Wild Free and Happy Sample 60

 [Note: This is a new section from the rough draft of Wild, Free, & Happy. It’s finally getting into the home stretch, maybe four more to go (or fewer).  These samples start with sample 01, and follow the sequence listed HERE (if you happen to have some free time).

Climate Confusion

Climate change is an idea that makes many people sweat and squirm.  Poorly informed folks say it’s a hoax spread by lunatics.  Religious folks might have faith that climate change is God’s will.  Other folks, who pay close attention to the news, perceive that climate trends have obviously swerved into spooky new patterns that potentially endanger the status quo for everyone everywhere. 

Folks who believe that climate change is real and important tend to be divided into two groups.  (1) Techno-optimists feel confident that the threat of climate change can and will be resolved via human brilliance.  (2) Techno-skeptics perceive that the danger is powerful, intensifying, overwhelming, and destined to destabilize life as we know it.

On the center stage of mainstream discussion, the spotlights are usually kept shining on the optimists.  They celebrate the miracles of new technology that will eliminate climate change, and steer us into the fast lane to utopia.  Everything is under control.  Our prosperous way of life is safe and sound.

Samuel Alexander added that the “techno-fix” approach is politically and socially palatable.  “It provides governments, businesses, and individuals with a means of responding to environmental problems (or appearing to) without actually confronting the underlying issues.”

Wackernagel & Rees neatly summed up the clumsy predicament: “The politically acceptable is ecologically disastrous while the ecologically necessary is politically impossible.”

Big Mama Nature is not amused.  She doesn’t care what we believe.  This is her circus, we are her monkeys, and Mama is pissed!  We’re monkeying around with extremely destructive games, while screeching and chattering.  Life is but a dream!

Secret Weapons

Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister, brilliantly convinced war weary Germans that they’d soon be saved by an amazing technological miracle.  The human mind has a spooky ability to develop a powerful blind faith in almost any idea, no matter how goofy.  Literally, nothing is unbelievable.

Albert Speer was in Hitler’s inner circle.  In March 1945, German defeat was inevitable.  In the final weeks, Hitler revealed his brilliant plan to the German people.  What seemed to be a rapidly approaching brutal defeat was actually a cunning trap!  He was luring the enemy armies into an ambush where they would soon be obliterated by a new and terribly powerful secret weapon!

Just days before the fall of Berlin, Speer made a visit to the western front.  While German cities were smoldering heaps of rubble, rural folks enjoyed a hopeful blind faith in the secret weapon nonsense, and were eagerly awaiting a glorious victory.  Speer was surprised that many top-level Nazis also believed this. 

Ghost Dance

By 1889, the once vast herds of bison on the U.S. plains had nearly been driven to extinction.  To the native people, this monstrous tragedy felt like the end of the world.  Lame Deer, a Lakota medicine man, described the Ghost Dance movement, a desperate effort to conjure a powerful act of spiritual healing.

Dancing would roll up the all the crud of the white man’s world, like a dirty carpet.  This would uncover once again “the flowering prairie, unspoiled, with its herds of buffalo and antelope, its clouds of birds, belonging to everyone, enjoyed by all.”

The Ghost Dance movement spread from tribe to tribe.  Dancers were not allowed to have things from the white world: liquor, guns, knives, kettles, or metal ornaments.  They would dance for four days.  Whites feared an armed uprising, so they attacked the dancers.  During the Wounded Knee massacre, 153 Lakota people were exterminated.

Electric Car Dance

Today, drivers concerned about climate change are being persuaded to abandon their old-fashioned petroleum powered machines, and acquire one of the new and luxurious electric powered wheelchairs.  Marketing wizards assure us that the batteries in these wheelchairs will someday be charged with “clean green” electricity produced by solar panels, wind turbines, and other cool gizmos.  Currently, the primary source of energy used to generate electricity for charging stations is fossil fuel, often natural gas. 

The motorized wheelchair fad began a few years before my father was born in 1913.  Ford was an early leader.  In the previous 300,000 years, humans primarily got around on foot — a cheap, healthy, practical, and climate friendly mode of transportation. 

Newborn infants squirt out of the womb with two astonishing miracles at the ends of their legs.  These happy feet allow us to wander through forests, prairies, deserts, wetlands, and mountains.  They propel us while swimming and dancing, and they’re quite useful for kicking and stomping troublesome annoyances. 

Happy Thoughts

In the Peter Pan story, Tinker Bell is the fluttering fairy of magical thinking: “Just think a happy thought and you can fly!”  We’re so lucky to live in a golden age of happy news!  Scroll your phone.  Read the paper.  Turn on the radio or TV.  It’s not hard to find soothing climate change news.

The core message assures us that we have a plan, and we’re making significant advances on important goals.  Some issues are more challenging, and will take additional time.  Climate change is a complicated rascal, but we know what we’re doing.  Everything is under control.  It’s not too late.  Relax!

For example, Wikipedia’s 100% Renewable Energy page reported: “Recent studies show that a global transition to 100% renewable energy across all sectors – power, heat, transport, and desalination well before 2050 is feasible… worldwide at low cost.”  Elsewhere, eco-warrior Bill McKibben wrote that “we have the technology necessary to rapidly ditch fossil fuels.”

On the other hand, many educators deliberately limit what they tell their students, to avoid souring their precious innocence (don’t scare the children!).  News organizations often limit coverage of unpleasant stories that could disturb their audience and/or advertisers.  Politicians who promise quick and easy solutions win more votes.

Rupert Read wrote, “Environmentalists are often accused of being doom-mongers… I think that almost all environmentalists incline in fact to a Polyanna-ish stance of undue optimism.”

Kevin Anderson noted that this undue optimism was the product of something like a conspiracy theory.  “Half of global emissions come from just ten percent of the population.  The top one percent are responsible for twice the amount of carbon as the bottom half of the world’s population.  The inequality in in who is causing emissions is obscene.”  “We’re heading for collapse of modern society, and the collapse of most of our emblematic ecosystems.”

At the same time, this elite one percent is primarily responsible for framing the global discussion on climate change.  They are especially interested in perpetual economic growth, boosting their personal wealth, and keeping business as usual in the fast lane for as long as possible, by any means necessary. 

