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abrupt climate change

A question for the "realists": by: cassiodorus Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 14:40:29 PST (11 am. - promoted by ek hornbeck) Why not aim for disaster? It's the most "realistic" possibility, after all. Or, more specifically: How minimal are your aspirations? How static is your picture of the future? (Crossposted at Orange) There's More... :: (39 Comments, 1747 words in story)

Why techno-fixes won't solve the eco-problem by themselves by: cassiodorus Thu Dec 17, 2009 at 08:09:51 PST (4 pm. - promoted by ek hornbeck) My last diary brought up the idea of global solidarity around the idea of global solidarity across classes as a necessary framework for the solution of the abrupt climate change problem.  But invariably when I write such diaries I encounter those who think a techno-fix will solve the problem of abrupt climate change by itself.  Society need not change; some new gadget will come along to solve the abrupt climate change problem, and we just need to wait until the world's nerds invent such a gadget, and all of our eco-problems will be solved.  This diary intends to examine the arguments against such an assertion. (crossposted at Orange) There's More... :: (2 Comments, 1867 words in story)

To solve the climate change problem, end the class divide by: cassiodorus Sun Dec 13, 2009 at 08:45:55 PST In honor of the diary queue which is going on now on Orange, I've decided to put this diary together, perhaps too quickly.  Its thesis is this: if we are to find an effective solution for the climate change situation, we will have to end the division of humanity into social classes.  This won't take overnight; but its main impediment at present is a lack of unity across social classes, and that can be resolved. (Crossposted at Orange) There's More... :: (4 Comments, 1521 words in story)

Obama: Accomplished leader or corporate shill? by: cassiodorus Fri Nov 27, 2009 at 12:54:09 PST ( - promoted by buhdydharma ) The wandering eye of media-based attention over at Orange seems to have opened its focus upon the accomplishments (or lack thereof) of President Barack Obama.  Whereas some on this blog would trumpet 90 accomplishments of President Obama which the media fail to report (*media* being a plural noun), others would emphasize Obama's failure to elicit change on the big-ticket items.  Whatever this diary is, it's not an attempt to substitute the thumbs-up or the thumbs-down for sober evaluation.  You'll have to read it to find out its thrilling conclusion. (originally written for the wandering eyes over at Orange) There's More... :: (27 Comments, 1474 words in story)

The McKibben-Hedges "Debate" -- a thought by: cassiodorus Sat Oct 24, 2009 at 10:57:39 PDT ( - promoted by buhdydharma ) The point of this diary is to alert the Orange-reading public to the "McKibben-Hedges debate," from a recent piece in Alternet.  Yeah, I know, it's not really a debate.  The Alternet piece makes some important connections and I think you should all read it carefully.  What this core contention between the two writers is really about, I argue, is power.   The history of power is a record of how various forms of power consolidated themselves into the current global state of domination.  The outcome which the history of power has been preparing up until now will be a sort of massive humanity-wide global murder-suicide.  The fundamental leap which will make the drama of human self-extinction possible, I argue, was capitalism.  Capitalism made capitalist discipline possible as a form of power, and capitalist discipline will bring power to a point of confrontation between the global complex of control and the simplification of the biosphere which will signal our failure as a species at the art of taking care of nature.  Thus it's time to end capitalist discipline.  Capitalism will take care of itself. (Crossposted at Big Orange) There's More... :: (14 Comments, 1792 words in story)

Keeping the grease in the ground: a challenge by: cassiodorus Thu Sep 24, 2009 at 06:58:48 PDT (9 am. - promoted by ek hornbeck) If the state of public opinion were to reflect the research on abrupt climate change, billions of people would be in a state of panic.  The problem is not merely that the proposed measures to deal with the problem will be inadequate, nor that Copenhagen will wind up with no agreement or be a farce, although both of those predictions will come true; it's that the intelligentsia, that class of individuals who should be asking the right questions and coming up with the right answers, is not yet talking about what needs to be done.   What we will need is an agreement to limit fossil fuel production, and a new concept of economy to replace the neoliberal one, which is structurally incapable of making such a solution real.  This essay is intended to  promote debate about such a change. (Crossposted at Big Orange) There's More... :: (11 Comments, 2065 words in story)

Ecopsychology for capitalism's spell: Andy Fisher by: cassiodorus Sun Sep 20, 2009 at 09:15:16 PDT (10 am. - promoted by ek hornbeck) Book review: Fisher, Andy.  Radical Ecopsychology: Psychology in the Service of Life.  Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2002. This is a book review, really some ruminations, upon Andy Fisher's Radical Ecopsychology.  Here I wish to explore the subtext of capitalism's spell in Fisher's book.  Our separation from the world-ecosystem in equilibrium and our joining with the machines of industrial development under the spell of capitalism is what is at stake; Fisher speculates upon the possibility of "making sense of suffering in a technological world" so we can "hear our own inner voice" (183) in a naturalistic sense.  In short, Fisher wishes to break the spell.  Fisher intends ecopsychology as a therapeutic support to an ecology movement which must win something for our "human nature" if any of us are to survive. (Crossposted at Orange) There's More... :: (6 Comments, 1912 words in story)

A look at "Rational Ecology" in the context of climate change by: cassiodorus Thu Sep 03, 2009 at 18:11:33 PDT (11 am. - promoted by ek hornbeck) This will be a short review of John Dryzek's forgotten classic Rational Ecology in the context of the challenge of abrupt climate change.  Dryzek asks us to place ecological concerns first, and to look at these concerns in terms of the systems we use to make decisions.  If we were all to follow Dryzek's logic, we might develop the will to take decisive action to address the problem, which we currently don't have.  I will start by asking about climate change, summarize the book, and conclude by suggesting applications to the problem. (Crossposted at Big Orange) There's More... :: (1 Comments, 2181 words in story)

