Last Saturday, the mainstream media reported with glee and fanfare that the world had signed a climate change pact that would save itself from certain destruction. I’m sure most people thought “whew, that’s good, now I can get back to the game, or dinner, or mowing the lawn, and I don’t have to worry the world is going to end soon.” This was especially good news after all the shootings here in the U.S., and all the war elsewhere. All that downer news can get to you, you know.
Never mind that the climate change pact wasn’t very specific about what we all need to do to avert catastrophe. And never mind that essentially nothing changed last Sunday. Governments will take care of it, and we can go right on buying gas(oline) for our cars, (natural) gas for heating our house, and electricity from fossil fuels to power our computers (including the one I’m using right now). Let’s face it – we’re addicted to fossil fuels. Both in their use to provide power and in their discovery, development and sale for profit. The U.S., and most other countries in the world, while signing the climate change pact, don’t have any plans to keep fossil fuels in the ground, or significantly lower their mining or use. On the contrary, most countries are actively seeking to increase fossil fuel mining and use, with a race in the Arctic, Africa, off the coast of Brazil, the South China Sea, and even in the U.S., to develop these resources as fast as possible.
Two more examples of addiction will suffice for now. (Feel free to add to this list, or argue with my conclusions, oh readers. It’s part of Judaism to learn from argument, and all good rabbis are always learning.)
We’re addicted to another fuel – sugar. Despite a gazillion research papers, studies, and books telling us that sugar (that’s D-sucrose for you chemists out there) is bad for us (like fossil fuel is bad for us), we continue to produce and package it in different forms, and sell it in ever increasing amounts to a public eager to consume more. One of my favorite observations about our food is that we are now compelled by marketers to buy food that contains “real sugar” in huge amounts, instead of that “high-fructose corn syrup crap” or any of the artificial sweeteners like the saccharin my father used to carry around in a small pill bottle and use in his coffee or other drinks back in the day (oh, like the 60s and 70s). In fact, part of the hipster thing that I just don’t get is eating and drinking things that are bad for you that were popular back in the day, because that’s what hipsters do.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the world soon signed a sugar pact, pledging to wean ourselves off of sugar, and only use sustainable food, or whatever the scientists and environmentalists thought was good for us, but continued to produce tasty food sweetened with good old sugar.
And finally (for now), (thankfully), we’re addicted to cheap stuff. (I bet you thought I would be talking about guns and violence, but I’ll leave that to another post.) From my many progressive and liberal friends, I hear a constant cry to rid the world of Walmart and similar retailers, that tempt us with cheap stuff and rake in enormous profits while abusing their workers. The latest company to earn our wrath is Amazon, which is almost single-handedly fueling Seattle’s enormous growth at the moment. They now sell us everything that Walmart does, except we don’t even have to get in our cars and get it – it comes to us via mail, UPS or FedEx (and they’re talking about drone delivery – an obvious ploy to appeal to our sentimental feelings towards carrier pigeons)! They evidently abuse their workers, and CEO Jeff Bezos is being quoted for things akin to the Donald.
But Walmart, Amazon and the others are doing great! Business has never been better! Here in Clatsop County, Walmart is going through the permit process to locate in Warrenton, with lots of support from our mostly poor residents, and Costco is booming. Freddies is doing just fine too. My favorite discount store, Deals Only in Astoria, is still here also.
So, while everyone knows that Walmart is evil, and we should buy local, or better yet, join the Lower Columbia Time Bank or use Freecycle or Goonieville Buy and Sell, we will go on making profits for Waltons, the Bezoses, and the others, while buying cheap stuff.
Because we’re addicted.
Every who’s who in the climate movement hopes to build on the deal made in Paris. Some like it a lot. But the contrarian looking down from his hill in Astoria – apparently, he does not.
So soon after Hanukkah, and already your faith in miracles is flickering? Do we celebrate this season just to stuff our pie-holes?
Perhaps we should remind ourselves of this post every time we eat together. Our non-indulgence in sweets can ritually compliment our weaning from fossil fuels. Baby steps are good. It would be cool if more people switched from high fructose corn syrup to pure cane sugar. But it’s also possible to quit both. I did, ten years ago. Others can too.