Sharply reducing emissions would sharply disrupt business as usual.  So would doing nothing, disregarding climate impacts, partying like there’s no tomorrow, and letting nature clean up the bloody mess.

Green New Deal

Anyway, climate change sucks.  It’s largely caused by a mob of eight billion critters generating way too many carbon emissions.  A primary source of carbon-rich pollution is the combustion of staggering amounts of fossil fuel. 

Shazam!  The quick and easy solution is perfectly obvious!  We just abandon our naughty addiction to dirty energy, and replace it with clean green renewable energy.  Hooray!  State of the art technology will allow us to painlessly glide into a beautiful green utopia that requires no significant lifestyle sacrifices. 

In this great healing, solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and electric motors play starring roles.  The climate-saving magic word here is decarbonize.  In a number of nations, this crusade has gradually been growing since 2018 or so.  The main U.S. version of this movement is called the Green New Deal (GND).

The GND vision is to make radical, gargantuan, and super expensive changes around the entire world over the next 20 to 30 years.  Ideally, every nation would eagerly cooperate, and this would allow humankind to gradually reduce the brutality of the beatings that Big Mama Nature receives every day.  Then, miracles happen, and future generations maybe enjoy a smoother journey into the future.  What could possibly go wrong?

Well, as noted earlier, ongoing CO₂ emissions are increasing, and they are accumulating in the atmosphere, where they will persist for thousands of years.  John Gowdy concluded, “The effects of fossil fuel burning are irreversible on a time scale relevant to humans.”  We’ve started something we cannot stop.

In 2021, Megan Seibert and William E. Rees released a free report that provided a vigorous critique of the GND’s shortcomings and fantasies.  It’s a competent intro, and it’s fairly easy to read — “GND proponents are appallingly tolerant of the inexplicable.”

Vaclav Smil is an energy theorist, the author of How the World Really Works, and 40 other books.  He’s a sharp critic of the GND’s pipe dream of a full-scale transition from fossil energy to clean green renewable energy.  He calls it science fiction.  “Heavy doses of wishful thinking are commingled with a few solid facts.”

Smil smirked at the GND’s juicy promises.  “Who could be against solutions that are both cheap and nearly instantly effective, that will create countless well-paying jobs, and ensure care-free futures for coming generations?”  Many others agree with Smil’s skepticism.

We talk about two categories of energy: nonrenewable (fossil), and renewable (wind, solar, etc.).  Nate Hagens clarified this subject.  Geese and oak trees are “renewable.”  Solar collectors and wind turbines are “rebuildable.”  They have a working lifespan of up to 20-30 years, at which point they must be periodically replaced, until the time when civilization rusts in peace.  Their components are not designed to be recycled in an affordable and eco-friendly way.  Many go to landfills.  Some are considered to be toxic waste.

William Rees explained how our dreams of “solving” global warming have deep roots in magical thinking.  Proposed “solutions” are compatible with perpetual economic growth and business as usual.  We can pretend to save the world while mindlessly enjoying our cool toys until the lights go out.  Yippee!

During its evolution, the GND mindset has been an intoxicating cornucopia of heartwarming utopian fantasies.  We’d have 100% renewable energy by 2030.  Decent jobs for everyone.  Free college education.  Single-payer healthcare.  Adequate housing.  Healthy affordable food.  Public transportation and high-speed rail.  Perpetual economic growth.  And so on.  (See Wikipedia’s Green New Deal section.)

Wild Free and Happy sample 83 Update: Human Web

[Note: The following is some new and updated material from my rough draft of Wild, Free, & Happy.  It will be included in the revised Human Web section, which was originally released as samples 52 and 53.  The other samples of this rough draft can be accessed HERE.  If you prefer audiobooks, Michael Dowd has been reading and recording my book HERE.]

Magical Thinking

Imagine living in an era when bubonic plague epidemics were common and horrific.  Geoffrey Marks noted that the Black Death arrived in England in 1348, and was followed by epidemics in 1349, 1361, 1363, 1365, 1369, 1371, 1373, 1375, 1378-1382, 1390, 1399-1400 …and on and on… until the Great Plague of London in 1665-1666.  Over the course of several months, the Great Plague killed about 100,000, almost a quarter of London’s population. 

In 1772, Daniel Defoe (author of “Robinson Crusoe”) published “A Journal of the Plague Year.”  He was a young boy during the Great Plague, and had a front row seat on the horror show.  As an adult, he interviewed a number of survivors.  His uncle kept diaries during the nightmare.

The city was a fantastically filthy nightmare.  Sewage was dumped in ditches along the streets.  Horseshit and garbage everywhere.  Everyone had lice, bathing was rare, and great mobs of rats enjoyed a wonderful life. 

When folks heard news of an approaching contagion, anyone who had options (nobility, clergy, physicians, officers, etc.) fled London in a great stampede.  Poor folks were left behind to experience what the fates would deliver.

Efforts were made to slow the spread of disease.  When someone was known to be infected (or so suspected), a red cross was painted on the door, and the dwelling was guarded day and night by a watchman, to prevent escapes, and to provide necessities.  Thus, the entire family was condemned to die.  Folks were infuriated, and there were riots. 

Bell ringers moved through the streets, shouting “bring out your dead.”  They were followed by buriers or bearers who loaded the dead carts.  Large pits were dug in which to dump the corpses.  Defoe wrote, “It is impossible to describe the most horrible cries and noise that the poor people would make at their bringing the dead bodies of their children and friends out of the cart.”

Doctors had no cures, and prayers got no response.  Johannes Nohl reported that during plague years, a number of communities in Europe engaged in ceremonial dances, hoping to drive away the evil spirits.  Hundreds danced until they collapsed from exhaustion.  Folks were overwhelmed with despair.  People rolled in filth, begging others to beat them.  “Otherwise modest maidens and matrons lost all sense of shame, sighed, howled, made indecent gestures, and uncovered obscene parts of their bodies.”

