Thursday, December 27, 2008
The Five Fingers of Denial: The Hand That's Stealing Our Future
Jeff Berg
The 20th Century experienced 5 Great Denials:
-
The denial of the link between tobacco, toxins, and cancer.
-
The denial of the link between human economic activity, and ecological biodiversity.
-
The link between burning fossil fuels, modern agriculture, deforestation, and climate change.
-
The link between geology, and available energy for our human service systems.
-
The link between military spending, wasted resources, and the resulting economic inefficiencies that have led to such a shocking incapacity for meeting basic human needs like water and sanitation.
It is my contention that really occurring events always provide the best arguments for winning the most widespread agreement about the need for preventitive and remediative action.
The following are three examples of the kinds of really occurring observed phenomena that I am talking about. Each of them offer very compelling reasons for less "stuff". E.g. The highest concentration of toxins that our baby children experience early in life comes from their mother's milk. Is that not the most blasphemous thing you have ever heard?
In any case, really occurring events, observed phenomena, are always the basis of the most powerful arguments available to science, and to all of us who want to see us be much more ecological, economical and judicious.
What is the Story of Stuff?: From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view.
http://tinyurl.com/2xzxds
EWG founder and German MP Hans-Josef Fell is quoted in the Guardian as saying ... where oil production from the lower 48 states declined by 2- 3 % per year. http://tinyurl.com/2xzxds
Credit loss could hit $US 1trillion: THE US economy could be heading into its blackest year since the Great Depression as estimates of losses from the housing slump and sub-prime mortgage implosion reach unprecedented levels.
http://snipurl.com/1vumo
To paraphrase Keith Olbermann: "Good morning and good luck":-) Each of these observe phenomena that is really occurring and opens a window to less "stuff" if we but see it in the right light.
Speaking of Olbermann and his MSNBC rants. E.g. 'Pathological Liar or Idiot Commander in Chief?' http://tinyurl.com/23eosm
When this kind of commentary is allowed to become observed phenomena you know two things for sure.
-
Our interpretation of this S.S. Hinesburg of a Presidency is no longer in the minority.
-
The horses have bolted the stable.
This means that now's no time to be locking to door to Fortress America. Instead we need to keep every door available open to opportunity. That way we just might, if we are lucky, coax one or two back toward the idea that we are not totally unfit for company.
In the words of physicist Ernest Rutherford, when he was asked why New Zealanders are so inventive: 'We don't have much money, so we have to think.'
It's past time we in North America went back to our drawing boards lest our cupboards become completely bare.
Jeff Berg is a member of www.postcarbontoronto.org and www.pledgeTOgreen.ca A selection of recent articles by Jeff Berg here.
