We All Wield Tremendous Power to Restore Environmental Justice
I wrote a post recently in which I mentioned the Black Swan effect, i.e., the tendency of human beings to underestimate the importance and frequency of unforeseeable events in the future. This concept, popularized by Nassim Taleb in his 2007 masterpiece, has implications in many different arenas of human activity, principally economics/investments, where we tend to make long-term bets with little appreciation of the huge potential impact of the unanticipated and unknowable.
Part and parcel of all this is the effect that one person can have on human civilization as a whole. Needless to say, there have been many such examples throughout history.
The classic example of this in the recent past was the publication, about a hundred fifty years ago, of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Of course, Northerners in the middle part of the 19th Century had a general understanding that slavery was an evil and brutal empire, but the incredible popularity of Stowe’s book (1852) provided a ferociously powerful galvanizing effect upon the many millions of people living in those states, driving them to a state of fury that such an institution should be allowed to exist in a civilized society. Eleven years (and many millions of war casualties) later the Emancipation Proclamation became law, two years after which the Thirteenth Amendment permanently enshrined this into the U.S. Constitution.
Far more recently we’ve seen similar acts of individual triumph and bravery that served to catalyze movements no one could have possibly foreseen, some of which define our world of today, e.g., the man who defied the Chinese tanks at Tienanmen Square (pictured above), and the young fellow who lighted himself on fire, spawning the Arab Spring.
I bring this up because the other day marked the 43rd anniversary of the law in the United States that banned the use of the chemical DDT. As we all know, this was the direct result of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring, published in 1963. Remarkably, up until that point, Western culture had never seriously questioned the notion that the world around us was our slave, and that we could mistreat it with complete impunity, as no physical means existed by which it could cease to treat its master with love and respect. We of European heritage had incorrectly assumed that there was no real and lasting harm we could inflict upon the natural order of things by way of our implementation of even the most toxic of chemical poisons, the mass destruction of natural resources, etc.
One book, with one author, changed that forever. 50+ years after the fact, it’s hard to put the magnitude of this paradigm shift into perspective. It’s really akin to the Copernican Revolution 500 years ago, or the onset of the Western Enlightenment about 400 years ago where science began to replace superstition: suddenly things started to make sense.
Amazingly, there are still a few people alive today who hold close to that notion that humankind has free rein to do anything it wants here on Earth without regard for the effects its actions have on the ecosystems around us. Fortunately, such people form a small and ever-diminishing minority at this point; in just that half a century, the world has almost completely come to understand that everything we do has a cascading effect on the environment around us, and that all of us bear responsibilities according.
I believe that stories of individuals who changed the world forever are good messages for us all to carry around with ourselves in our daily lives. Never forget that you and I, and all the people around us, can make a difference of untold proportion in the outcome of our civilization.
This is one of your best posts I’ve read Craig.
Thank you for this.
I’m so glad to hear that. I write something like every once in a while, usually in conjunction the birthday of some paradigm-shatterer, the publication of one of his/her works, the anniversary of some great occasion, etc. I normally get inspiration for such posts from The Writer’s Almanac: http://writersalmanac.org/.
I agree as very few people have the courage to stand up and make that difference. Governments are either in it for there own gains or have to shorter period to make a difference. Its the public who has the voice but needs a direction to shout it in off the same hyme sheet
It’s good enough reading as far as that goes, the trouble is it doesn’t actually do anything.
Perhaps it does do something. It points out how at times only a few people have made a big difference thereby encouraging others to stand up for what is right. It also provides hope without which people are likely to believe that nothing can be done in which case they will do nothing.
All so true, Craig. Recently I’ve encountered a pertinent publication, “Physics and The New Economy” (HRD Press, Inc., 2013, ISBN 978-1-61014-306-6), co-authored by Thomas S. Kakovitch and Sabine O’Hara, both of the University of the District of Columbia. He is a Professor of Environmental Science and she is Dean & Director of Landgrant Programs, College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability and Environmental Sciences (CAUSES). Their collaboration contrasts the consequences of practices characteristic of legacy-carbon and the otherwise constructive possibilities available to a 21st century mindset … all based on realities of physics. I strongly recommend its savvy 1’4″ thickness to you and your readers
Hi Craig, I really relate to Les Blevins and the frustration we all share with inaction. Three years we have laboured without money, sceptism from the corporate sector and all the naysayers that believe there is no hope. We are launching Earth Corporation in the week before Chistmas, in the belief that there ARE millions of people out there willing to take action. What the world needs now is activism as Les says. And that battle will play out in our collective consciousness – those who believe that we can take action to change attitudes towards our world and the way we think, and those who either don’t give a toss, or who are playing a dangerous game with the future of our species. Keep the faith brother – we are going to have a go!
REG WESSELS
Founder, Earth Corporation
So true. People like the Koch bro who interests lie in big oil and walmart who funds 20 different anti solar groups. Myself I am doing the best I can limiting trips and combing them to save gas recycling 80 of my waste stream along with LED lighting and very efficient house and hopefully soon solar to make our carbon food print as small as possible.
I heard a talk years ago by an ecosophist (ecological philosophist) that basically said that what we believe has an effect on what is, or, we create our reality by what we believe.
I believe that we can live fruitfully on this earth leaving it better than we found it.
We each make decisions every day that have effects on the environment whether we realize it or not. The Koch Brothers only have power because we have ceded ours to them for convenient access to energy.
That said, there is a movement towards making the power where you need it rather than buying it from the grid.
Micropower’s Quiet Takeover
This is a great example of how the little people can retake control over their energy and save the planet!
Besides being cost-competitive and rapidly scalable, why does micropower matter? First, as explained below, its operation releases little or no carbon Second, micropower enables individuals, communities, building owners, and factory operators to generate electricity, displacing dependence on centralized, inefficient, dirty generators.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/amorylovins/2014/09/19/micropowers-quiet-takeover/
Thanks for this, Bruce. I love your introductory line here, and agree with it 100%. If you feel like quoting Shakespeare, you may like: “Thinking makes it so” from Hamlet. http://nfs.sparknotes.com/hamlet/page_106.html
Locally sourced micro power is great but how many of the advocates practice what they preach? If you leave your little bit of heaven that is oh so green and have to get your fix of jetting around the country when a conference call would do… Can you say hypocracy.
Compare the carbon emissions per person on a long haul flight to the carbon saved by living the rest of the year in an earth sheltered home heated by passive solar and a modest wood stove.
It seems that those who can afford to use cool alternative energy sourcing also can afford to live high on the carbon teat when they are out on the town. The likes of Lovins and Gore would have a lot more credibility if they were more authentic. Jmo
Btw, “ecosophy” is a new one on me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosophy.
Thanks. Know that the world around you (most it anyway) is grateful.
Sadly, you’re right about Walmart: http://cleantechnica.com/2014/10/15/walmart-owners-investing-millions-anti-solar-activities/. It’s a good place to avoid.
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Walmart has a big solar foot print on their roof tops. They are using economies of scale and their own corporate financing. They just don’t like to see the government get involved in throwing tax dollars at proposals that can’t fly on their own. In a lightly regulated but unsubsidized economy the right things will happen before the sky falls.
Was Reagan wrong to withhold funding of an S.S.T. and let France lose money on the Concorde?
Good point.
The Concorde was basically an investment in national prestige for France, just as the Edsel was an investment in corporate prestige for Ford. It never made money, was horribly inefficient, a maintenance headache, too noisy to use in most places, and had a bad safety record. For those reasons, it was never actually successful and was soon phased out.