It was obvious to everyone that the plague was killing the clergy at especially high rates (it was their job to visit the dying).  Why did God have no interest in protecting his own special agents?  Many priests lived with concubines, an abominable sin.  Did this mean that the baptisms they performed were worthless?  Many lost their faith.  While large crowds danced, the churches sat empty.   A furious mob of Germans went to Liège, determined to massacre all clergy.

One tradition noted that in 1424, a lad named Maccaber arrived in Paris, and took residence in an ancient tower next to a cemetery.  Folks believed he had supernatural powers.  He initiated an ecclesiastic procession.  Every day, for months, crowds of men and women danced in the cemetery.  Folks wore scary masks to drive away the evil spirits. 

Over time, in many places, during many plagues, folks experimented with a wide variety of rituals.  Despite good intentions, their efforts failed.  The rats and fleas remained alive and well, and the grim reaper worked overtime.  Blind faith in rituals is called magical thinking.  Unfortunately, beautiful wishes don’t always come true. 

Today, of course, global telecommunication systems and the internet allow magical beliefs and assorted conspiracy theories to spread through large populations at astonishing speeds.  Societies become fiercely polarized, echo chambers roar, intolerance punches, courtesy vaporizes, bullets fly, and daily life becomes a surreal tragicomedy.  Elections no longer have losers — every candidate claims victory!

Humanism

Many humans imagine that our species enjoys a superior status in the family of life.  Indeed, many hiss and snarl at the notion that humans are animals (!!).  We are obviously smarter, stronger, and greater in every way!  A number of religious traditions assert that humans are something like the glorious crown of creation, the managers of the world.  Earth is our playground.

These beliefs typically emerged in cultures that became addicted to the exploitation of domesticated plants and/or animals — turbulent societies that cleared forests, planted fields, raised birds and herds, and radically altered (and damaged) the ecosystems they inhabited.

Our wild ancestors were far more humble.  They were hunters and foragers, not planet smashing thunder beings.  Peter Ungar wrote that when an anthropologist in Tanzania asked some Hazda hunters how humans were different from other animals, they were completely baffled.  There is no difference.  What a stupid question!  We all eat, drink, breathe, excrete, wander, and reproduce.  Many carnivores think we’re absolutely delicious, and they eagerly enjoy every opportunity for having us for lunch.

Richard Nelson spent time (1976-77) with the Koyukon people of Alaska.  Their often quoted proverb is: “Every animal knows way more than you do.”  They believe that animals can understand everything we say, regardless of distance.  The Koyukon were not a culture of motor vehicles and glowing screens.  They were a hunting culture that had an amazingly deep understanding of nature, and absolute respect for it.  Modern folks have lost this intimate wild connection to home.  Nelson wrote, “We live alone in an uncaring world of our own creation.” 

David Ehrenfeld wrote The Arrogance of Humanism.  It was an aggressive critique of the widespread belief in human supremacy.  He wrote that humanism was “the dominant religion of our time.”  It’s essentially the air we breathe.  Humans are absolute geniuses, and our technology is amazing.  There is no problem we cannot solve.  We have no limits.  As resources become depleted, we’ll readily develop excellent alternatives.  Our children will enjoy even better lives than our own, and the best is yet to come.  Yippee!

Ehrenfeld wrote back in 1978, when pollution controls, if any, were weak, and the air and waters were heavily contaminated with noxious substances.  The entire city of Gary Indiana was hidden in a stinky orange fog of steel mill filth.  The Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught on fire.

In the ’70s, numerous eco-disasters were occurring around the world, but the general mob paid little attention to stuff happening elsewhere — out of sight, out of mind.  Network television avoided the yucky stuff, and hypnotized folks with generous servings of sports, entertainment, and happy news.  School systems tirelessly preached the holy gospel of humanism, and celebrated the age of miracles that students were so lucky to enjoy.

While the thundering human juggernaut was beating the living shit out of the planet, the mob barely noticed.  They were busy polishing their new cars.  Most remained zombie-like cheerleaders of the wonders of modernity, and the beautiful future that laid ahead.

This baffled Ehrenfeld.  Nobody <bleeping> cares!  The poor lad apparently suffered from a devastating incurable mental disorder known as critical thinking.  He was a sick pariah.  Humanist culture has zero respect for hopeless nutjobs, defeatists, misanthropes, oddballs, and doom perverts.

Ehrenfeld shrugged.  “Evidence is growing that the religion of humanity is self-destructive and foolish.  But the more it fails, the greater our faith in it.  We imagine that what we want to happen is actually happening.” 

He was not a misanthrope.  He didn’t hate, distrust, and avoid humans.  Actually, he was an “anti-humanist.”  He detested the ridiculous mass hallucinations — the enthusiastic celebrations of human genius, and the wondrous technological utopia that we have brilliantly created.  We are so lucky to live in the spectacular gushing orgasm of the entire human experience!

Ehrenfeld noted that pure anti-humanists were rare.  Most folks who know how to read have spent their entire lives in fanatical humanist cultures.  We’ve been constantly absorbing humanist ideas for years.  They have deep roots in our minds, and a strong influence on how we think.  It’s sort of pleasant to imagine that we’re on the path to a better tomorrow.  Progress will wash away the pain.

On the other hand, having read a pile of anthropology books, it’s clear that wild folks who lived undisturbed in their traditional way, in their ancestral land, tended to be enthusiastic and shameless anti-humanists.  They seemed to be nearly unanimous in perceiving civilized folks as being absolutely batshit crazy!  How could people be so stupid?  How can they have no respect and reverence for the natural world?  Why are they so aggressive and selfish?

Ehrenfeld wrote that a general rejection of humanism is now long overdue.  It won’t be easy.  Blind faith in humanist hopes and dreams remains strong, and the insanely furious war on the family of life rages on, and on, and on.

Wild Free and Happy Sample 01

[Note: I’m going to be posting a series of rough draft sections from the book I’m working on.  The plan is two per month.  My blog is also home to reviews of 196 books, and more than a dozen of my rants.  Feel free to wander.]

