Tag: climate change

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Climate change, spiritual development, and the gates of hell

Fresno Bee, September 24, 2023

Climate change forces Americans to reconsider profit, greed, power and truth.

This past week, the Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres, described the climate emergency with apocalyptic language. He said, “Humanity has opened the gates of hell.” He called for quick action to avoid the climate inferno.

This call to action is not directed primarily at individuals like you and me. Individuals can drive less, for example. Or you could eat less meat. But the climate-friendly choices of individuals are less important than institutional and systemic change. To close the gates of hell, nations, states and corporations need to be transformed.

One interesting step occurred in California this past week. The state sued five major oil companies, claiming these firms lied about the climate impact of their products. The lawsuit alleges that the oil companies encouraged “disinformation and denialism” about the link between fossil fuels and climate change. This included a deliberate effort to “discredit” the scientific consensus about that link.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said, “For more than 50 years, Big Oil has been lying to us — covering up the fact that they’ve long known how dangerous the fossil fuels they produce are for our planet.” Attorney General Rob Bonta said, “Oil and gas companies have privately known the truth for decades — that the burning of fossil fuels leads to climate change — but have fed us lies and mistruths to further their record-breaking profits at the expense of our environment.”

Activists have called out this bad behavior for a long time. But the California lawsuit puts teeth behind the accusations by aiming to punish the oil companies. The proceeds of any settlement will establish a fund that would be used to respond to climate emergencies and to pay for mitigation and adaptation efforts. All of this is occurring at a time when gas prices are high, cars are expensive, and auto workers are on strike.

Could this be the beginning of a radical shift in the fossil fuel infrastructure? Maybe. But while lawsuits aimed at corporations could be part of the solution, the long-term solution must be cooperative rather than hostile. The oil companies should stop lying. But greed, power, and short-term self-interest are not easy to overcome. And so, while punishment and blame are on the table, the ultimate solution requires a change of culture and moral development.

Consider the moral and cultural shifts that have occurred in prior movements for social change. The abolition of slavery in the United States required a war. But that war was accompanied by a shift in moral thinking, which held that slavery was simply wrong. The movement for women’s rights required a struggle in the streets. That struggle was paralleled by a shift in our understanding of women and men. A similar process unfolded in the civil rights movement.

There is a chicken-or-egg question in these movements. Did the moral shift come first, or was it a result of struggle? There is no simple answer here. There are layers and phases and feedback loops in these cultural transformations. Antagonism is part of any struggle. But the long-term goal is moral development. Cultural shifts ask us to re-conceive our humanity, to reorder our priorities, and to respond in new ways to the world.

One hundred and fifty years after slavery was abolished, it is no longer imaginable that any human being would be enslaved. A hundred years after women gained the right to vote, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would have denied that right to half the population. That’s the kind of change that is needed to solve the climate crisis. We need to create a world in which it would be unimaginable for powerful corporations to lie and profit while spewing destructive chemicals into the atmosphere.

Secretary General Guterres said that we have opened the gates of hell. That’s a metaphor with religious resonance. It points toward the need for a spiritual solution to the climate crisis. To close the gates of hell, we need structural change, but also moral transformation. Lawsuits will help. But in the long run we need to change the way we think about profit, greed, power, and truth. In short, we need to rethink what we value, and we need to re-imagine the world we hope to leave to our grandchildren.

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article279653924.html#storylink=cpy

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Living In the Shadow of Doomsday

Fresno Bee, September 11, 2022

Down in Antarctica, a massive glacier is rapidly melting. The media have dubbed this 80-mile-wide ice sheet “the doomsday glacier.” Reporters warn that when the glacier collapses, it could raise global sea level by 2 feet. The collapse could happen as soon as 2031.

We are a long way from Antarctica. But it’s easy to picture the ice melting during our roasting September heat wave. My car thermometer hit 117 the other day.

It does seem like our “house is on fire,” as Greta Thunberg put it in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland a couple of years ago. Thunberg said, “I want you to panic.” She continued, “And then I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.”

When speaking to the elites at Davos it might help to ring the alarm bells loudly. Our leaders are currently throwing a few buckets of water at an advancing wildfire. They need some political heat to get them moving.

But what about the rest of us? Should we panic? Eco-anxiety is a serious problem, as I discussed in a previous column. Nihilism and despair are as deadly as the rising heat. If doomsday really is right around the corner, we might be inclined to crank up the AC, pull down the blinds and abandon hope.

