Soothe the Lion‘s Tooth:
Don’t fence me in!
I shan’t here go into the question of how far the structure of our bodies and the constitution of our animal spirits are concerned in this, and whether the state of the brain makes the difference between good memories and bad, so that in some people the memory retains the characters drawn on it like marble, in others like sandstone, and in others little better than sand. (John Locke, An Essay Concerning the Human Understanding)
Once upon a time, the means used to sanctify the ends. Nowadays, these ends merely seem to be sparking their proponents', followers' and innocent bystanders' applause, spurring mutual initiative while everyone's awaiting target compliance. Beckett[1] says Hello! Ever heard of the Millennium Project[2]? No?! Okay. Well, it addresses 15 global challenges of the future.
Good to know, right?!
Despite having significantly accounted for political climate change, Putin, Trump, Jinping and other minimally exceptional big shots are obviously not on the list.
Cocoyoc Declaration[3] … Kyoto Protocol[4] … Climate Emergency Declaration[5] … what else … more paperwork of the like? Considering the sheer mass of scientific papers, reports and political ratifications on climate change having conspicuously emerged from sweet spots of the most notoriously industrialised hemisphere since the early 1980s, Earth’s shape should've turned ovoid.
So, what do we need – love or another report[6] that makes sense?
At any rate, haven't you been feeling kind of sick and tired of witnessing neverending talks, comprehensive reports and viral social media gossip on especially climate change[7]?!
Welcome to the club! At least 1.5 billion people[8] on Earth don't care, remaining busy fighting for their everyday survival. Just add at least as many low-income[9] earners worldwide, living under precarious conditions. Moreover, a surging global community of average-income[10] earners refuses to continue footing the past political failures‘ and future promises‘ bills.
Who doesn’t nowadays, only the Rich N Beautiful[11] can’t complain, right?
Undoubtedly, the causes and effects of man-made climate change had already become evident in the early 1970s[12], having turned into an international, political debate on forest dieback[13] and a global environmental movement by the early 1980s[14]. Most likely, that period of time marked our global, ecological Point of no Return.
How could we humans, making up less than 0.01% (!) of Earth's biomass[15], sharing 98.2% (!) of our DNA[16] with hominidae accomplish such a desaster within 150 years of Economic Development after billions of years of evolutionary growth?! If humans are the most intelligent beings on Earth, why are we destroying it? Even Jane Godall[17] may not have the answer.
Do you rather tend to feel increasingly aggravated about the flies on the windscreen of your car?! Why don’t you just get a premium carwash.
The Pinnacle of Creation shouldn't be expecting a Happy End, having turned this planet into an irreversable mess, one generation after another – overpopulation[18], urban sprawl[19], industrialisation[20] – seductive wastefulness[21], planned obsolescence[22], exuberant status seeking[23]) – exploitation[24], toxication[25], contamination[26], devastation[27], extinction[28].
Ain’t blockheads and concrete still spreading faster than lion's tooth?
Political[29] prayers on ceasing climate change[30] vocalise such hypocrisy as much as half-assed statements of innocence especially stemming from those global industrial[31] branches having accounted for a major share in sustaining threats to our (planet’s) prospects.
Hasn’t it always been the consumers‘ fault, i.e. our fault all the way?
Certainly, altogether we’ve proven lame ducks in comparison to what’s been in full swing since industrialisation kicked off about 150 years ago. Long-standing evidence[32] withstands any kind of fact skepticism denying these institutional giants‘ whip hand(s)[33] in terms of a dirt-cheap Earth – it’s not the billions of individuals.
Shouldn't that remind one of Coca Cola's Keep America beautiful[34] campaign?!
Against this backdrop, e.g. Bayer’s Round-Up issue[35] shouldn’t have triggered anything but Mother Earth’s weary smile: large-scale emissions of carbon-dioxide (gaseous state of aggregate) … pesticides (fluidous state of aggregate) … fertilisers (solid state of aggregate) … E- and Plastic Waste (solid state of aggregate) … pharmacologisation of agri- and aquacultural stock (specifically aerosols, oints, vaccines, pills, granulates) etc.
As long as agri- and aquacultural as much as other commercial industries (people), airlines (people), shipping companies (people) and armed forces (people) may continue exploiting raw materials and fossil fuels on the altar of revenues (business[36]), employment/tax revenues (politics) and "peace" (arms), while commoners (people) are subtly being coerced to get clean, something's been going damn wrong among us (people), not mentioning the Cloud[37] providers‘ and Crypto-Currency[38] issuers‘ huge ecological footprints.