Introduction

I’ve been waking up with the ravens lately, around 5:30.  They celebrate each new day with enthusiasm, jabbering joyfully in the treetops.  Then they take wing and spread out across the land, to spend the day exploring, foraging, hanging out with friends, and celebrating the perfection of creation.  Near the end of the day, as the sun is setting, they return home from their travels, perch high in the trees, and chatter about the day’s events.  They’ve been living like this for more than a million years, and they have left no permanent wounds on the ecosystem.  Experts say that ravens are among the world’s smartest animals.

After the birds have departed in the morning, the neighborhood begins rumbling.  The ground dwelling tropical primates are getting up, taking a crap, eating Fruit Loops, drinking coffee, and then jumping into 2,200 pound (997 kg), 124 horsepower motorized wheelchairs, with luxurious seats, air conditioning, entertainment systems.  They join hordes of speeding wheelchairs, fanning out across a once-thriving wild ecosystem now mutilated by countless permanent wounds.  It’s time for another excellent day at the cubicle farm.  Joy!

As you can see, the two ways of living are radically different.  One is ecologically sustainable, and the other is ecologically insane.  Like the ravens, our closest living relatives, the chimps and bonobos, have lived in the same place, in the same way, for several million years, without degrading their ecosystem.  We share something like 99 percent of our genes with them.  Chimps, bonobos, ravens, and all other non-human critters have never forgotten who they are.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, our ancestors lived as intelligently as all the other critters in the family of life — wild, free, and happy.  That is who we are in our genes.  That is what we evolved to be.  It is our culture that has forgotten our birthright and identity, and turned into a freak show.  A few isolated groups of humans still remain wild, free, and happy.  But their survival is now threatened by rapidly growing mobs of folks who are lost, entranced, and destructive.  Why?  How did they get so lost?

The venerable historian William Cronon was the son of a history professor.  One day, his father gave him the magic key for understanding reality.  He told his son to carry one question on his journey through life: “How did things get to be this way?”  Sometime, when you’re feeling a bit bored, eager for thrills and excitement, get a library card and spend the next 25 years reading.  Search for answers to Cronon’s question.  Read 500 books on environmental history, ecology, anthropology, night after night, year after year, and type thousands of pages of notes.  I did that.

In the imperial sagas of our culture, we are told that humans are superior to all of our other relatives in the family of life.  We are living miracles that excel in the juju of science and technology.  Life has never been better, and the best is yet to come.  The sagas do acknowledge that there are still a few minor rough spots in our manmade utopia, but they are nothing more than pesky annoyances that can effortlessly be bleeped out by industrial strength magical thinking.  With our legendary big brains, there is nothing that humans cannot rationalize, deny, or wish away.  Progress rocks!  We are the greatest!

Relax and enjoy!  Shop like there’s no tomorrow!  Everything is under control.  Highly trained experts are protecting us, and there is no problem they cannot lick.  Our purpose in life is to work hard, spend like champions, constantly enhance our display of status trinkets, and patriotically contribute as much as possible to our local landfill.  It’s almost as if, from their earliest days, our kiddies were taught to be gravediggers.

In any culture, it’s perfectly normal to trust what your elders taught you, and to retain that mindset until your dying breath.  It’s perfectly normal to spend your entire life being surrounded by people for whom that mindset is as real as the sun and moon.  In healthy, time-proven, sustainable cultures, this is exactly as it should be.  In insane cultures, blind faith accelerates our plunge down paths that lead to nowhere good.  Among our worst options is to mindlessly live and think like a suicidal society expects us to.

Greetings readers!  Welcome to Wild, Free, & Happy!  My name is Richard, and I’ll be your loony heretic for this word dance.  Please take a seat by my campfire.  I have stories to tell.  I want to tell you the saga of our ancestors’ journey, the four million year voyage from tree dwelling primates, to planet thrashing thunder beings — from wild, free, and happy, to frantic stressed out maniacs, zooming down the fast lane toward the zenith of meaninglessness.  Yippee!

Big Mama Nature is being gang-raped by an absolutely insane society.  She is not enjoying it, she is screaming for help, and she is furious.  This society cannot hear her, and seems to be enjoying it.  Rape is the engine of perpetual economic growth, the golden goose.  We are the Crown of Creation.  We are all that matters.  Big Mama’s purpose is to satisfy our insatiable hunger for every imaginable pleasure.

This is what happens when generation after generation is taught nothing but the ridiculous imperial sagas of human supremacy.  It’s very easy to understand why this society is lost in a thick fog of magical thinking and pathological illusions.  Growth is our god word.  Our society trains us, and expects us, to devote our lives to the gang rape.  We deeply admire those who excel at the game, accumulate immense wealth, proudly display their lavish status symbols, and frequently appear on our glowing screens — as champions and role models.  How smart is that?

Our society, of course, is a horrifying masterpiece of spectacular insanity.  What would it be like to explore a wild, free, and happy version of the human saga, a clear and simple version of the story minus the mountains of bullshit and bad craziness?  I mean, seven-point-something billion people are charging at top speed, right past the signs: Wrong Way!  Do Not Enter.  We are on a dark path that dead ends with our extinction.  How smart is that?

Every newborn that squirts out of the womb is a wild animal that evolution has fine-tuned for foraging, scavenging, hunting, and thriving on healthy tropical savannahs.  Their genes are fine-tuned for a wild, free, and happy life — like newborn chimps, bonobos, raccoons, chipmunks, and everything else.  Sadly, our newborns glide out into a family and society that is the opposite of wild, free, and happy.  This culture has no memory of wild, free, and happy — and it proudly celebrates our transformation into hollowed out consumer zombies.  How smart is that?

Maybe it’s time to remember who we are, turn around, begin the long journey home, and return to the family of life.  Maybe it’s time to unlearn, question, and change.  Maybe it’s time to strew tons of banana peels in the path of the monster.  Maybe it’s time to goose every sacred cow, and delegitimize the toxic beliefs that make our culture crazy.

Please be aware that this book contains zero miraculous silver bullet solutions to our slithering multitude of predicaments.  It provides no instructions for conjuring a powerful magic spell that will throw open the gates to an ecological utopia of love, peace, and happiness.  On the following pages, you will find a banquet of outside the box thinking, which may result in something like a mental enema, flushing out a torrent of stinky brown accumulated crud.  This book is a hopelessly crazy-assed effort to break the trance.