The Paris climate accord is a global step in the right direction. It sets the stage for us to change the way we measure economic health, shed our dependence on depletion and pollution. I’m hearing more talk of this change in the news, partly driven by what happened in Paris. More mainstream folks are expressing interest in reducing carbon footprints.
Faith fosters good acts, Brother Bob. We should kindle whatever hope we have, keep the flame burning. And even when all our mitzvahs fall short of the mark, miracles do happen.
The holidays can bring warmth and light during dark times. Blessings to you and your family!
Thanks for playing Bob Cratchett to my Scrooge, Brother Watt. Perhaps I will be redeemed from my cynicism this holiday season…
To be sure, the high priests of the climate movement – Bill McKibben, George Monbiot, James Hansen and others – all roundly poo-pooed the agreement, some in elegant words, and others not so much. Thousands marched in Paris as the agreement was being released to show their disdain at the process and the result, and the French government for not letting them march before the conference opened. And if it comes up for a treaty vote in the Senate anytime soon, it will be vetoed.
But do I have hope? Of course I do. Even if one of the buffoons running for president on the GOP side gets into office, there’s still a lot that can be done to avert catastrophic climate change by us regular folks, and even by big business.
It’s really hard to beat a powerful addiction like fossil fuels, or sugar, or cheap stuff. But as evidenced by you, Brother Watt, and so many others I’ve known, it is possible. It won’t be pretty, and it will take a long time and a lot of work, but we can do it.
The first step is realizing we’re addicted. After finishing the 12 steps, we should be good.
I have faith that we can do it. Yes, We Can Can. (I tried to link to a Pointer Sisters video of this song, but WordPress thought it was spam, so please, readers, look this up. Classic!)
The miracle of life never ceases to impress me. Happy Holidays, Brother Watt, to you and yours, and to all, a good night (and the great new year)!
You know, Bob, the sugar comment doesn’t have anything at all to do with climate change. But there is another food item that does, and its mention was sorely missing in Paris these past couple of weeks: animal agriculture. Yes, that is another addiction, one that plays a huge role in anthropogenic climate change, as much as the world’s transportation sector, or more.
I want to tell you there IS something you and everyone can do, every day, three times a day, about climate change. Eat less meat and fewer animal products. Animal agriculture is a huge emitter of GHGs, including methane and CO2 and nitrous oxide. Please consider rainforests being cut down to make room for grain crops (to feed livestock) and pastureland for grazing. Please consider water usage (it takes 616 gallons of water to produce one 1/4 pound burger patty). Please consider loss of biodiversity (wolves hunted down to protect livestock, as well as loss of species due to rainforest destruction). Please consider world hunger (it takes 16 times more grain to produce beef than it does to produce crops to feed people directly). Thanks for listening, and considering.
Thanks Robin, both for the comment, and for joining us at the Upper Left Edge. I suggest you write a post about meat and resources and submit it for posting on our site. The topic deserves more space than a comment.
When I first read your comment, I was eating breakfast, and I’m glad to say, it was vegan – muesli with various add-on plant products. I had a phase of going vegetarian, when I was at Brookhaven National Lab. Learned a lot about food then. I do eat meat these days, but rarely beef.
Yes, I believe that we each can do something to make a better world, and we can join together to make an even bigger difference. My point in the post is that we can’t necessarily leave it up to governments and their partners, the corporations.
I thought of this post again when I watched an interview with literary virtuoso David Foster Wallace. He pointed out that the Latin root of the word “addiction” means “religious devotion.” Wallace links America’s moral backslide with commercial addiction — the idea that life’s central purpose is to gratify individual desires through our total immersion in the consumer economy.
This is a poignant reflection at Christmas, when people are bombarded with themes of evangelical tradition and zealous shopping chores. It’s illuminating to consider how these themes are fused together by churchy public figures who are devoted to the de-regulation of commerce.
Case in point: last week Congress stuck a foul rider in their Christmas spending bill that removes a forty-year ban on exporting America’s crude oil. Republicans led this maneuver, and Democrats complied, fearing their own spending priorities would be ditched if they didn’t.