Book Review: Brown and Garver's Right Relationship by: cassiodorus Thu Jul 09, 2009 at 15:53:07 PDT (11:00AM EST - promoted by Nightprowlkitty) Recent events have made it somewhat evident that the current system of global governance is inadequate for the problem of abrupt climate change.  A suggestion that is slowly becoming more popular is that of a new system of global governance, and so this is a review of Peter G. Brown and Geoffrey Garver's (2009) book Right Relationship: Building A Whole Earth Economy. Right Relationship is, to a significant extent, a "Quaker" outline for the reconcilement of economy with ecology; meaningfully, its transformative suggestions do seem quite apropos of the need for post-capitalist environmental design. (crossposted at Big Orange) There's More... :: (3 Comments, 1496 words in story)

What is power? pt. 2: power and political hope by: cassiodorus Mon Jun 29, 2009 at 08:46:50 PDT (7:00PM EST - promoted by Nightprowlkitty) This is a meditation on power and political hope, on the idea that the struggle for power seems to favor those who focus their lives upon the attainment of power (rather than, say, the enjoyment of life), and of what hope to place (and in what) in a world in which this is true. (crossposted at Big Orange) There's More... :: (3 Comments, 2379 words in story)

Where is the broad, general movement -- by: cassiodorus Mon Jun 08, 2009 at 15:54:37 PDT (10 am. - promoted by ek hornbeck) for a better world? The basic situation is this: as the noose tightens on the old, capitalist ways of life, very few people appear to be all that interested in creating new ones.  Am I missing something here? (crossposted at Big Orange) There's More... :: (15 Comments, 1117 words in story)

Saving the Earth is Not An Ego Trip by: cassiodorus Wed Apr 22, 2009 at 09:36:12 PDT ( - promoted by buhdydharma ) Saving the Earth is not an ego trip.  Saving the Earth is not something you do so that you can say you planted more trees or created more hybrids or wrote more academic papers or bombed more SUVs or fed more hungry people or arranged more peace deals or wrote more grants or have a purer method or better ethics than the next guy.  Saving the Earth is not something you do so that you can stand in judgment of the human race and ask it, "so what have YOU done?"   No, saving the Earth is actually saving the Earth, and understanding it requires a degree of humility that seems at some point to be beyond the current reach of mainstream environmentalism, which wishes to simplify the act of saving the Earth to that which is politically and economically expedient.  Saving the Earth, however, must be something that actually saves the Earth, not something which makes us feel like we're doing it when we're not. (crossposted at Big Orange)   There's More... :: (1 Comments, 2255 words in story)

Joseph Romm's piece in Alternet: Are we all Madoffs? by: cassiodorus Thu Mar 12, 2009 at 06:50:22 PDT (noon. - promoted by ek hornbeck) This is another short reaction to Joseph Romm's piece in Alternet: "Why the Global Economy Is a Ponzi Scheme and We Are All Bernie Madoffs".  Much as I'd like to agree with Romm (as he is one of the most authoritative voices out there on the topic of abrupt climate change), no, we are not all Bernie Madoffs.  The global capitalist economy marginalizes most of the world's population while granting the status of "Bernie Madoff" to, well, Bernie Madoff -- really, even granting Romm's metaphor, the few who are privileged to take real advantage of the economy.  And, perhaps, even for them, "playing the Ponzi scheme" means "just getting by."  Still, Romm's use of metaphor is creative and interesting. (crossposted at Big Orange) There's More... :: (4 Comments, 956 words in story)

Changing the social imaginary by: cassiodorus Thu Mar 05, 2009 at 10:44:35 PST (noon. - promoted by ek hornbeck) This is a diary about the social imaginary -- those aspects of our everyday practice that depend upon our imagining the existence of social institutions.  As our social institutions are increasingly inappropriate to our physical survival on planet Earth, we should be in the business of imagining new institutions which will give us a fighting chance.  I will investigate the case of global warming to discuss why this is so, and end with a series of photographic reflections. The concept of "social imaginary" was developed as a tool of social critique by Cornelius Castoriadis, a philosopher whose pessimistic assessment of the present-day "social imaginary" will be examined in detail here. (crossposted at Big Orange) There's More... :: (6 Comments, 2391 words in story)

The Bush administration, Leo Strauss, and noble lies: a retrospective by: cassiodorus Tue Dec 30, 2008 at 17:01:38 PST (@ 8:30 - promoted by NLinStPaul) Since we are nearing the end of a Presidential administration, it behooves us to take stock of what has happened over the past eight years.  One of the most important intellectual developments to have accompanied the Bush administration is the significant expansion of the literature on "noble lies," as promoted by the cabal of neoconservatives in the Bush cabinet through their intellectual mentor, the political philosopher Leo Strauss.  This will be a diary exploring Strauss, "noble lies," and the function such lies supposedly perform in our political culture.  I conclude by asking why "noble lies" are really necessary anymore.  Do we need them to protect ourselves from the truth about abrupt climate change? (crossposted at Big Orange) There's More... :: (13 Comments, 1944 words in story)

The elites' pathetic props for the current system by: cassiodorus Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 22:29:58 PST (8 am. - promoted by ek hornbeck) This diary is about the G20 summit and the economy, but really it's about the larger implications of a society which cannot let go of its status quo assumptions in time to save itself.  Here's the false dilemma: either the current system must be saved, or the current system will fail.  The idea that we could switch over to another system, through a set of radical changes, cannot even insinuate itself into the conversation, outside of (perhaps) a marginal section of the blogosphere.  Yet this is what the world most needs.  In light of this, I recommend that we (bloggers) attempt to overcome resistance to some basic premises of thinking about the current situation. (crossposted at Big Orange) There's More... :: (18 Comments, 1598 words in story)