We’re about to walk right past the No Trespassing signs, jump over the fence, and take a long strange trip, down an ancient path, to a realm of ideas forbidden by the grownups.  Please toss your cell phones into the shit bucket.  We’re about to begin.  Trust nothing I say.  Think for yourself.  Good luck!  Have fun!

 

Epilogue

The following is the rough draft of the last section of my upcoming third book.

So, here we are in the twenty-first century.  We are not a generation born wild and free, running around naked in lush tropical rainforests, nibbling on fruit, nuts, and grubs.  We inherited an age of challenges, the result of a long string of risky experiments.  Negative consequences have piled up over the centuries, and we now stand in the dark shadow of a mountain of predicaments.

Humans are not cursed with defective genes, but we have succeeded in creating a highly unsustainable way of living and thinking — a defective culture.  The clock is running out on this troublesome experiment.  It would be wise to acknowledge this, and mindfully explore saner ways of living and thinking.

Like all other animals, humans focus their attention on the here and now, the immediate vicinity.  Many animals are capable of foresight.  Some know that panthers hunt at night, so they sleep in the trees.  With regard to the manmade realm of techno-innovation, foresight is largely impossible.  Nobody could have imagined the enormous consequences of metal making, fossil energy, or the domestication of plants and animals.  A few wild cultures still live sustainably with barely any technology.

Low impact cultures do not believe in human superiority.  They do not suffer from a persistent itch to hoard personal property.  They have exactly what they need.  They do not control and exploit the ecosystem, they adapt to it.  They have time-proven cultures in which everyone practices voluntary self-restraint.  In this manner, they could enjoy extended periods of real sustainability, living in a healthy wild ecosystem.

High impact cultures, by definition, cannot have a long-term future.  In their spooky fantasies, the primary goal is to pursue economic growth, by any means necessary, for as long as possible, without regard for the generations yet to come.  Nothing is more important than perpetual growth, at any cost.  This is the dominant paradigm in consumer societies, where it is perceived to be perfectly normal and intelligent.

But deviants on the fringe, who enjoy an amazing ability to recognize the obvious, warn us that normal is insane.  For revealing this inconvenient truth, they are called doomers.  But the consumer hordes, who are enthusiastic lifelong participants in the most destructive culture in human history, are the true champions of doom.

Consumers are annoyed by the truth tellers, and denounce them for their negativity, but it’s actually the other way around.  Sending tons and tons of waste to landfills, via a lifetime of recreational shopping, in an effort to gain social status, is a heartbreaking tragedy.  It’s a path of ferocious negativity.

The truth-telling deviants are not doomers, they are simply more present in reality.  For them, the foolishness in our culture becomes less invisible.  Being present in reality, in the fullness of the darkness, puts them in a far better position to think clearly and make wise decisions.  They become less vulnerable to peer pressure.  They become less willing to mindlessly do what a mindless society expects of them.

In the process of healing from acute ignorance, you cross a painful threshold.  One day, you realize that the consumer fantasyland has little relationship with reality.  Big storms are coming, and the future will not be a prosperous and pleasurable joyride.  This realization hurts.

When this occurs, despair is an appropriate response.  It’s OK to grieve for the loss of a major long-held illusion.  At the same time, it’s also appropriate to celebrate your mind-expanding awakening, your successful return from the realm of the living dead.  Despair is like a hangover, a painful headache resulting from an unhealthy binge.  It’s a normal temporary experience on the long journey to growth and healing.

The consumers scream, “We can’t go back,” and that’s true.  We also cannot indefinitely remain on our current dead-end path.  John Trudell, the Santee Sioux activist, summed it up nicely.  “There is no old way, no new way.  There is a way of life.  We must live in balance with the Earth.  We must do it.  We have no choice.”

Eight words precisely describe the one and only sustainable destination, “We must live in balance with the Earth.”  That sacred destination has never been farther from where we now stand.  So, what should animals with legendary big brains be doing?  Obviously, we need to change how we think and live.

At the moment, consumer society feels little or no desire to question its mode of living and thinking.  Many have chugged the Kool-Aid of the techno-wizards, and have a blind faith in the wondrous solutions promised by clever experts.  Many others have little or no understanding of reality, because they suffer from ignorance, or limited ability to think.  Still others can sense the growing darkness, but are paralyzed with fear and powerlessness, and block out the yucky feelings with false hope.

Nothing can stop the coming storms of change, all paths lead to turbulence.  You can’t save the world.  You can’t fix everything, but you can use your gifts, and do what you can to confront ignorance, protect your ecosystem, and lessen the long-term damage.  There are infinite opportunities for doing beneficial work.

It’s time for unlearning, identifying the silly nonsense we’ve absorbed over the years, and hurling it overboard.  It’s time for learning, continuing our exploration of reality.  It’s time for communicating, helping each other learn.  It’s time to get outdoors, without electronic distractions, and develop an intimate relationship with the planet of our birth.  It’s time to grow and heal.

We are living in the most momentous century in the entire human experience.  It will be a time of immense learning and awakening.  As our glorious house of cards disintegrates, we will experience a beautiful die-off — countless idiotic myths, fantasies, and illusions will lose their hypnotic power, tumble into the tar pits, and never again entrance us.

It will be a century of huge lessons, an era of tremendous enlightenment.  No, climate change was not a hoax!  Yes, there really are limits!  Concepts like carrying capacity and overshoot will become well understood by any who survive.  The powerful storms of the Great Healing will inspire a great tide of questioning, critical thinking, and clear understanding.

No matter what we do, the Great Healing will eliminate a number of key predicaments, even if we don’t change our ways.  Whether or not we get serious about rapid population reduction, the current population bubble will become an ex-predicament.  Finite resources will certainly strangle the mass hysteria of consumer mania.  As we move beyond the era of climate stability, every ecosystem will be hammered by big changes.  The consumer lifestyle will no longer be an option.