Doomsday is pretty depressing, after all. But let’s think critically about our language for a moment. Words like “doomsday” cause panic and despair. Two feet of sea level rise is bad. But the world won’t end. Media literacy can help prevent overreaction. Doomsday is just a word. It was chosen by the headline writers to capture your attention.

It also helps to recall that human beings are adaptable and inventive. We likely won’t prevent climate change from re-shaping civilization. But human beings change and adapt. The history of civilization is a story of our adaptability and inventiveness. The future won’t be easy. And there will be pain. But it’s better to embrace the inevitability of change than to hide in the closet.

We had some practice in dealing with radical change during the COVID-19 pandemic. Things fell apart for a time. Remember the fear? The uncertainty? The toilet paper shortages? But we adapted. The response wasn’t perfect. Many people died. Political life became polarized. And we’re still recovering. But here we are. Life goes on. It’s different today than it was a few years ago. But each dawn is different.

We need to develop a kind of Stoic resolve, leavened with creativity, humor, love, and joy. One of my mentors, the philosopher John Lachs, described this as “Stoic pragmatism.” He encourages us to confront tragedy with “equanimity born of joy.”

We need endurance and acceptance but also good humor and energy. When things get rough, as they always do, it helps to smile into the pain. Shake off the suffering and keep going. That’s what marathon runners do. It’s what inventors, entrepreneurs, and artists do when they hit a roadblock. Make a joke, suck it up, and get back to work.

We have strayed pretty far from the doomsday glacier. But the end is never really far away. On any given day, millions of people experience their own private doomsdays. Loss is inevitable. Everyone you know and love eventually ends up dead. And no civilization lasts forever.

In admitting our mortality, there is the risk of despair. But it is better to look into the abyss with open eyes than to live in denial. And once you accept the inevitable, you can discover acceptance and even joy. John Lachs put it this way in a book he wrote about death and dying: “Of course we die, but why should that spoil breakfast?”

That cheerful nugget of wisdom is helpful. This doesn’t mean that we should just smile and wave without taking action. The house is on fire. There’s work to be done. And we’re going to have to adapt. But freaking out doesn’t help. When doomsday arrives, it’s better to greet it with creative good humor than with anxiety and despair.

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article265519076.html#storylink=cpy

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On the Importance of Looking Up

The new Netflix film “Don’t Look Up” has a lot of people talking.  It is a black comedy, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, and Jennifer Lawrence. It’s about corporate greed, bureaucratic incompetence, and the apocalypse.  Its bleak conclusion gets you thinking about the dangers of power, narcissism, and willful ignorance. 

The movie’s fans see it as a cautionary allegory about climate change, science denial, and clueless amateurs running the government.  Some worry that its gloomy ending may encourage despair.  Others hope it will be a call to action. 

Reviews of the film reflect our polarization.  Conservatives claim it is another example of Hollywood preaching a liberal gospel.  One critic in the National Review suggested it is the worst film of 2021.  He lambasted is as a “better-than-you comedy” that “reveals the nastiness of liberals.”  Another critic in the Washington Examiner said it was a “lazy anti-Trump comedy.” 

More subtle criticism came from New York Magazine, where a sympathetic commentator accused the film of oversimplifying the climate crisis.  He said liberals “need to stop telling themselves self-flattering fairy tales.”

I suppose the point is that we are all in this together.  Narcissism and stupidity cross party lines.  Hollywood is part of the problem.  The film seems to recognize this.  It shows how the cult of celebrity corrupts everyone, even the neurotic scientist played by DiCaprio. 

At any rate, this is an allegory, not a documentary.  Allegories simplify reality. They tell memorable stories that get people talking.  In this regard, the film succeeds.  It provokes conversations about life, death, politics, and American culture. 

This conversation should extend to the very idea of “looking up.”  The film’s title calls to mind Plato’s famous “allegory of the cave.”  In Plato story, we are prisoners chained in a cave.  We are not permitted to turn around and see reality.  Even when we are set free, most of us refuse to turn around. Plato suggests the masses would go so far as to kill truth-tellers and educators, who like Socrates are trying to get us to look up.

