Human construct stands between us and mitigating climate change

A human construct is what stands between us and moving toward mitigating human-induced climate change.

Humanity is surrounded
by an economy that was
once our servant, but
 now is now our master.

Humans, bit by bit, piece by piece have built an economy that now straddles the globe and while it was at first our servant, it has now, through the apparent fault of no-one, become our master.

The economy has been elevated to God-like status and to suggest anything likely to unseat it, borders on blasphemy and brings accusations of ignorance, naivety and even stupidity, arguing that such foolishness is a misunderstanding of what it is that gives humanity sustenance.

Such allegations arise from an addiction to the paradigm in which the world economy is embedded and with most governments, whether they be liberal democracies, communistic, despotic regimes, religion-based democratic facades or something of any other flavour, bowing before the might of money, to suggest something different is not only decried, but considered grossly irresponsible.

Humanity, or at least some of it, has been fortunate to escape from the daily trepidations of the hunter and gatherer life; something that has been achieved through the construction of an economy which has, in many ways served us well, but at the same time has ignored the subtle beauties of life; beauties that are sadly irrelevant to the simplistic brutalities of the economy.

Growth, a code word for exploitation, has seen man excavate the world’s ancient sunlight, and in the past two or three centuries use the fossil fuels we discovered with a rude rush of exuberance to see all the available environmental sinks on the earth filled to over-capacity, disrupting the earth’s atmosphere to create disarray in the world’s climate to manifest weather patterns with which humans are unfamiliar.

That unfamiliarity is of such a dimension that the future of humanity, along with most other species with which it shares the planet, is problematic.

The time for action is already a few decades past and certain weather related difficulties cannot be avoided, but it is time to bury our concerns about the world economy and change our rhetoric to align it with ideals that are about equality, philanthropy, altruism, sharing, kindness and an understanding of the other to ensure that life on earth can endure.

The world’s economy has evolved in such a way that the distribution of wealth is disturbingly wrong in that about 15 per cent of the population controls 80 per cent of the wealth and nearly half the population less than two per cent.

The economy has served a few on earth well, disadvantaged more and if we are unable to rein it in and return it to again being the servant, as opposed to a master, then climate change will continue its march to a rather gloomy conclusion.

 

Adulation brings intellectual paralysis

Continued adulation of battlefield exploits point to intellectual paralysis.

It seems our thought processes have stalled, leaving us locked in an era when conquest of the other, and nature, signified elevated status.

Humans have always sought status resorting frequently to conflict and defeat of the other to cement their superiority with the ruins they have wrought being evidence of their success.

Celebration of that perverse success and, equally, the repeated remembrance of events past, even if that moment in history can be shown to be the antithesis of human betterment, draws on powerful human emotions making the event almost transcendental.

Most see participants in the conflict, survivors or otherwise, as sublime, attributing to them god-like ideals and values, adorning them in garments of splendour, awarding them medals and recognition for doing something that was simply a waste of human capacity and the manifestation of mob-madness.

An example of this recently dominated our popular media when a young man acted out the doctrines of our militant thinking; thinking that sees solutions in only physical confrontation.

Our intellectual stasis sees us trapped in a paradigm in which past events become a pattern for the future, negating adventurous and expansive thinking that allows us to understand that decency and discussion are better tools than bludgeoning another.

Decency and discussion is simply that and doesn’t need to be clothed in gaudy colours, adorned with medals or given to rapturous celebration, rather just thoughtful talk and kindly consideration of the other, embracing the realization that others, whatever their beliefs or passions, cry, bleed and feel just like us.

Life may appear linear – destiny that takes us from A to B without change – but it is not for with courage and commitment, and deep thought, it is unquestionably possible to change human behaviour and make what was common, a rarity.

Our ongoing adulation of battlefield exploits needs to stop for if we allow ourselves truly expansive thinking and consider 10 000 years hence what happened at, say Gallipoli, will be irrelevant and lost in the mists of time.

Rather than looking back and devoting time and energy to what was, we should, conscious of our errors, use our vigour to build our life around realities of the moment, rather than though an addiction with imagined glories of fruitless events.

Long has the wisdom of crowds been an article of faith, but such belief is slipping away, compounded, locally, by recent city council elections and in a broader sense, the apparent inability of many to accept that human behaviour is changing our climate and, in this instance, the absence of reason about disagreements that manifest violence and how recognition means reinforcement of failed ideas leading, inalienably, to more anguish.