Big Mama Nature has little tolerance for overshoot.  One way or another, sooner or later, some form of balance will be restored, with or without us.  But if we summon our power, and strive to live with responsibility, we may be able to prevent some destruction.  It’s essential to understand the mistakes that got us into this mess, so we will not be tempted to repeat them.  Learn!  Think!  Heal!

Introduction

The following is a rough draft of the introduction to my third book.

Welcome to Understanding Sustainability!  On the following pages, you will find reviews of books that explore many facets of ecological sustainability, an extremely important subject that remains largely unknown in our society.  You will meet authors with gifts for thinking outside the box, writers who can give us keys to treasure chests of vital knowledge.  It’s sad to wreck the ecosystem for no good reason — or any reason at all.  It’s especially sad that the masterminds of the great demolition are among the world’s “best-educated” people, and they have countless “well-educated” collaborators.

In its original meaning, a sustainable way of life is one that can continue for millennia without causing permanent degradation to the ecosystem.  All animals have succeeded at living in this manner, and they have done so for millions of years.  They can satisfy their essential needs (food and shelter) without damaging the community of life, a precious skill.

But one species has spawned several billion smarty-pants renegades who have stumbled far from the path of balance.  This outlaw society is zooming into deep trouble, and it barely understands why.  If we understood why, there is a fair chance that we would behave in a manner that was less destructive.  There is a fair chance that we would abandon myths that hobble our ability to think clearly and live responsibly.

Outlaw society is heavily addicted to extracting nonrenewable resources, like coal, oil, gas, metals, phosphates, potash, and on and on.  The reserves of these resources are diminishing every day, while the cost of extracting them increases.  Obviously, this approach can only operate temporarily.  It has an expiration date, a point at which the goodies are depleted, the bubble bursts, and the machine melts down.  No other animals suffer from addiction to nonrenewable resources, because they continue to live in their traditional manner.  They did not get lost.

Outlaw society is also heavily addicted to depleting renewable resources at rates faster than nature can replenish them.  We’re exterminating forests, mass murdering fish, destroying topsoil, draining aquifers, and pumping rivers dry.  This is also a dead end.  Other animals don’t mutilate the ecosystem.

Outlaw society generates many wastes and emissions at levels far beyond the ecosystem’s ability to harmlessly absorb them, and this is causing serious irreparable damage — melting icecaps, acidic seawater, coastal dead zones.  No wild animal has basic needs that require high-impact amusements like automobiles, computers, or electricity — these are “wants” not “needs,” and we don’t need wants.  Needs are basic and simple, wants include everything money can buy.

Most of humankind is in overshoot, because our population and way of life far exceeds the long-term carrying capacity of Earth’s ecosystem.  Every day, the planet’s carrying capacity shrinks, as the ongoing ecological wreckage accumulates, and this worsens the overshoot.  Nature has a low tolerance for overshoot, and outlaw society is too lost to comprehend why it’s swirling the drain.  Luckily, there are effective cures for ignorance, and they are most often found outside the walls of the outlaw culture.

In the following pages, you will not find The Solution.  Only problems have solutions — sleepiness is a problem that can be solved by taking a nap.  Predicaments, on the other hand, cannot be effectively eliminated by solutions.  There are no rituals, medicines, or gizmos for undoing climate change, or inspiring educators to abandon their diabolical obsession with perpetual growth.  We are way over our heads in predicaments. 

Every civilization collapses, and ours will too, one way or another, suddenly or gradually.  This is perfectly normal.  Industrial civilization was designed to grow like crazy, flame out, and collapse.  And we were thoroughly trained to devote our lives to it, so don’t be embarrassed, be annoyed.  The consumer way of life was a grand adventure in soul-killing foolishness.  The squirrels in the tree outside my window are so much healthier and happier.  They live in the here and now, satisfying their needs, playing with great enthusiasm, celebrating the perfection of creation.

Now, if these yucky ideas make you twitch and squirm, there is an effective distraction — magical thinking!  The well-educated wizards of outlaw society have a thrilling answer for everything — sustainable growth, sustainable fish mining, sustainable soil mining, sustainable forest mining, and on and on.  I call this ersatz sustainability, a murky elixir of snake oil loaded with mind-numbing intoxicants.  We see and hear the word sustainable many times each day, and this is what it usually refers to.  Sustainability can be anything we want it to be!  If we call something “sustainable” enough times, then it is!  Whee!

The devious wizards are giddy with joy, because humankind has finally completed the long and difficult journey to Utopia.  This is it!  We are the luckiest generation of all!  Wild predators no longer devour our friends and relatives.  Pandemic disease and world wars are ancient history.  More and more babies survive to maturity and reproduce.  Natural selection no longer weeds out the weaklings and mutants, because science has rendered evolution obsolete.  We’re working hard on a cure for death.

A growing population is wonderful, because it allows more and more to enjoy the Utopian delights.  Feeding ten billion will be no problem, thanks to science and technology.  Eliminating climate change will be a piece of cake.  The transition from fossil energy to renewable energy will be smooth and painless.  Ingenious innovation will make all the bad stuff go away, and we’ll all be able to continue enjoying a wondrous high tech lifestyle without any major sacrifices.  Electric cars, green energy, and all the latest gadgets can now be made from sustainable fairy dust and good vibes.  Utopia is awesome.

The Sustainable Development cult has billions of converts.  Its holy mission is to keep industrial civilization on life support for as long as possible, at any cost, and leave the bills for the kids.  It’s about enduring jobs you don’t like, to buy stuff you don’t need, to impress people you don’t respect.  It’s about living as if we are the last generation, without a thought for those who come after us.  It’s a sustainable suicide cult. 

Nobody reading these pages in 2015 will experience humankind’s return to genuine sustainability.  Healing will take centuries, and success is not guaranteed.  Luck is fickle.  Our closest living relatives, chimps and bonobos, share about 99 percent of our genes.  Their ancestors have lived in the same place for two million years without trashing it.  They did not get lost.

Humans strayed onto a very different path, and the way that most of us now live is the opposite of sustainable.  Yet every day we are bombarded by grand proclamations of ersatz sustainability, thundering geysers of bull excrement.  My mission here is to provide intelligent pilgrims with tools that increase their ability to recognize the difference between ecological sustainability and ersatz sustainability.  Where we belong is so far from where we are. 

