The planet is fine. The people are fucked.

“In art, it is hard to say anything as good as saying nothing” noted Ludwig Wittgenstein. True, though I’m beggining to think this maxim could be remixed and expanded upon to refer to the art of living in general: In life, it is hard to do anything as good as doing nothing . . .

I don’t mean that in the leisurely sense or from the perspective of the work shy, layabout (which I currently am) – but in reference to the sustainably wise conclusion made by Alan Watts, who suggests that we need stop our interfering so that the earths natural mechanisms can mend itself:

In this clip, taken from his documentary – ‘A Conversation with Myself’ (1971), Watts concludes that the best form of action we could take in relation to repairing the planets frail ecosystem, would involve the human race learning how to leave itself alone. However, whilst human civilization is still alive and kicking and continually pumping tones of CO2 into the atmosphere – this will remain but an impossible pipe dream, true nonetheless – but impossible. This ‘handing over of nature to nature’ as Watts puts it, would involve sacrificing everything we have come to know — An incomprehensible, dramatically simplistic shift backwards in our lifestyles, if we are to have any hope in moving forward. (Who would want to, and how to even enforce such a ruling is another headache completely, more than likely to involve some form of global communism . . .)

To re-evaluate everything that gives our lives meaning is too much of a culture shock and too much of a demand on ourselves. And that is Watts concluding point:

You can’t transform yourself. You can’t make yourself sane. You can’t make yourself loving.
You can’t make yourself unselfish. And yet it’s absolutely necessary that we be that way. It is absolutely necessary — If we are going to hand over the direction of nature to nature, which is what it comes to . . . It’s absolutely necessary that we let go of ourselves and it can’t be done.

I agree with Watt’s at the end of the documentary when he concludes that the world, individually and socially, has arrived at somewhat of a dead-end (these anxieties were expressed 40 years – how long can we keep referring to this current moment in time as pivotal/now or never?). Yes, this is somewhat pessimistic – but as they say, isn’t the truth often heard to swallow? Interestingly enough, I read here that “people with mild depression are relatively accurate when predicting future events. They see the world as it is. In other words, in the absence of a neural mechanism that generates unrealistic optimism, it is possible all humans would be mildly depressed”. I’m not suggesting that Watts was in anyway depressed (or myself for that matter), only that there is a fine line between the pessimist and realist.

I don’t want to finish on a helpless low note – but I’m going to anyway. Ending with a few words from the celebrated pessimist that is George Carling, who humorously highlights that the “planet is fine, the people are fucked.” (I’ll let you decide whether Carling is suggesting that we are ‘literally fucked’ if we render the planet inhabitable for our future selves; or ‘psychologically fucked’ – too self interested at present to comprehend such a dystopia):

Everyone’s Asleep

[Image from guardian.co.uk]

Polar bears are drowning and there’s next to no snow on Kilimanjaoro. Just two of many shocking insights gained from watching Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ (2005) on Boxing Day past. I may be six years late on this one, but the timing seems rather fitting considering that Britain has just experienced one if its warmest Christmas days on record – surely further evidence of our changing climate? The weather was equally strange down here in the southern half of the hemisphere, where giant hailstones and thunder storms swept across Melbourne. Of course, this is all quite trivial in comparison to the Indian Ocean earthquake that occurred December 26, 2004:

The earth has warmed, on average, by about 0.7 °C since 1910, with nine of the ten warmest years on record occurring in the past decade. There has been an increase in heatwaves, fewer frosts, and a warming of the lower atmosphere and upper ocean (csrio.au). In terms of global issues and the future of our planet; renowned economist, writer, political adviser and activist, Jeremy Rifkin claims “everyone’s asleep”. In his thirty minute Youtube conversation, Rifkin exclaims that this is a defining moment for the human race:

Scientists say we could see a 70% wipe-out of all life on this planet by the end of the century. Climate change is the energy bill for two centuries of industrial-based carbon activity. We need a new economic vision and game plan. We have to get off carbon by 2040.
(Rifkin, New Statesman)

Rifkin highlights three main global crisis’s we find ourselves in at the moment, that put us in the middle of a perfect storm:

1. Economic Meltdown
2. Energy Crisis
3. Real time impact of climate change (and its impact on agriculture)

On the surface it sounds as if we are all doomed. Encouragingly though, Rifkin feels that now is the perfect moment for The Third Industrial Revolution (which is the title of his new book). One aspect of this revolution is a proposed solution in harvesting our renewable energies more efficiently:

If renewable energies are distributed in every square inch of the world, why are we only collecting them at a few points? The goal is to convert every single existing building in the European Union into a personal, clean micro power plant. So you can collect solar off your roof, wind off your side wall.

We take internet technology and transform the power grid of the world into an energy internet. So when millions of us are producing our own green energy on site, storing it in hydrogen, our energy internet will allow us to sell and share any extra. We become our own energy producers. We then collaborate and share that energy in the same way as we share information on social media spaces on the internet.

No small task then, but for once we have Utopian vision that’s both practical and applicable. But before any of this can be put into place, Rifkin stresses that we need political mobilisation: “We need to have the narrative spread and we need to engage every community with business, society and government to make this happen”.

Climate change is real, its the elephant in the room – a topic we hear very little of from our politicians and news broadcasters. I’m very much speculating here, but I’d be interested to know if there is any evidence to suggest that governments (and business) may be deliberately striving to keep the climate change debate low key and off the public’s mind? Perhaps the authorities fear the truth would cause mass hysteria, causing an economic meltdown as the people realise that life’s all too short – pack in their jobs and adopt the mindset of “Eat, drink and be merry . . .”

Again, its the old argument of putting profit before nature. What we need now is to adopt compassion as our new global currency, whilst maintaining a global perspective on the health of our planet. The first step towards this ideal is to be the change we want to see and the governments will soon follow suit. If that’s not enough to motivate the masses, perhaps the words of Seneca will have a greater play on the public consciousness:

‘There is no time for playing around. You have been retained as counsel for the unhappy.
You have promised to bring help to the shipwrecked, the imprisoned, the sick, the needy,
to those whose heads are under the poised axe. Where are you deflecting your attention —
What are you doing?” (Seneca)