In its most powerful forms the corporation is no longer describable solely by economic criteria (such as market share, profitability). The meaning of economics has expanded to include objects of exploitation hitherto considered outside the pursuit of profits. Capitalism has transformed itself, from a system of activities analyzable through economic categories to one that has adopted political character and the qualities of a new constitutional blend devoid of democratic substance. (Sheldon Wolin, Politiccs and Vision)
How about your long-term memory hold in the context of human, societal and environmental deformation?
Odd question to start with: Do you remember, when the greatest Hope[39] of the 20th century died? Do you recall Huxley[40] … Fromm[41] … Postman[42]?! Does Infinite Jest[43] ring a bell … maybe Collapse[44] … perhaps Transcendent Man[45]?! Hey, where do the children play[46] today?! Okay, nevermind.
Any further questions?
In the sense of Fisher-Ury's Best Alternative to Negotiating Agreement[47] – with Mother Nature, Schumacher's[48] economic objections, Asimov's[49] scientific farsightedness as much as Brunner's[50] and Toffler's[51] utopian visions all seem to affirm of a bleak future of ours to expect and to cope with.
What next?
Neither education[52] (schoolbooks) nor politics (legal frameworks) or business models and economics (societal concepts on production/offer and consumption/demand) have convincingly introduced an environmentally compatible mindset yet, not mentioning a hospitable vision on sustaining our (planet's and its species') future.
I am under the impression that many sciences have just met their natural limits. Withstanding any kind of technological boredom, the class of knowledge producers - following their unerring instinct for survival - has come up with a few tricks, oneself has just to get absorbed in decimals. ... In some areas of science the number of research staff is likely to have increased by a factor of 50. (Erwin Chargaff, Serious Questions)
So what?!
Perpetual sighs on climate change are reminiscent of tidal complaints on crime[53]. Lingual opacity[54] conceals their respective causes and effects as much as it disintegrates the according beholders' admission and passive-receptive or even proactive contribution to such.
Neither Google Earth nor Maps or Streetview show human genocide or ecocide. At the very moment, your screen background is probably not displaying images of the Bucha massacre[55] e.g., but somewhat of a romantic countryside idyll, monumental historical site, tranquil wildlife reserve or simply some overly happy people taking out a loan for engaging in a round-the-world trip, convincingly deluding you to think we lived in such a beau … beau … beautiful world … well, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Societal obedience[56], behavioural group pressure[57] and digital media[58] either providing diminished clichés or delivering exaggerated images of our being and environment, equally and unequivocally seem to be steadily serving our self-centered alienation[59] from an uneasy reality by means of sensory deprivation[60] and distortion coining our counter-organic and anti-social[61] mindset.
The seemingly infinite quantity of digitally available resources begs a couple of pivotal queries as follows: To what extent do all of us find incentives to consci(enti)ously re-think and re-do our present living and future prospects inspite of our poor or more or less privileged being? Are we simply inclined to soothen our pathological anxiety or to satisfy our idiopathic curiosity, both implicitly preconditioning our societal longing for exposure to distractions by non-stop entertainment and war games? Do we merely tend to witness our self-imposed exposure to continuous streams of audio-visual information and broadcasting, we can't or don't wish to comprehend?
I get a letter that causes me to think and here's how that happened. I had written an article on the greenhouse effect. It was a year-end article they wanted me to pick out the most important scientific event of 1988. And I really thought that the most important scientific event of 1988 would only be recognized sometime in the future when you get a little perspective. But I thought that the most interesting scientific event of 1988 was the way everyone started speaking about the greenhouse effect. (Isaac Asimov, People can save Earth)
What’s your view on … sorry … what's your screen time … digital data volume … ChatGPT[62] … AI[63] … on that?
Let's face it, it's too late for love by various means and all the hungry dogs around the world will continue to believe in bones, not Green Bonds[64]. The bottom-line is, Mankind should’ve been much faster at making mistakes much earlier.
Do you get it?
Come on, let’s find a bit more humour in failure!
Frame of Reference
[1] Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (saylor.org)
[2] 15 Global Challenges - The Millennium Project (millennium-project.org)
[3] The cocoyoc declaration (slideshare.net)
[4] Kyoto Protocol - Targets for the first commitment period | UNFCCC
[5] Climate Emergency Declaration (iclei.org)
[6] Mork & Mindy Season 1 Episode 5 - Mork in Love - YouTube: Orson: This is Orson, what's the matter with you? – Mork: Me? Nothing. – Orson: You've got a strange look on your face! – Mork: Maybe it's love. – Orson: Love? Isn't that an emotion? – Mork: It's a many splendid things. It makes the world go round. It'll keep us together. It's all y' need! – Orson: All I need, is a report that makes sense! – Mork: Oh!
