Hmmm.... so time for another break....The world is fascinating, and today it's also ridiculously hot! Such a pleasure :) Just beautiful to run down streets where the air stands still and heavy with the warm perfume of flowers. And there are lightning bugs here :) so pretty, and makes running interesting as you try to avoid bumping into them.
Okay, so now, to the point, and the latest thing that I've been thinking about is climate change, and how it relates to our society. I am by no means as well informed on the issue as I would like to be, even though my PhD is in some way related, but mainly from an observational point of view. In addition, fortunately as a student I have the luxury of sitting on the fence which I will exploit to full capacity for now.
I was saddened recently to hear an ad on the radio - 'to decrease climate change in your area, be the number X caller after song Y to go in the draw to win an electrical lawn mower'... WTF?! (so now I listen to classical radio; fewer ads, mostly they want you to donate your car...)
The ad was wrong in so many ways.... yet, I'm sure people buy into this stuff... So how to prevent this? People generally speaking have their hearts in the right place and want to do the right thing, and of course when they are told of polar bears drowning, ice caps melting... (i'm going the way of: 'end of the world' flash... check it out) it pulls at heart strings and if all they have to do is call a radio station to 'decrease it in their area' well then what's the harm?
It was sad for me to hear climate change cheapened in such a way, used as a marketing tactic. And leads to the question of why are not people more informed?
Well, people are also generally lazy, thinking takes energy, and thinking is frustrating because we aren't that good at it. When you think and form an opinion, you immediately expose yourself to being 'wrong'. Which of course we feel as an attack on our ego and it smarts. It's so much easier to believe, because well frankly if you believe the wrong thing, it's not you that is 'wrong' it's that your trust was betrayed... you're a victim... or whatever...
Anyway, I'm scattered, this whole debate on climate change, right or wrong, do or don't and what to do and when makes my head spin...
But trying to get back on track. I want to blurt this out, because I even after talking this over with a few people I still don't think I've formulated my opinion in a concise enough way, and writing always helps, and the story goes like this:
Once upon a time, in a cave far far away there lived people that did not think at all... Times were tough, the land was harsh and unforgiving, animals where savage, summers blistering hot, and winters numbingly cold. There communication consisted of grunts, and where mainly expressions of desires and instincts.
One day a huge lightning storm raged for days and days on end, and struck fear into the souls of the cave dwellers. There was among them one cave person known as Lazyone, a particularly poetic soul, that one night over a fire weaved a story about how this was the anger of the sky gods. This caugh the imagination of the cave dwellers and hence started belief on a primitive level.
The older generations when they could no longer pull their weight in the small tribes became the elders and where the story tellers. Religion grew from such gathering, and gave people a cause outside of themselves to fight and die for. Particularly useful if you're trying to mobilize a group of people to fight a war against a neighbouring tribe to tell them that they may die today, but live on forever in the after life. Anyway, that's nothing new, I'm getting carried away (hahah, I'm definitely the "Lazyone")...
As societies grew, the belief system became more elaborate, a documentation system developed, and a few where chosen in the soceities to record this knowledge. Now, most people didn't have time to think, and so on their 'off days' they went in large numbers to hear the readings and teachings of this select few who told them what was wrong and what was right.
The main point I'm trying to make is that morality back in the day was externalized, it was impressed on the majority of people from outside, by the chosen few.
Then we skip ahead some time, to the agricultural revolution when the majority of people found themselves with the time on their hands to 'think'. What where their thoughts turned to? Morality, philosophy, natural sciences. And with time, morality became internalized to some extent... (or you could fairly argue so entrenched in the makeup/web of society, that it was now almost absorbed by osmosis? maybe... but that's not helping my point too much :))
However, these societies where still largely 'imperial' (is that the right word?...no)... 'monarchial' (is that spelt right?...). There was a single person who ruled over the people, and they had little say and choice of who or what they did... With time, people started thinking about this, seeing that perhaps it wasn't exactly fair... (wouldn't blame them after Nero for example)... Whatever the reasons people felt that they had to have a voice and a voice that had to be heard...What gave them such crazy ideas?... too much time on their hands :)... point is that more internalization occured, people 'thought' they had a right to decide their form of government...
Democracy arose, at least for me, who is lucky to be Australian, currently residing in the US, which as to be the most liberal, to the point of being ridiculous, (but I say this with grave admiration, and respect), democratic society. So, although we like to repeat Churchills famous phrase: "the best argument agaist democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter" (Churchill is my hero :)) it's the best we got right now, so don't knock it...
From a young age, since primary school for me, we had it drilled into us that every vote counts! With this we choose our ruling party, we choose our form of government. We have internalized again, we all at least feel we have a voice in our society now. Some of us even read political ideology, and follow the politics of our times, and most of us definitely love arguing about it.
Today for the first time in history, science is no longer just discovering cool gadgets, force fields and observing links in nature which for all their elegance and ingenuity leave most people impassionate. Science today (some science of today to be PC) is actually doing what science is all about in the first place (the whole point), it is 'predicting' and it's predicting something big is about to happen... it is shouting 'dooms day'. Climate change with all it's worst ramifications is the scary unknown, a pushing of our lovely home mother Earth whom we should all love and treasure, into disequilibrium and who knows, a hell so to speak?
What should we do? How should we act? When should we act? What is right and what is wrong? ... Well, I think it's time to internalize again, stop looking at science for facts to 'believe'. "Think, it's patriotic."(from a bumper sticker, oh, God Bless America :)) and we should all think about the fact that we assert our democracy once every three/four years? and we are 'okay' with that, things are going swimmingly... we vote, we poll, we lobby, but not every day.... but every day we assert ourselves on the environment, every day we impact the environment. If we can find the time to think about whether to vote democrat or republican, labor or liberal in the next election, let's hope we find the time to at least 'think' about what we are doing to the environment, and how to best look after the only home we will ever know.
I hope that we all start to think the world is our problem, and we must form an opinion and not a belief.
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