Large corporations are destroying life on earth, that they can’t help themselves, they can’t change or change very much, that so long as we live under this system we have little choice but to go along in this destruction,”
Excerpt From: Richard Smith. “Green capitalism: the god that failed.” Apple Books.
How do we get out of this mousetrap?
We needed to stop fossil fuel at the start. Now too late? Let’s start with admitting it was a huge mistake, and we have not been coherent enough as a species to have paid attention to those who first raised the warning.
. it was huge mistake, yet all of modem life is built on it.
Now we need fast action. From where could it come?
I assume all the boards of organizations and most executive teams are discussing the IPCC report. But maybe not. Cuomo and infrastructure seems to take the news cycle.
The reporters are stuck along with the policy makers and ceos are – what could be said? There is no action that can survive arguments – except the need to cut fossil fuel use, and we aren’t going to get that. So there is no action and no story.
I’d still like to know what is happening in the executive suite.
The Atlantic has
“Some of the worst impacts of climate change can still be avoided. “There are still emissions pathways that would lead us to limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, but they require deep, rapid cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions,” Flato said. “That leaves a glimmer of optimism that we could limit warming to levels like that.” But it would require much more expedient action from the United States than is contemplated in, say, the bipartisan infrastructure bill that Congress is currently considering.
Notice the lack of specifics on what “deep’rapid cuts” could mean.
We must cut CO2
To do that we must stop burning fossil fuel.
If we do that some business and homes will be cut
which causes complex destabiiation
Which means people get hurt
so we need a new form of welfare.
In sum, we need to
cut fossil fuel
help this who are affected.
Can’tstop at max 1.5 with the government structure we currently have? Thus we have to change government. Elections? Local initiatives? Government falls apart as people don’t com to work when their families are threatened? Storm the Bastille? How will the Natoional Right and the National Left conflict or cooperate on any of these?
At a seminar today it was said that building out the grid sufficiently would be the equivalent of permitting andbbuilding 30 high speed trains per year for thirty years.
Provocation
What should we do?
There are a number of systems that are broken, among them
All these in the context of nature. How do we become the good managers of these taken together? Goals are essential for guidance. Attempts at improving these require a clear awareness of the goals as essential judgments on efforts, that improve the earth while improving humans.
As of now we are surrounded by fixing one thing at cost to others – example, more jobs making more energy use. We need discipline in thinking through the secondary consequences of our actions, the side effects that business has always tried to avoid but that we need to include to avoid further destruction. And if we are serious, coordination across these should be the central task.
The goals need to be in the context of what seems deeply intrinsic to life. Every organism, from Humans to bugs wants to preserve its life but there are desires beyond mere survival. We must be direct and flexible.
Crossing the river by feeling the stones. – Deng Xiao Ping.
Will we really take on these problems? it means managing what Bruno Latour calls The Critical Zone.” the thin skin of the earth where all known life in the universe lives. Lots to do.
Biden says Cuba is a ‘failed state’ and calls communism ‘a universally failed system’ Quoted on CNN. Th trouble is, so is, with its suicidal march with climate change, is capitalism. Now what?
If water is commodified those without cash will suffer.
Should institutions start planning now for our inability to halt drought, fires, hunger,, grid failures?
GardenWorld Politics - the book 