[7] Causes of climate change | AdaptNSW
[8] Evolution of global poverty (brookings.edu)
[9] World Bank, Poverty, median incomes, and inequality in 2021
[10] Chart: Which OCED countries are real wages falling most sharply? | World Economic Forum (weforum.org); Global Wage Report 2020–21. Wages and minimum wages in the time of COVID-19 (ilo.org)
[11] Richest 1% bag nearly twice as much wealth as the rest of the world put together over the past two years | Oxfam International
[12] Environmental Movement | Encyclopedia.com; Earth Day 1970 was more than a protest. It built a movement. - The Washington Post; The Modern Environmental Movement | American Experience | Official Site | PBS
[13] Forest dieback - Wikipedia
[14] ENVIRONMENTALISM IN THE 80'S - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
[15] All the Biomass on Earth in One Massive Visualization (visualcapitalist.com)
[16] Comparing Chimp, Bonobo and Human DNA | AMNH
[17] Jane Goodall: 'If humans are the most intelligent beings on Earth, why are we destroying it?' - Blue and Green Tomorrow
[18] World Population Density Interactive Map (luminocity3d.org); World Population Clock: 8 Billion People (LIVE, 2023) - Worldometer (worldometers.info); The Effects of Overpopulation - YouTube
[19] Global urban growth between 1870 and 2100 from integrated high resolution mapped data and urban dynamic modeling | Communications Earth & Environment (nature.com)
[20] The Effects of Industrialization on Climate Change (jrte.org)
[21] Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders (ditext.com); Vance Packard, The Wastemakers (soilandhealth.org)
[22] The Story of Stuff - YouTube
[23] Vance Packard, The Status Seekers (soilandhealth.org)
[24] Existing fossil fuel extraction would warm the world beyond 1.5 C (iop.org); Global material resources outlook to 2060 (oecd.org); Fracking and UNGPs - Draft 2 - September 29 2015 (ohchr.org); The Global Landgrab, A Primer (tni.org); Brazil and the Amazon Rainforest (europa.eu); Vanishing Sands, Losing Beaches to Mining (dukeupress.edu); Global Mining Outlook 2022 (kpmg.com); Global Overfishing: A Last Call for Our World Natural Resource (iserd.net); Water pollution from pharmaceutical use in livestock farming (Wiley Online Library)
[25] The Global Toll of Fine Particulate Matter (nasa.gov); Cancer's Global Footprint | Interactive map of cancer (globalcancermap.com)
[26] The Effects of Chlorofluorocarbons on Environment (primescholars.com); A review of major chlorofluorocarbons and their halocarbon alternatives in the air - ScienceDirect; Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in water and wastewater: A critical review of their global occurrence and distribution - PubMed (nih.gov); A Never-Ending Story of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFASs)? | Environmental Science & Technology (acs.org); The Global E-waste Monitor 2020 (ewastemonitor.info); Stopping Global Plastic Pollution: The Case for an International Convention (adelphi.de)
[27] Global Environmental Issue - Irreparable Environmental Loss - Population Matters
[28] Biodiversity and species extinction: categorisation, calculation, and communication (ipbes.net); Worldwide loss of bees a growing concern (weebly.com); Indigenous and Traditional Peoples of the World and Ecoregion Conservation (panda.org)
[29] EU deal to end sale of new CO2 emitting cars by 2035 (europa.eu)
[30] CO2 Emissions in 2022 – Analysis - IEA; Global Emissions - Center for Climate and Energy SolutionsCenter for Climate and Energy Solutions (c2es.org); CO2 Emissions in 2022 (windows.net); Emissions by sector - Our World in Data
[31] Chemical industry emissions reduction | Deloitte Insights; Chemical industry global CO2 emissions by source 2030 | Statista; Reducing carbon, fueling growth: Lowering emissions in the chemical industry (Deloitte.com) ––– Global cement CO₂ emissions 1960-2021 | Statista ––– Climate change and flying: what share of global CO2 emissions come from aviation? - Our World in Data ––– Military emissions - CEOBS; World’s militaries avoiding scrutiny over emissions, scientists say | Greenhouse gas emissions | The Guardian; Pentagon Fuel Use, Climate Change and the Costs of War Revised November 2019 Crawford.docx (brown.edu) ––– The Global E-waste Monitor 2020 (ewastemonitor.info) ––– Stopping Global Plastic Pollution: The Case for an International Convention (adelphi.de)
[32] The Effects of Chlorofluorocarbons on Environment (primescholars.com); A review of major chlorofluorocarbons and their halocarbon alternatives in the air - ScienceDirect ––– Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in water and wastewater: A critical review of their global occurrence and distribution - PubMed (nih.gov); A Never-Ending Story of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFASs)? | Environmental Science & Technology (acs.org)
