questions for us all

Nats commented the following and I've created this blog entry for it as it deserved special attention. :)

Hi, I don't know if this is the right place to post, i'm new here...

i was wondering if anyone could share some ideas with me, been thinking this morning, and came up with lots of questions, how is ecopsychology going to stand up to corporations such as tesco, which seem to have naturalised into the majority of peoples lives? how can this knowledge really help when it has limited access across society, and when parts of society may not be open to its ideas...

how can our thoughts avoid being another 'western' idea popularised by those who have the opportunity through their social situation to make direct decisions and lifestyle choices...

how do we consider and understand issues concerning peoples across the globe struggling for survival or forced from their homes as the result of violent conflict?

i guess i'm new to this way of thinking and am finding the enormity of global considerations a little daunting thank you take care x

Comments

[Steve Salmony]

OUR contrived logic, linear thinking, material obsessiveness and mechanistic world view, that we see pervading the predominant culture on Earth in OUR time, could result in the children following OUR EXAMPLE and recklessly charging down a "primrose path" to be confronted by a colossal ecologic or economic wreckage, the likes of which only Ozymandias has seen.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/

[Steven Earl Salmony, Ph.D., M.P.A.]

Humanity is in danger of losing the exquisite value in one of God’s great gifts: the carefully and skillfully developed science on climate change and global warming.

Is it possible that the standard for determining what is real and true in our culture today is this: whatsoever is widely shared, consensually validated and judged to be ecomonically expedient, politically convenient, socially agreeable and religiously tolerated is true and real?

At least to me, it seems that good science is being ignored, distractions presented ubiquitously, controversy literally manufactured, or else silence allowed to prevail when reasonable and sensible scientific evidence comes into conflict with what culture prescribes as real and true. Perhaps science does present culture with evidence of inconvenient truths.

Despite our best efforts, could it be that my not-so-great generation of elders is communicating with one another and our children as if we are living in a modern day Tower of Babel? Is our noticeable failure to communicate reasonably and sensibly about whatsoever is somehow real, and to widely share adequate understandings regarding both how the family of humanity “fits” within the natural order of living things and what are the limitations of the planet we inhabit, in evidence here and now?

It appears that the human community is indeed in a serious multifaceted predicament, but only in part because of the objective biological and physical circumstances defining our distinctly human-driven predicament. The global challenges in the offing are further complicated by our failure to communicate effectively about the potentially pernicious results that could be derived from having recklessly grown a soon to become patently unsustainable, colossal global economy, one which we have artificially designed, conveniently constructed, and relentlessly expanded without enough conscious, intelligent regard for the practical requirements of biophysical reality.

Could it be that the current gigantic scale and unchecked growth rate of the global economy is unsustainably driving increases both in adamant per human over-consumption and skyrocketing human population numbers toward the point in human history when the willful, rampant, unregulated growth of consumption, production and propagation activities of the human species precipitates the collapse of Earth’s ecology, even in these early years of Century XXI?

Your consideration is appreciated; your comments are welcome.

Steve Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/

[Nats]

A person sruggling through life displaying an outward perception of 'okay-ness' may do so for many many years, being able to sustain a normal and productive life... whilst inside they may have secrets and a hidden battle which they have to fight daily... as long as this struggle is kept secret from the outside world it can be ignored... it can be considered not 'real' and not true...
battling alone and not asking anyone for help...

perhaps a similar thought could be applied to human culture... we know there is a 'battle' but by talking about it and accepting it it would become 'real'

like a person struggling through life, our world can exist in this state for an undetermined period of time, meanwhile the situation may improve, worsen, change in ways but remain...

perhaps, as for someone say with a mental illness, a point will be reached when communication is essential, when help must be sort, a new path though life found...
a point when things become so unsustainable that reality must be faced - a breakdown and collapse of that which had previously been sustained...

if we are living in denial, addicted to our human creations and ideas... then maybe an imminent crash of these systems will be the trigger, whether we collectively act before or as a result of such an event...

hopefully, we will reach out and communicate in this moment of despiration - are we at that point now? maybe this is 'us' asking for help, asking for a 'talking therapy', the beginning of communication?

the rise of the internet as a tool for this?

I guess then the equivilent solution would be a scientific approach - technocratic - medicating gaia, or a more environmental alternative therapy for the planet...???

hmm... i'm rambling...

[Martin Jordan]

I can recommend a couple of good books, which look at the complicated questions you pose. Although quite academic I think the answers to our problems are not simple, and agree with the previous comments, overall its about relationality - developing better relationships between ourselves and the planet. However as we know relationships are not simple.....

