In the past several months, I have been busy for the most part, turning out a few paintings of apple trees, while the network news here in the USA has been busy feeding us our daily distraction of outrage, over the high prices of energy, both electric, and gas, depending on where in the country one lives. Now, I paint apple trees when my brain tells me to do so, and have learned not to question its choices, where what to paint is concerned. And while I am taking my computer newsgroup breaks, from the painting of apple trees, I become aware of what the rest of the world thinks is important (or at least newsworthy) at the moment.
In this essay, I am going to present several different and apparently unrelated threads of thought, and although I feel intuitively that they all belong together in this discussion, I can see even now at the outset, that there is no way they are going to weave comfortably together into a smooth seamless whole. Perhaps my readers will see the relationships that I can sense, but not quite bring together into a cogent whole, and perhaps they will see only a senseless blob words and ideas. Still, I write the same way I paint, not knowing at the beginning how the project will end, so here goes:
A few months ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (http://www.ipcc.ch/) released its findings on global warming in two large reports, available on-line, free downloads. Very briefly, the report said that global warming is a reality, and that's its impact on human beings is going to be quite uncomfortable, especially for those people who live at or very near sea level, and most especially in equatorial regions, and in regions where people are living in an already stressed environment, where drought, hunger, crop failures and weak or inneffectual civil structures are already the norm.
The United States has withdrawn from the Kyoto Agreement. This means that the country that has been and still is presently the worlds largest producer of greenhouse gasses has opted out of discussion. If we combine the information released in the IPCC with the USA withdrawing from the Kyoto discussions, it is not too hard to see that the USA is on very shaky ground now, when they criticise the human rights practices of other countries. What sort of moral high ground can the USA now claim, when they are 'nice' to their own people, but unwilling to deal with the consequences that global warming will have in other, mostly poor and underdeveloped nations?
The basic argument here is that it has not yet been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that our releasing CO2 and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere has been responsible for more than a small fraction of the global warming phenomenon. This attitude is reminiscent of the cigarette smoking fiasco, wherein it was ok to make, sell and smoke them, as long as there were still a few lawyers willing to stand up in court and lie. This kind of a dependency among liars is a common social disease, a form of insanity. The larger the group involved in supporting the lie, the more impossible it becomes to overturn. Smokers needed to have those liars (lawyers) stand up in court and swear that cigarette smoking did not cause cancer, or any other dreaded diseases, just as badly as the manufacturers and taxing bodies needed the money derived from their sales. It made their slow suicide state assisted, and socially acceptable. The same sort of craziness is afoot now, where global warming is concerned. Since it cannot be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that human activity is the major influence at work in global warming, it is ok for us to continue to pursue our present technological objectives, and their consequent ecological impacts, as we see fit.
There are too many of us on this planet.
Yes, of course, I realise how controversial such a sentence is, but I simply do not care to appease anyone, and am stating what I see with my own eyes. I do not expect anyone to change on account of my beliefs, but still, the logic of my position is easily explained.
If a microorganism is too successful in multiplying itself, it winds up killing its host, and in the long run, limiting its own ability to thrive. This is why diseases like Ebola and Marburg have not spread like wildfire through the world. With a near 100% kill ratio, they don't leave anyone to spread the disease, and in a short time, burn themselves out. Diseases like the common cold, on the other hand, thrive around the world, and in the entire population. They produce enough of their kind inside the host to do a very respectable job of spreading the disease, but stop short of the kind of explosive reproduction that would cause organ failure, and death of the host.
Human beings, in spite of their alleged intelligence, have not yet mastered this balancing act, between host and parasite. For those who might balk at the word 'parasite', in reference to human beings, I am quite open to any suggestions, as to a more appropriate word. I see humanity as having the potential to elevate their (our) relationship with the planet from one of a parasitic nature, to one of a symbiotic nature, but I do not see it happening as yet. Please point it out to me, if you see the error in my logic. I do not particularly enjoy having such a dim view of humanity's contribution to the web of life on this planet, and would quickly embrace a more hopeful view, as long as it was a view that did not ignore evidence.
I am not an anti-religious sort of person, and in fact do believe in a higher power of sorts, although it is not the kind of higher power that wrote down all the answers in a book, for me to follow, complete with spiritual bosses to enforce His will here on earth, should I decide not to, of my own accord. The higher power that I believe in simply made a set of basic laws that the universe would follow, and then did what science, in spite of its ability to fathom the mechanics of some of these laws, in its own imperfect way, will never be able to do; set those laws in motion, so that what is today, all followed from what was in the 'beginning', what ever that means... leaving me more or less on my own, to puzzle out whatever meaning I might, and act in accordance with my own internal logic.
What I see before me today, is a world that has more people living in it than it can adequately provide for, and that the numbers are continuing to rise at an ever increasing rate, and most rapidly in those places that are least able to take proper care of the people they already have. Setting global warming as a central issue aside for a moment, I see that in our attempts to care for this vast and ever growing population, we are and have been for a very long time, damaging our host planet in ways too numerous to mention; air, land and water pollution, decimation of species, destruction of ecosystems, ozone layers, and wholesale murder of even our own kind, in wars and various genocides that continue even to this day. It seems irrational, that we would honor the sanctity of human life, by producing so many human beings that we threaten the stability of the planetary system of all living things, without which, we humans cannot continue to survive.
Global Warming (this time with capitals) is a reality. The planet is warming up. For the moment, we may not know precisely, exactly, who is or is not responsible for how much of the warming, and who is not. What we do know is that the glaciers and polar ice regions are in retreat, and that our grand and great grandchildren are not going to experience the world that we have experienced; they are going to live in a different, warmer place.
Global Pollution (also this time in capitals) is a reality. We are at present living on a planet that has been almost entirely fouled with our feces. You may not know precisely whose garbage you are eating, drinking and inhaling at the present moment, but rest assured, someone else is breathing, eating, and drinking yours, as well. We are producing human waste at a rate faster than the planet can recycle it.
Both the 'Population Bomb' and the 'Decimation of Species Bomb' are ticking. As the number of humans on the planet continues to increase, the number of species overall (especially of highly complex species) continues to decline, both plant and animal, and apple trees.
Three hundred years ago, when the Old Masters were still painting in Europe, they turned out paintings that we can still generally understand. Many of the circumstances under which the work was done are now beyond our common experience, but the houses, people, trees, not much has changed in that respect. Now look forward three hundred years from where we stand, and ask yourself, is there a possibility that in that time, there may no longer be apple trees in Michigan? I personally have no idea what will be, but I do know that whatever will be, three hundred years from now, will be much more a matter of our own doing than what is today, now, was a result of the actions of those who came three hundred years before us.
The age of human innocence is dead, as it has never been dead in the past. We can go ahead and continue to reproduce ourselves at the present increasing rate, and suffer all of the consequences that such a reproduction strategy brings with it, or we can attack global pollution at its source... us.
Personally, I have lost faith in the human race, and its ability to behave rationally, even where its own long term survival is concerned. In spite of our great strides in understanding science, we still seem not to be able to understand in practice, that it is not a good idea to defecate in one's own backyard, or in one's neighbour's backyard, either.
Prove me wrong. Please.