[33] Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought (ethernet.edu.et): The appearance of a new ruling class reflects capitalism’s political coming of age and with it a new corporate aspiration, not just to exert political influence but to absorb and incorporate the political and transform it, tacitly abandoning the idea of commonality. It is not unusual to encounter the term the imperial CEO applied to business executives. In its most powerful forms the corporation is no longer describable solely by economic criteria (such as market share, profitability). The meaning of economics has expanded to include objects of exploitation hitherto considered outside the pursuit of profits. Capitalism has transformed itself, from a system of activities analyzable through economic categories to one that has adopted political character and the qualities of a new constitutional blend devoid of democratic substance. The new economies created by technologically advanced societies provide equivalents for democracy’s values of participation (mass consumption), inclusion (work force), and mass empowerment (consumer sovereignity, shareholder democracy). Those sublimations accord with a virtual way of being in the world transformed by the technological revolution in communications. Electronic technologies (computers, video, Internet) epitomize the combination of the illusion of individual freedom/power with the encapsulation of the individual in a cocoon from which escape seems an incoherent idea. The changes in capitalism have weakened the authority of the state as the supreme power in society. Globalization is an euphemism for continuous expansion abroad and the constriction of politics at home, narrowing the joints of entry so that only the pressure of money can gain political access. ––– Monopoly capital; an essay on the American economic and social order : Baran, Paul A., author : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive ––– The theory of capitalist development : principles of Marxian political economy : Sweezy, Paul M. (Paul Marlor), 1910-2004, author : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive ––– Up against the American myth : Christoffel, Tom, compiler : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
[34] Controversial 1970s "Crying Indian" ad donated to the National Congress of American Indians - YouTube
[35] Monsanto Roundup Lawsuit Update | March 2023 (lawsuit-information-center.com)
[36] The company savage : life in the corporate jungle : Page, Martin, 1938- : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
[37] The Staggering Ecological Impacts of Computation and the Cloud | The MIT Press Reader; Carbon and the Cloud. Hard facts about data storage. | by Stanford Magazine | Stanford Magazine | Medium
[38] Bitcoin’s Impacts on Climate and the Environment - Climate Week NYC (columbia.edu); What's the Environmental Impact of Cryptocurrency? (investopedia.com)
[39] Legendary entertainer Bob Hope dies aged 100 | Film | The Guardian
[40] Aldous Huxley, Brave New World; Aldous Huxley interviewed by Mike Wallace : 1958 (Full) - YouTube
[41] Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness; The Mike Wallace Interview: Erich Fromm (1958-05-25) - YouTube
[42] Neil Postman, Technopoly - The Surrender of Culture to Technology; College Lecture Series - Neil Postman - "The Surrender of Culture to Technology" - YouTube
[43] David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest; David Foster Wallace interview on "Infinite Jest" with Leonard Lopate (03/1996) - YouTube
[44] Jared Diamond, Collapse - How Societies Choose to Fail or Succed
[45] Transcendent Man 2009 - YouTube
[46] Cat Stevens - Where Do the Children Play? - YouTube
[47] Roger Fisher and William Ury, Getting to Yes (hawaii.edu)
[48] E. F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful (colorado.edu)
[49] Isaac Asimov How People Can Save The Earth for Humans - YouTube
[50] The sheep look up : Brunner, John, 1934-1995 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive; the shockwave rider : john brunner : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
[51] Future shock : Alvin Toffler : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive; Future Shock Documentary (1972) - YouTube
[52] Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner, Teaching as a Subversive Activity (kairosschool.co.za)
[53] Our criminal society; the social and legal sources of crime in America : Schur, Edwin M : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
[54] George Carlin on soft language - YouTube
[55] Bucha killings: Satellite image of bodies site contradicts Russian claims - BBC News
[56] Milgram Obedience Study - YouTube
[57] Asch Conformity Experiment - YouTube
[58] Marshall Mcluhan Full lecture: New! The medium is the message - 1977 part 1 v 3 - YouTube; Marshall Mcluhan Full lecture: The medium is the message - 1977 part 2 v 3 - YouTube; Marshall Mcluhan Full lecture: The medium is the message - 1977 part 3 v 3 - YouTube ––– The Pastoral Power of Technology. Rethinking Alienation (diva-portal.org); Digital prosumption and alienation (ephemerajournal.org)
[59] On sham, vulnerability, and other forms of self-destruction : Henry, Jules, 1904-1969 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive ––– Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism (thezeitgeistmovement.se)
[60] Digital Dementia | Psychology Today; Digital Dementia: A Modern Day Health Epidemic | Sycamore Valley Chiropractic
[61] The mountain people : Turnbull, Colin M : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
[62] Introducing ChatGPT (openai.com)
[63] Cathy ONeil, Weapons of Math Destruction (usp.br); Cathy O'Neil | Weapons of Math Destruction - YouTube