Books Andy Fisher 'Radical Ecopsychology: psychology in the service of life' (2002)
Shierry Weber Nicholsen 'The love of nature and the end of the world: the unspoken dimensions of environmental concern (2002)

[Steve Salmony]

Dear Nats,

Your "ramblings" about this good Earth that God has blessed us to inhabit are understood and deeply appreciated. Thanks for speaking out loudly and clearly about what is true for you.

Please know that I would like to be mistaken in suggesting that humanity may not have even 20 to 25 years to figure things out with regard to what human beings are perniciously doing to the Earth in our time, and to begin to move with all deliberate speed from soon to be seen as patently unsustainable ways of living in this world to alternate lifestyles that put the human community on a road toward sustainability.

At least to me, time is of the essence; it is in short supply; and there is no time whatever to waste. I expect that people here in this small community are going to play a large part in developing strategies and implementing able responses to the global challenges posed to humanity by human over-consumption, overproduction and overpopulation activities, inasmuch as these activities, when taken together, appear to be approaching a leviathan-like scale of unsustainability on a planet of the size and with the make-up of Earth.

Young people ask every day, "What needs to be done now?"

At least one of the correct responses to the children's good question could be astonishingly simple, so incredibly obvious and yet so difficult to so much as even acknowledge because too many wealthy people, their bought-and-paid-for politicians and their talking heads in the mass media willfully ignore it. For all of the super-rich and their minions, silence is golden.

All of the trillions of dollars of wealth, that are concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority of people within the family of humanity, have been derived from taking something of value from the Earth and doing something productive with it. For a long time, taking from the Earth in this way did not pose a clear and present danger to biodiversity, the environment, the integrity of Earth and, perhaps, humanity. For a moment, consider that the trillions of dollars comprising the global economy is wealth which has been "transferred" from Earth's body into the bank accounts of people we call "haves." Millions of "haves" hold almost all of the money. One problem with this distribution of Earth's resources, however, is that billions of less fortunate "have-nots" in the the human community are hungry and destitute. Even though the "have-nots" have ecological footprints, we know the impact of the "have-nots" on the Earth is a small one. On the other hand, the millions of "haves" who possess the lion's share of world's wealth have huge ecological footprints because they have extracted a great deal from the Earth and also have conspicuously consumed Earth's resources to the point of appearing obscene in our time.

The task at hand is evident. The "haves" who have almost all of the world's wealth, almost all of which has been accumulated at the expense of the Earth, need to return to the Earth a portion of that which they have commandeered from it. The wealthy and powerful among us are asked to help humanity transition from a perverse dedication to the endless accumulation of wealth and power that is effectively dissipating Earth's resources, degrading Earth's frangible ecosystems and recklessly consuming Earth's body, to a more fair and equitable sharing of wealth with the "have-nots" as well as to a willing commitment to protect of Earth's biodiversity, promote renewal of Earth's resources, and do whatsoever is required of us to save the Earth as a fit place for human habitation by our children and coming generations.

As has been noted in the Stern Report, the IPCC Report, and in many other reports, those people who hold almost all the wealth are called upon to make effective reparations to a ravaged Earth from which almost all that they possess has been derived.

Sincerely,

Steve

Steven Earl Salmony, Ph.D., M.P.A.
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/

[Steve Salmony]

Dear Martin Jordan,

Perhaps we can agree that global challenges, already visible on the far horizon, could soon be posed to humanity. Because economic globalization could be approaching a point in human history when it becomes patently unsustainable on a planet with the relatively small size and make-up of Earth, the current scale and unbridled growth of global consumption/production/propagation activities of the human species could produce a colossal wreckage of either the global economy or Earth's ecology, even in these early years of Century XXI.

If leaders are presented with a forced choice between protecting the global economy and preserving Earth's ecology, it seems crystal clear to me that the leadership of the kind we have today will reflexively choose the economy.....first, last and always.

What do you think?

Sincerely,

Steve

Steve Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001

[Steve Salmony]

Overshooting Earth's carrying capacity and what is to be done now.

The human species appears to be in an "overshoot" situation relative to Earth's limited capacity to sustain life as we know it much longer.

In the course of history, I cannot find any evidence of a single species other than the human species that has precipitated such multi-faceted leviathan-like circumstances.

Inasmuch as human beings possess the attributes required to have induced the gigantic problem we see looming ominously before humanity in the offing, it seems to me that we also maintain the capabilities to take the measure of the problem, however colossal, and find a solution to it, one that is consonant with universally shared values.

Understanding population mathematics (i.e., the exponential function) and human creatureliness would make a big and helpful difference. Appreciating the limits of linear thinking will be another giant step forward.

Once we share an adequate enough understanding of the global problem of huge proportions, then it will become possible for the family of humanity to carefully and skillfully find a humane path toward a sustainable future, I believe.

What do you think?

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001