What was he thinking? What are we thinking?

[Florence]

What was he thinking? *What are we thinking?

Several years ago I read Collapse by Jared Diamond. It traces the history and reasons why various civilizations collapse. One that he describes was the civilization that was on Easter Island. Its collapse was in large part due to cutting down every single tree on the island which had numerous consequences. *Diamond poses the question: While someone was cutting down the final tree on the island, what was he thinking? *Was he thinking that one less tree wouldn't make that much difference? *Was he just glad to get it before someone else did? Did he think that more trees would just somehow grow?
Today, as we are continuing to pump more and more carbon into the atmosphere, what are we thinking? We know the consequences but we continue anyway. *Maybe one more ton won't make a difference or if we don't burn the coal, China will. Maybe the atmosphere will somehow clean itself?
What are we thinking??

[bae]

What are we thinking??

I suspect your question is based on a false premise. It seems to assume that "we are thinking" in any sense but the near-future.

I don't care what your political philosophy is, which divine being you admire, or whether you "believe" in global warming, free markets, or the Easter Bunny. It is a simple matter of engineering/operational research/mathematics that you cannot indefinitely sustain our society on Earth if you release harmful substances into the ecosystem faster than they can be remediated, and you can use natural resources faster than they can be replenished.

I don't see that many people understand simple mathematics.

[puglogic]

Florence, I've read Collapse too; very good read even if it kinda made me want to go jump off something tall when I was finished :) (not really) In truth, that last guy on Easter Island might just have been trying to survive another day, now that all the other trees had been cut down by people making bigger and bigger idols and needing a way to roll them around. A lesson for our modern times too...

I personally feel the answer might be any of these, depending on the circumstances: (and note that these things may be no more than excuses offered by those who don't particularly care about the future, strange as that may seem)

We don't have any choice. We have all these people to support and all these mouths to feed.
We have no alternatives.
The earth is big enough to absorb one more million tons of CO2.
God will take care of us, we don't need to think too much about this.
Future science will find a way to fix this.
Who cares, as long as my shareholders are happy today and my Maserati is in the valet lot.

In addition to bae's mathematical observation above, it is all the tragedy of the commons coming to life before our very eyes (I will take what I "need" from it), and each successive generation that continues to merrily have children is sentencing them to a very tough time indeed. Who knows though - maybe they will be the ones to solve this, or maybe they'll be witness to the first big population die-off as the planet tries to right itself. A shame, but what is one to do, other than what we all do here?

[flowerseverywhere]

I remember a wonderful art history professor who talked about civilizations and why they collapsed. The cycles of learning and growing, achieving great leaps and bounds in art, science, mathmatics then moving on to decadance and waste and then imploding and fizzling out.

think of the Maya or aztecs, the rise and fall of the Roman empire, the Anastazi indians. Great civilizations that vanished or were greatly dimished seemingly at the peak of their brillance.

I remember reading about the plains indians. They were shocked when the white men came and shot huge herds of buffalo, skinned them and left the carcasses to rot. They would have shot one and used every bit of meat and hide from nose to tail sharing with their village. They were shot nearly to extinction.

what I find most interesting is that gas and food prices in the US are much lower than Australia, Europe etc. It is almost like we are encouraging decadence and waste.

[catherine]

Yes, if you read Bill McKibben, you get a similar bad feeling. His thesis is, basically, it's already too late. We can't continue to live on the planet Earth as we've known it, we are now living on another mutated system entirely, which in his latest book, he called Eaarth.

I don't understand how so many intelligent people somehow can't do the math but in many ways, it has to do with the vested interest too many people have in the status quo. We need to redefine our economy and our values.

I read Why Nations Fail which takes issue with Jared Diamond's thesis, but the two books are related, because Why Nations Fail postulates that civilizations that are based on extractive policies are the ones that fail, so that points to what puglogic said also about disregarding the commons.

[SteveinMN]

I would submit that America has a fairly-short-term view of just about everything. We buy more stuff than most other developed countries, so buying something designed to work for a long time doesn't matter that much to many. We punish public companies which miss ever-increasing quarterly results. We listen to the politicians who run on a policy of no homework and longer recess even though we're not in elementary school anymore. Between the people who don't believe in "peak oil" or global warming; those who don't believe they're being served well enough by government or society to justify sacrificing anything for the common good; those who want their piece of the pie, just like the peole who came before them; and those who have a vested interest in the status quo, we have a lot of people who don't think they'll be around for the results of today's decisions, so why worry about it?

[bunnys]

I think many of you make very good (and similar) points. I agree with Catherine who quoted McKibben and said it's already too late. I think it's too late and I don't think many people care enough to consider whether or not it's too late. I also think that what's going to happen to us is similar to all fallen civilizations throughout the history of the planet. I don't think the last guy to cut the last truffula tree on Easter Island knew or cared beyond what he personally needed in that moment.