Plato’s allegory is about willful ignorance. Plato warns that most people don’t want to know the truth.  We deliberately choose not to look up.  We are happy with our illusions.  We don’t want to confront reality.  We keep our heads down, preferring slavery over enlightenment.

In the film, this idea becomes the slogan of the political party led by Streep’s character, President Orleans.  The party encourages people not to look up at the comet hurtling toward earth.  This is a parody of our culture’s struggle with science denial, “fake news,” and “alternative facts.”  It also implies authoritarianism.  “Don’t look up” also means “mind your own business” and don’t criticize the elites.

The philosophical solution to all of this is the pursuit of wisdom.  We ought to look up.  It won’t be easy or comfortable.  We may discover things that confuse us or make us unhappy.  But it is better to live in the light than in the darkness.

One of the questions raised by the film is whether you would want to know how and when you are going to die.  The scientists in the film know the exact time of the apocalypse.  And there is a supercomputer using big data to predict how people will die. 

What would you do with this knowledge?  Would knowledge of your death cause despair?  Would you prefer to remain in ignorance about your death?

A modest hopeful appears toward the end of the film when DiCaprio’s character responds to knowledge of his death by changing his life.  He refutes the computer’s prediction about his death, thereby reclaiming some modest dignity.

This is the kind of dignity that knowledge provides.  When we look up and confront reality, we can take charge of how we live and how we die.  To live in ignorance is to live as a prisoner.  The truth sets us free. 

Knowing the truth won’t change the indifferent reality of the cosmos.  Knowing the truth won’t stop a comet or cure you of Covid.  But knowledge allows us to live responsibly and, if necessary, to die with dignity.  It is tempting in a crisis to bury our heads in the sand.  But wisdom is only available to those who look up.

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Defusing Covid Anxiety and Climate Worry

Fresno Bee, December 19, 2021

COVID restrictions are coming back. And climate change is wreaking havoc. It is easy to get depressed.

New categories of psychological affliction have appeared. Worries about the climate generate “eco-anxiety” and “ecological grief.” And “COVID anxiety syndrome” has emerged. A recent New York Times column maintains that COVID anxiety is plaguing the globe.

Political dysfunction contributes to despair. The scientists know what we ought to do. But politics prevents us from doing it. Vaccines and masks are refused. And the oil pushers keep us addicted to fossil fuels.

Growing anxiety is especially hard on young people. A new UC Berkeley grad was recently quoted as saying that health crises and climate catastrophes have led her to not want children. She said, “it would be wrong to bring someone into that chaos, without their consent.” I’ve heard similar sentiments from my students.

This is a sad result. Young people are typically a source of optimism and energy. But today’s youth are afraid of the future.

In response, we might point out that the future has always been scary. My generation grew up during the Cold War. Many of us expected nuclear winter to destroy life on earth. Nuclear weapons remain an ominous threat to humanity. But as you grow older, you learn that each generation has its crises.

You also learn that solutions to big problems require painstaking and tenacious effort. Social change does not happen overnight. The American revolution lasted seven years. It took another four score and seven years to abolish slavery. We are still working on racism and inequality.

Realizing that history moves slowly can alleviate angst. A culture of instant gratification fuels anxiety. If we don’t get what we want, we freak out. But history is not like DoorDash. It moves at its own pace.

Patience is especially important when dealing with epidemics and diseases. Colds and flus have to run their course. Immunity takes time to develop. It helps to know that prior pandemics were not cured overnight. The Spanish flu epidemic of the early 20th century blazed for at least two years. The Black Plague ravaged humanity for decades in the middle of the 14th century. It continued to recur for centuries.

The Earth’s climate unfolds across even larger time scales. The Earth was once covered with ice. At other times, it was much hotter. What’s “normal” for us is not what’s normal for the Earth.

Humans thrive under present conditions. But homo sapiens only emerged a few hundred thousand years ago. Our species will go extinct, like most other species. That’s just the way it goes. It doesn’t help to fret about it.

But it does help to recall how resilient and adaptable we are. Our ancestors left the warmth of Africa and migrated across the globe. When we encountered cold climates, we invented clothing and furnaces. When we settled in hot, dry places, we invented irrigation and air conditioning. We’ve visited the ocean’s depths, Mount Everest, and the moon. We also invented vaccines and solar panels.