It is deeply troubling to contemplate the staggering implications of ecological sustainability, because they blow the fundamental illusions of our culture to smithereens.  We are indeed animals, and we are indeed living in an unbelievably harmful manner.  Should we think about this?  Should we talk about this?  What should we do?  Well-fed minds and clear thinking are vital.

The reviews in Understanding Sustainability will introduce you to dozens of books that might be of interest.  Reviews only provide hints of the contents.  They are never a substitute for reading the full work.  Authors that intrigue you may have written other books or essays.  They may be the stars of online videos.  Critical thinking is essential for any adventure in learning.  I do not agree with every idea in every book reviewed here.

Understanding Sustainability is a companion to my previous book, Sustainable or Bust, another collection of book reviews.  Both supplement my first book, What is Sustainable, an introduction to environmental history and good old fashioned fundamentalist sustainability.  If you like one, you’ll like them all.

Enjoy!

Xhosa Cattle Killers

When the Dutch Afrikaners (Boers) invaded the Eastern Cape region of South Africa, the Xhosa tribe fought them long and hard.  Beginning in 1779, eight bloody frontier wars were fought.  In 1806, the British replaced the Afrikaners and continued the struggle to conquer Xhosa land.  In 1853, a lung disease began killing off the Xhosa’s cattle herds.  Problems worsened when a severe drought hit.  Things started looking grim.

Then, in 1856, after decades of terrible struggles and misfortunes, an 11-year old Xhosa girl named Nongqawuse had a vision.  She communicated with spirits of the dead and they informed her that the colonist invasion was being caused by the fact that their cattle had been cursed by witchcraft.  The spirits then gave her some important instructions in order to remedy this situation.

To lift this curse and return to days of peace and plenty, the living Xhosa had to do three things:  stop cultivating their fields, destroy their grain reserves, and kill all of their cattle.  If they did this, the whites would be driven into the sea, the dead would return, and they would refill the granaries, restore the crops in the fields, and bring herds of immortal cattle.

At this point, the Xhosa split into two groups, the believers and the non-believers.  In 1856 and 1857, the believers did as the ancestors instructed them.  They dumped their grain and slaughtered 400,000 cattle.  Having destroyed their food supply, tens of thousands then proceeded to die of starvation.  Tens of thousands were forced to go to towns and take oppressive low-paying jobs.  Only 37,000 remained on their lands, out of 105,000.  By the 1870s, white settlers occupied most of the Xhosa’s lands.  The surviving Xhosa were rounded up and moved to reserves in British Kaffraria.

Many might consider the attempt to crush the British army via spiritual warfare to be a bit crazy.  But the Europeans, travelling thousands of miles to enslave Africans and seize control of their lands, seem rather normal.  They were, after all, civilized people, and they were simply behaving like well-educated predators, bringing progress to people who were doing just fine without it.

The cattle killers remind me of today’s climate killers.  The polar bears are crying, the arctic ice cap is rapidly melting, 2012 is the warmest year in recorded history, and the scientists of the world are virtually unanimous in placing the blame on human activity. 

The climate killers understand that the weather has been bewitched.  To lift this curse, we must borrow like there’s no tomorrow, pray every hour for the recovery of double-digit economic growth, drive everywhere everyday, and fill our garages to the ceiling with consumer products via rituals of recreational shopping.  It’s sure to work!  Our elders would never deceive us.  Ack!

Today’s word is foresight.  Mother Nature was a brilliant designer.  She created life systems so well balanced that foresight was not built into the instincts of any animal — beyond the avoidance of immediate risks (don’t pet the pretty rattlesnake).  The deer did not worry about the health of their ecosystem, or the wellbeing of generations yet-to-be-born.  They didn’t have to.  Wolves would never eat all of the deer.  Beavers would never create vast clear-cuts.  Packrats would never remove the tops of mountains in order to hoard black stones.  Humans would never exterminate the billions of passenger pigeons — before they got into the tool making business.

The tool making business started out slowly, with sticks and stones.  But cleverness and tool making went hand in hand, each stimulating the other.  When we invented cool stone-tipped lances, large slow animals began to disappear forever.  We couldn’t foresee the consequences.  The domestication of plants and animals opened the floodgates to 8,000 years of catastrophes that continue to worsen.  We failed to foresee.  The geniuses of Uruk never imagined that farming would inevitably transform their lush green breadbasket into a barren wasteland.

Ferocious wild aurochs were reduced to dim-witted milk machines, which were imported to Africa.  The Xhosa learned the hard way that confined herds of animals were prone to disease and vulnerable to droughts.  They learned the hard way that creating a way of life that was dependent on milk machines was far less secure than the nomadic foraging of their ancestors.

With the Industrial Revolution, we began mass-producing tools that had nothing whatsoever to do with providing the basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter — stuff like automobiles, airplanes, televisions, computers, nuclear reactors, and ships.  One very sad day, ships loaded with insane European murderers washed ashore in Xhosa country.

Like all other animals, humans live in the here and now.  Right now, that shiny Prius in the driveway is an awesome status symbol.  It shouts out to the world that we are big, important people, not bicycle-riding lowlifes, and substance abusers.  The melting icecaps and crying polar bears are pure abstractions, as are the weird predictions of climate experts staring at colorful graphs on their computer screens. 

A way of life that reliably provides a jumbo burger and fries for dinner is good enough.  Regular meals are not symptoms of a problem that requires our attention.  We’ll wash down the burger with fizzy sugar water, and trust that the toolmakers will take care of the future.  They always do.

I don’t believe that it’s impossible to learn foresight.  Imagine a world where seven-point-something billion people felt compelled to carefully contemplate the consequences of their choices.  Our population would deliberately go into free-fall.  Farm country would heal, returning to forest and grassland.  The lights would go out, and our machines would rust in peace.  Civilization’s roar would be silenced, replaced by the sweet music of a recovering ecosystem.

