan Crete marks the last instance of this social and religious organizational pattern.

Conquering peripheral tribes, such as the Hebrews, introduced a patriarchal, death-centered system (symbolized by the blade) that valued aggression and dominance and denigrated earlier faith in the Goddess. Such views, expressed in the Old Testament as well as in the Gospels, continue to influence the direction of Western culture to the present day.

Suppressed documents such as the APOCRYPHA show that the Goddess was still a strong mythic figure, one that church fathers ultimately succeeded in demoting to a nondeity in the form of the Virgin Mary.

Relative stability and tranquillity have marked the few times that feminine values have since been in the ascendance (such as Elizabethan England). In direct reaction to them came eras of violent aggression, such as World War I, seen here as a patriarchal rejection of the ideals espoused by nineteenth century feminists.

One such culture may have been the great Harappan civilization of pre-Aryan India. Here's a bit on this.
http://www.preservearticles.com/2011091613509/what-were-the-main-features-of-harappan-culture.html

[BlancheSplanchnik]

38. I wonder if that Indian culture you mention is the same that Nichiren Daishonin refers to

in his writings (known as the Gosho). Nichiren Daishonin was a monk in 13th c. Japan who stood against the corruption that Buddhism had fallen into at that time. It would be like someone standing up against the whole corrupt christofascist structure of present day U.S.!

In one gosho he talks about the importance of right values being held by a leader and how that shapes the kingdom. (We would refer to humanistic values nowadays.) He refers to a specific era in which the king was converted to Buddhism; as a result of governing according to values that truly respect life (living beings, not abstracted ideology), that culture lasted for several centuries peacefully and prosperously.

Anyway, I know the book you're talking about!! I read it nearly 25 years ago, when it first came out!

Anyway, the Soka Gakkai International is based on the practice of Nichiren Buddhism. It's a present day movement aiming to accomplish world peace.
Www.sgi-usa.org. www.sgi.org

[Jackpine Radical]

41. No, the Harappan culture pre-dates the Aryan culture that brought Hinduism

in its earliest forms. Hinduism, like Sanskrit, has Indo-European roots and has deep connections to the Greco-Roman and Germanic pantheons, just as Sanscrit and its descendants have deep connections to Latin, Greek, the Germanic & Slavic languages,etc.

Harappan culture, dating to perhaps 3000-4000 bce, was unknown to the modern world until about 1920, and its language is unknown and its writings untranslated.

Minoan culture (the Minotaur and all that) was supposedly the last holdout of what Eisler called "partnership" tradition.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

43. thanks Pine! I'm gonna have to google the Harappan..

Sounds fascinating. Absolutely fascinating!

I think I lost my copy of Chalice and the Blade somewhere along the line. I think I'm gonna have to replace it!

Been down with some kind of bug. Maybe today I'll be up to checking it out. Google, I mean.

[Glassunion]

36. Declaring war is how the republicans like to go after things.

As if they can kill whatever is the issue.

War begs to kill something. A problem begs to be solved.

We have a drug problem
We have a violence problem
We have a poverty problem

Getting those in charge to admit we have problems would make an awesome first step.

[Jackpine Radical]

42. More precisely, getting them to admit that we have problems that don't demand violent solutions.

Got a violence problem? Arm the teachers.

Aaaaack!

[BlancheSplanchnik]

44. he who lives by the sword

Dies by the sword.

We need to keep standing up to them. Live a different way.

[deutsey]

37. K&R

[bobclark86]

39. I should go back to school...

and become an ATF or DEA officer... I'd make more money and I could search black people for no reason.

These wars just seem like a way to go after minority males (who gets popped for weed and other drugs more, even though white males are more likely to "partake&quot . It's sickening.