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| Survival is going to need deep thought. |
Tomorrow will be
different from yesterday, no surprises there, but gone will be the status quo
and many perceived freedoms.
Unmitigated climate change, a dilemma presently troubling
the world, is something to which many are antagonistic for it brings with it
the inevitable demise of most everything people in the developed world take for
granted, especially imagined freedoms.
The discovery of fossil fuels along with the realization of and
release of its embedded energy, set humanity on a troublesome trajectory that
at first brought unimagined bonuses, but has now created equally unimagined complexities.
Humanity, interestingly, has the intellectual capacity equal
to what is happening to our climate for when looked at analytically, it was our
endeavours that unleashed the process, and now we understand the science.
So, we know what causes the difficulty and we know how to
approach the solution, but the question is still, and it has never changed, are
we intellectually bold enough, and sufficiently courageous, to implement the
solutions we know exist?
The burning of oil, one of the prime causes of climate
change, along with coal, suddenly saw those in developed countries, and other
places to a lesser degree, freed from much physical labour as a barrel of oil
represents more than 20 000 hours of human work.
Almost overnight many people went from being tied to the
daily toil of sheer survival to a comparative life of luxury as oil, and coal,
were put to work ending, largely, man’s drudgery.
This emancipation of our time wasn’t, sadly, put to figuring
out how to husband this effectively free energy and so ration it rather, we
wrongly assumed this was party-time and in about three centuries, we have
nearly exhausted this rich resource.
Correction, it is unlikely we will ever exhaust earth’s
fossil fuel resources rather our continued burning of them will disrupt human
life to such an extent that we will no longer be able access or use them.
Freedom is an elusive smoke and mirrors concept, now you see
it and now you don’t, and subsequent to the fallacy of the liberation promised
by the military/industrial complex, we need to look to another freedom in which
the needs of nature are equal to the wants of man.
Modernity has brought many advances allowing humanity to
thrive, but within most enhancements has been an almost secret ideology that
has gradually removed our freedoms, ensuring our behaviour enriches a relative
few with most of the costs lumped upon the environment.
Should we value our freedom, then its survival depends
almost entirely up us happily relinquishing some aspects or it.
The successful mitigation of climate change rests with you
and me foregoing many traditional wants, readjusting our aspirations and
understanding that genuine freedom is inextricably linked to discipline.
