Technology to the rescue. And guess who, it's the engineers who will lead us. Another group is now pushing for technological solutions to climate change: The British Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Some of the solutions on offer include: artificial trees (one wonders what's wrong with the real thing, oh yeah we didn't invent those), space mirrors (old reliable!) and painting the roofs of buildings white (well that one is maybe sensible).
But the most important thing and this demonstrates the average attitude of the civilized human (especially the elites since the regular civilized human just nods along thoughtlessly) is this quote which pretty much sums up civilization's insanity.
"The institution believes it's time to go to war on climate change – the climate is about to attack us and it's time for us to fight back." - Tim Fox
It's almost like real wars where there is no history and nothing came before the evildoers (earth?) decided they wanted to attack the good (civilized humans who just happened to be minding their own business). Time for war. That's a great starting point. That should take care of that pesky climate problem.
These fake trees are quite laughable. Of course they are more efficient, running on renewable energy of course. Hmm, what do these fucking engineers think real trees run on?
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ah ha.
ReplyDeleteI went to see gwynne dyer on tuesday night. he was advocating much the same. and coming from the neo-realist geo-political Pentagon paradigm, I don't blame him. the picture he paints is probably the most likely. he suggests painting all asphalt in the world white, to reflect light. instead of, you know, taking a pick axe to it and planting a food forest or something crazy like that...
anyway. what I found most interesting were his two final thoughts, which nicely sum up the underlying assumptions him and his engineer buddies are coming from: first, that high technology will buy us time, because technology is this magically neutral force that we can employ for good (but that's all it does, is buy time. he doesn't really go into what we might do with that time. like question capitalism or anything). no mention of appropriate technology, or any kind of parameters/characteristics for what these magical industrial solutions might include... no question of where all that paint might come from.
and the second. that the project he's advocating is not about saving the planet, nor about saving the human race, but about saving this civilization. the assumption here being that this civilization is worth saving. something he categorically fails to prove in his talk about razor wire borders and nuclear weapons and toxic waste and melting glaciers, the byproducts of this culture.
it's nice to read this post since I can relate, stewing over gwynne dyer for two days. his answer to my question - "how does your analysis account for the fact that industrial capitalist civilization is fundamentally incompatible with human life?" - the house is on fire! we have to put out the fire so that my grandkids, and your [presumed] grandkids will be around, comfortable, and able to enjoy entertainment. then we'll get to the problem of our poisoned cultural paradigm... later.