Would foresight drive tool making into extinction?  Would we abandon our tools, migrate to warmer regions, rip off our clothes, and dine on nuts and fruits, lizards and insects?  Could we permanently forget the idiotic notion that humans are the supreme species?  Could we return to the family of life and live happily ever after? 

Too Much Magic

Far, far away, on the misty frontiers of knowledge, dwells a small and widely scattered clan of clear thinkers who live with their eyes wide open, their minds always set to the “on” position, and their powers of reasoning cranked up to 10.  They have an acute ability to instantly recognize the presence of balderdash and poppycock, even in parts per billion quantities.  Even if the source is a slick-talking president, a gray-haired instructor, an industry expert, or a famous sexy celebrity, they know with without a doubt when claptrap and twaddle are shamelessly being ejaculated.  They can keep their eyes on the ball, even in the thick fog of a never-ending propaganda blitzkrieg. 

These isolated wizards refuse to drink the Kool-Aid and dream away their lives in the colorful cartoon fantasy world of consumer society.  They aren’t giddy with childlike excitement about the latest new cars, shoes, cell phones, and hairdos.  They have no throbbing hunger for RVs, McMansions, or jet skis.  They don’t rot and soak into the couch cushions while sitting in front of flashing screaming TVs.  Their minds are capable of voyaging to realms far beyond the dreary two-step death march of working and shopping.

They often dwell on mountaintops, sitting beside a fire, horrified at the spectacular stupidity of the industrial civilization spread out below them — killing the oceans, killing the forests, killing the prairies, killing their children, killing everything they touch — all for no good reason!  Nothing could be more befuddling and painful to watch!  What could they be thinking?  Why can’t they see what’s happening?

James Howard Kunstler is one of those clear thinkers, and the twenty-first century is just driving him bonkers!  It’s ridiculously easy for clear thinkers to comprehend the glaring, obvious truth, and they can’t understand why most of humankind seems to be incapable of doing this, too.  He can see that consumer society remains on the worst possible path, and at every fork in the path, they choose the bigger mistake.  It’s immensely pathetic, to the degree that the tragedy develops a ticklish aroma of comedy, and Kunstler uses wit like a sharp whip.

Consumers behave as if they are completely disconnected from almost every aspect of reality, spending their lives in an artificial world of pure whimsy.  They are like excited children waiting for piles of fun presents from Santa Claus.  They have a profound blind faith that science and technology will protect everyone with its boundless magic.  Kunstler calls this the Jiminy Cricket Syndrome: “When you wish upon a star your dreams come true.”

In his book, Too Much Magic, Kunstler hurls a super-sized bucket of ice water in a heroic attempt to rouse sleeping zombies into a state of consciousness.  “By the time you read this, the empire in question may be a smoldering ruin.”  He rips down the curtains and reveals the stinking, burning, fever-crazed world outside.  Wake up!  We’re speeding toward multiple catastrophes!  “This entire book is about the manifold failures of all kinds of people to anticipate the changes we face.”

Fossil energy is the foundation of our world economy.  The global production of conventional oil peaked in 2006.  By 2008, the price of oil had skyrocketed to $147 — big trouble.  With regard to the miraculous new shale oil and shale gas fields, he’s convinced that most of the hope is based on industry hype, intended to attract dreamy investors and half-smart high-risk gamblers.  All the magic in the world cannot replace fossil energy with alternative energy, or even come close.

The end of the 90-year era of “Happy Motoring” is approaching, and we’re not far from the peak of suburban sprawl.  American style suburbia was “the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world.”  Suburbia has no future, but Americans haven’t grasped this yet.  “I expect many suburbs will become slums, ruins, and salvage yards.”  Southern California will turn into a ghost town.

Shortly after oil hit $147, the housing bubble popped, the financial system collapsed, and trillions of dollars vaporized.  The collapse is far from over, since banks still hold a huge number of worthless mortgages, pretending that they are assets — pretending that they are not the living dead.  A shortage of capital means that perpetual economic growth is close to finished.  This means that trillions of dollars of debt are never going to be repaid. 

This means that the party is over.  This means that we’re moving into an age of contraction.  Economic life is going to get much smaller, more local, and will use far less energy.  Much of the labor force will be shifted toward the production of food.  If we choose to acknowledge this, then we could make efforts to contract in an orderly manner.  If we choose to bet everything on magic, the trip down will be more brutal, painful, and dumb.  This is the core message of the book.

Kunstler takes us on a tour of a number of problems that are major threats to our future, and a few lesser issues that he just enjoys kvetching about (like infantile young bozos who wear their baggie pants way too low).  He laments that the overpopulation problem has been assigned to Mother Nature to fix, since we’re not capable of giving it serious thought.  He grieves over our unwillingness to do anything to slow the advance of climate change.  (Well, we’re totally eager to help in any way that doesn’t involve changing our lifestyle to the slightest degree.)  He spews extra large doses of venom on the political system and the finance industry.

George W. Bush was a memorable president.  He involved us in two expensive wars for no good reason.  He nearly succeeded in obliterating our economy.  He made conservatives look like a clown act.  Many believed that his shenanigans would drive the Republican Party into extinction.  Nobody imagined that Barack Obama would grab the baton and simply maintain the same policies (his #1 campaign contributor was Goldman Sachs).

Obama approved borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars for stimulus spending, mostly for highway projects and runway improvements, updating a transportation system that has no future.  Tens of thousands of finance industry fraudsters are never going to wait in line at the guillotine, because the president completely refused to enforce existing laws.  Obama will be remembered for “botched health care reform, a dumb energy policy, keeping two of the longest wars in our history going, and not reestablishing the rule of law in banking in the face of arrant misconduct.”

He gives us Reality for Dummies, but not Solutions for Dummies.  No amount of magic can undo climate change, painlessly shrink our population, make coal burning clean, or fix our economy.  But today is an excellent day to open our eyes, and make an effort to comprehend our dire predicament.  Today is an excellent day to take a good look, to see if there are less catastrophic places to crash land our airborne Titanic.  At this point, it’s all about damage control, and trying very hard to learn as much as possible from our mistakes.  It’s about clear thinking.

Kunstler, James Howard, Too Much Magic, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2012.  www.kunstler.com