We’ll adapt to COVID-19 and to the changing climate. Yet those adaptations are at the level of the species. Our individual choices matter for our personal survival. But evolution does not care about our individual choices. So don’t waste too much energy worrying about the survival of humanity or civilization.

In general, it’s wise to stop fretting. It is not healthy to dwell on disaster or ruminate on impending doom. The ancient Stoics advise us to stop worrying about things that are not in our control. The climate, the pandemic, the political world, and the course of history are simply not up to me.

This does not mean we should stop being prudent. Choose wisely with regard to your own body and behavior. Wear a mask. And get vaccinated. But stop fretting about other people’s choices. And lower your expectations about a return to “normal,” whatever that is.

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Rocket Man Morality

Fresno Bee, October 17, 2021

When Captain Kirk made it to space, I was driving past a panhandler. The Gil Scott-Heron song, “Whitey on the Moon,” came to mind. We’ve got poverty and pandemics. But Shatner’s riding a rocket.

I say this as a fan of “Star Trek” and William Shatner. I’ve cheered on the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. I’ve even enjoyed Shatner’s campy spoken-word recordings — including his bizarre rendition of Elton John’s “Rocket Man.”

But “Star Trek” sold us a fantasy. They forgot to tell us that only the rich and famous will go where no man has gone before. The rest of us will be stuck in traffic, while poor folks beg for cash on freeway off-ramps.

Of course, Shatner can do whatever he wants. Rich old men have the right to burn up their money with rocket fuel. One part of this story is about Shatner’s health and longevity. At 90, Shatner is the oldest person to go into space. It’s amazing that a nonagenarian can blast into orbit. Good for him that he is sturdy enough to ride a rocket.

But in the background of Shatner’s triumph are tragic inequalities. Rich people live long, healthy lives. Poor people do not. A report from before the pandemic indicated that rich American men live an average of 15 years longer than poor American men.

The whole Earth is afflicted by similar gaps. World Bank data show that in “low income” countries, life expectancy is 64 years, while in “high income” countries, it is 81. It doesn’t seem right to fling old geezers into space while people are dying down below.

So, while I’m a Shatner fan, I also want to say shame on him — and on the idea of space tourism. This is conspicuous consumption run amok. The Earth and its humans need help. But the rich are riding rockets.

Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket latest space passengers from left, Audrey Powers, William Shatner, Chris Boshuizen, and Glen de Vries raises their hands as they talks about snake bites during a media availability at the spaceport near Van Horn, Texas, Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021. (AP Photo/LM Otero) LM Otero AP
Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article255018227.html#storylink=cpy

Those rockets emit massive amounts of pollution. The atmosphere is already full of heat-trapping gases. A tourist flight into space leaves a carbon footprint up to a hundred times worse than an ordinary airplane flight.

In case you were wondering, a ticket into space costs about $200,000. It’s obscene to spend that kind of money on a few minutes of weightlessness and the bragging rights you get from becoming a rocket man.

Despite the cost, the space tourism industry is planning to grow. The ultra-wealthy are doing fine and getting richer. I’m sure the wealthy will keep the rockets busy. There are plans for hundreds of rocket flights per year.

The wealthy will survive the climate crisis without much problem. Rich people already generate more carbon emissions than poor people. The rich will ride out the climate storm in air-conditioned summer homes, while the working poor and the homeless suffer under the heat.

It is probably too late to restrict the space tourism industry. If Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and others are prevented from launching their rockets in the U.S., they would just launch them abroad.

That’s where shame comes in. Instead of celebrating space tourists, we should say, shame on them. Rich people should be embarrassed to ride on rockets. It would be better for the rich to donate their 200K to a homeless shelter. Let’s praise them when they do that. And let’s shame them when they binge on rocket fuel.

We also need to question the fantasy that Hollywood has sold us about space. There is no home for us in the stars. Elton John’s vision is more realistic. He said, “Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids; in fact, it’s cold as hell.”

To his credit, Shatner described how the rocket flight humbled him. He said that from the rocket’s window he saw “the vulnerability of everything.” That’s important. But you don’t need to ride a rocket to understand that our planet and our neighbors are suffering.

The “Star Trek” fantasy assumes we are wise enough to venture to the stars. But until we fix this world, we have not earned the right to leave it. Scotty can’t just beam us up. There’s nowhere else to go. Every rocket man must land again on this fragile crust and drive home past the haunted and the homeless.