Just because Satan plays a killer Santa doesn’t mean progressives should stand in line to sit on his lap. What we need is a blend of transcendent spirit and sober reason. In synch with the season’s higher ideals, I offer a couple of prayers.
First, I ask God to help our nation’s leaders put creation’s care above profits for fossil fuel cronies. When pitching to the populace, right-wingers often claim concern for energy costs and national security. Yet their true motives are on display when they open up America’s dwindling oil reserves to the global market.
Second, I ask God to help climate leaders honestly critique a movement’s progress without dashing the hopes of participants. Perhaps our chances of avoiding mass extinction don’t improve much by simply rejecting the XL Pipeline, or passing the Paris climate deal. Yet it took a lot of political work to make these things happen. We need to recognize incremental gains and build on them.
Thanks again Bob for giving your voice to this effort!
I was directed to a great article by Matt Taibbe by a friend today, and it says we’re addicted not only to commercial activity, but in a deep way, to fear. Give this one a read, Watt (at http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/this-christmas-tune-it-all-out-20151223). I think it’s quite brilliant. Taibbe’s perspective changed when he had a kid, and I think they are our true salvation. In their innocence, they aren’t yet addicted to fear.
Interesting comments. Thanks, everyone!
Sugar production in fact, does require the destruction of massive swaths of land in the tropics and subtropics. And it has to do with the continued use of slave labor to harvest and manufacture. So, the creation of the refined product, packaging, transporting, and use of sugar is very much associated with accelerated climate change. It could be argued that eating meat from animals who are born and raised and slaughtered here, and fed pasture and perhaps some grain from east of the Cascades, have a considerably smaller “carbon footprint” than soy products, or coconut oil, almond milk, rice milk, or manufactured B12, to name just a few examples, that are often highly processed, and must be transported from many hundreds of miles away.
I have to agree with Bob that there while there is always hope, and perhaps even divine intervention, the “climate talks” which need, indeed, MUST be, an examination of the cold, hard, fact that we can not continue living in the manner to which we have become accustomed, fostered more skepticism and continued Cornucopianism, than any concrete way to action. .And that, in my opinion, informed by Monbiot, Englehardt, and a bunch of other writers I can’t remember the names of, is exactly what the “climate talks” were meant to do. We Feel Better because someone is “doing something”, while we ALL continue to live in a world completely dictated by the overuse of fossil fuel.
It’s not “negative” or “being cynical” to believe that humans may be no more capable of changing their behavior than wolves, moose, monkeys, and other animals, who we have much more in common with than we are often led to believe. And it’s not to say that this is because other species are “less intelligent” than us. It seems like more an epigenetic imperative, a “fatal flaw”, if you will. We humans likely will gobble up the resources available to us, with the willing help of our corrupt governments and corporations, and then whoever remains will have to figure out what to do in the ensuing privation. On a global scale, now, most unfortunately.
I attempt to share the enthusiasm of Naomi Klein, even as I am disappointed with her cheerleader-style approach in regards to what humans can do to slow down climate change .Bill McKibben has been pretty much completely zombified by government and corporate interests. And Derrick Jensen reminds me of Proust, talking apocalypse, whilst eating madelines and living at his moms house..
For me, I reckon I intend to live as joyfully as possible, doing work I love, and endeavoring to help save as many trees and help as many families as I can. And to remember that Mother Nature always bats last, and that the destruction wrought by humans is just a blip on the geologic radar, soon to be stopped dead in its tracks by just a few volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, a couple big earthquakes. That ought to do it..
God Bless Us, Every One..
Sue S .
Thanks, Sue, for joining the conversation. Good point about the local beef vs. tropical plant products. Robin, got a comeback?
I kind of think that Taibbe has it right. If we tune out a bit more, maybe we could live our lives a little more like you describe, Sue, in your last paragraph. Let’s all do what we can to make life better, at least around here. I predict that the future will be quite different than we think it will. I’m pretty optimistic about our kids. And like Tevan said in an article about upcoming elections, the old guard does eventually die.
Peace to you and to all a good night.