If it's any consolation Florence, it took Rome 200 years. I don't think you'll see the end in your lifetime--although you'll probably see a significant change.

This is why I don't have children. Twenty-five years ago I thought it would be global thermonuclear war--now, not so much. But ultimately, the way it happens doesn't really matter anyway.

Sorry if my post sounds gloomy. But it's just my opinion and it won't make any difference anyway.

[razz]

We are thinking that everything is so good and ample right now that we are entitled to this experience forever. Among my very bright friends and peers, there is no sense of self-denialsaving some now or of leaving some for the next person as they seem to believe that the supply will last forever and be waiting for them. They do grumble about prices going up though.

One of the reasons that Aesops's fables have been so popular is because they reflect the human condition so well.

Title: The Ants And The Grasshopper
Author: Aesop (author of Aesop's Fables) [More Titles by Aesop (author of Aesop's Fables)]

The Ants were employing a fine winter's day in drying grain collected in the summer time. A Grasshopper, perishing with famine, passed by and earnestly begged for a little food. The Ants inquired of him: "Why did you not treasure up food during the summer?" He replied: "I had not leisure; I passed the days in singing." They then said: "If you were foolish enough to sing all the summer, you must dance supperless to bed in the winter."

Idleness brings want.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Idleness brings want.

Actually it takes an IMMENSE AMOUNT OF WORK to destroy the world. If everyone sat around doing nothing, they might well starve but they wouldn't make the planet uninhabitable. It takes people working their lives away at oil companies to poison the oceans and the atmosphere, people working at fracking and mountaintop removal, people working in advertising to get people to buy ever more etc.. They even sell the Keystone pipeline based on the work (jobs) it will bring.

[JaneV2.0]

Actually it takes an IMMENSE AMOUNT OF WORK to destroy the world. If everyone sat around doing nothing, they might well starve but they wouldn't make the planet uninhabitable. It takes people working their lives away at oil companies to poison the oceans and the atmosphere, people working at fracking and mountaintop removal, people working in advertising to get people to buy ever more etc.. They even sell the Keystone pipeline based on the work (jobs) it will bring.

I agree. But I've always identified with the grasshopper.

[puglogic]

I'd always secretly hoped the grasshopper would then get a sweet gig singing at a local speakeasy, where he'll be discovered by some talent agent and go on to a career earning tons of money, working at singing. Art is necessary too. But I've never had the luxury of being purely a grasshopper for very long, with no means of support except my own labor.

[RosieTR]

When it gets to the last of something, it's already way too late to question why not. Interestingly, we ourselves (in the US and many European countries) have seen a collapse recently: the housing market. Did everyone take all leave of their senses in 2004 and 5? Of course. Did it become some self-sustaining cycle that was very obviously going to end badly to anyone who could do math? Of course. Did that prevent it from occurring, or slowing partway to return to some sort of sustainable level? Of course not. Economic collapse, biological collapse, it occurs the same way. Certainly you could have prevented yourself from becoming quite so affected by not buying a house at the peak of the bubble, but that doesn't mean it won't affect you in some way in the end, maybe in a way you couldn't have predicted. Even taking pretty extreme action and railing against the whole thing wouldn't have stopped it. Even if you were able to take a time machine back to 2005, you wouldn't be able to affect very much change in the whole course of things, right? So why would the ultimate collapse of our society as we know it be any different? Will our society collapse? Pretty likely. When? Who knows. What will you be able to do about it? Probably not that much. Will human life go on after that? Short of complete nuclear annihilation or an asteroid or something, probably. Will a lot of people suffer and die? Pretty likely. Will an advanced civilization come into being far in the future that will learn something from our way of doing things, until they make some of the same mistakes we are? Probably.

The question is not as much whether all this macro stuff will occur but how not to be the one who bears the brunt of its effects. Owning property in low-lying coastal areas is probably not the way to get this to occur, and having some idea of how people in the past have adapted to these huge wrenching changes is probably a good start. I guess that's a downer but I'm also a realist.

[JaneV2.0]

I'd always secretly hoped the grasshopper would then get a sweet gig singing at a local speakeasy, where he'll be discovered by some talent agent and go on to a career earning tons of money, working at singing. Art is necessary too. But I've never had the luxury of being purely a grasshopper for very long, with no means of support except my own labor.

Perfect--I love a happy ending!

[Maxamillion]

This is why I don't have children. Twenty-five years ago I thought it would be global thermonuclear war--now, not so much. But ultimately, the way it happens doesn't really matter anyway.



Amen. I think about my nieces and nephews and wonder what kind of world they'll inherit.