Also for taking on the "bright greens" who are trying to push everyone down the road of further technological adventures instead of actually scaling back. I've been on Twitter a year and find there that these people do more damage to ordinary people's perceptions of the environmental multi-crisis and a helpful response to it than pretty much anyone else. Concerned ecologists etc who are speaking up are getting lectures from a general public who is sipping the Kool-Aid of the bright green mouthpieces and regurgitating it back over the virtual pages.
Not infrequently the mouthpieces themselves respond with their misinformation/deluded thinking, and make ad hominem attacks on eco-realists. Monbiot, whom you mentioned in your foreword, currently even seems to have a vendetta against small organic farmers and permaculturists, having insulted a meeting of such in the UK as outdated, useless etc, as he pushes his vision of processed industrial GM "manna" from techno-heaven. There was an excellent essay on all of this here:
The horizontal hostility created by such people doesn't do any service to a constructive conversation. If we love the Earth, we should unite in its defence, instead of making schisms much like in the dogmatic religious arena, and staging the equivalent of branded "environmental" TV evangelism. Some people maybe aren't getting the memo. It's such a morass out there in human-land.
Hi Max. Another book to that aspect. Tech(NO) Fix by Joyce Huesemann & Michael Huesemann, 2011 New Society. Why we believe and sign up for technology (and all the promises) is subjective. What is objectively true about us, at the receiving end of technology, is a deep taboo that we live with across the world. A prohibition against challenging high modernist technology and its non-stop expansion and innovation. More problematic if we speak about its negative destructive aspects. We may be ridiculed, attacked, censored, worse jailed or killed when we try debasing, divesting or even dream of destroying it.
Fantastic article, Max. Thank you. I lifted many quotable quotes for future use. Here's one.
"Glaciers are melting, and thanks to industrial pollution, every mother has dioxin, the most toxic known chemical, in her breastmilk. New “benign” technologies like solar photovoltaics, electric cars, and wind energy turbines are receiving massive government subsidies, spawning a new generation of billionaires and leaving new swathes of ecological destruction. "
Chocked full of good quotes and thought-provoking-people-to-action. Many layers, yet also two areas of concern come to mind, as far as the addiction to technology, the making of the stuff/gadgets and the using of the stuff/gadgets. When, like big pharma, the products are market-driven, it's hard for the masses to reduce usage; and when the gadgets along with educational system are seen as a passport to a steady job, it's hard to reduce usage. "Ay, there's the rub?" Perhaps humans having "the direct experience of nature" and nature's direct experiences at humans i.e. droughts, floods, fires, etc. can serve as wake-up calls and turn the tide.
This is sobering Max, so many good reflections in here. Thank you for this.
Thanks Leon.
"Our society rushes into choices with little concern for their future ramifications.”
A far cry from thinking Seven Generations….
This is one of your best, Max… which is saying a lot!!
Thank you, Peter!
Really excellent piece, thank you for sharing. ♥
Also for taking on the "bright greens" who are trying to push everyone down the road of further technological adventures instead of actually scaling back. I've been on Twitter a year and find there that these people do more damage to ordinary people's perceptions of the environmental multi-crisis and a helpful response to it than pretty much anyone else. Concerned ecologists etc who are speaking up are getting lectures from a general public who is sipping the Kool-Aid of the bright green mouthpieces and regurgitating it back over the virtual pages.
Not infrequently the mouthpieces themselves respond with their misinformation/deluded thinking, and make ad hominem attacks on eco-realists. Monbiot, whom you mentioned in your foreword, currently even seems to have a vendetta against small organic farmers and permaculturists, having insulted a meeting of such in the UK as outdated, useless etc, as he pushes his vision of processed industrial GM "manna" from techno-heaven. There was an excellent essay on all of this here:
https://www.gmwatch.org/en/106-news/latest-news/20310-the-many-problems-with-george-monbiot-s-bullish-backing-for-biotech-brewed-bacterial-banquets
The horizontal hostility created by such people doesn't do any service to a constructive conversation. If we love the Earth, we should unite in its defence, instead of making schisms much like in the dogmatic religious arena, and staging the equivalent of branded "environmental" TV evangelism. Some people maybe aren't getting the memo. It's such a morass out there in human-land.
Definitely, Sue.
Hi Max. Another book to that aspect. Tech(NO) Fix by Joyce Huesemann & Michael Huesemann, 2011 New Society. Why we believe and sign up for technology (and all the promises) is subjective. What is objectively true about us, at the receiving end of technology, is a deep taboo that we live with across the world. A prohibition against challenging high modernist technology and its non-stop expansion and innovation. More problematic if we speak about its negative destructive aspects. We may be ridiculed, attacked, censored, worse jailed or killed when we try debasing, divesting or even dream of destroying it.
Absolutely.
Fantastic article, Max. Thank you. I lifted many quotable quotes for future use. Here's one.
"Glaciers are melting, and thanks to industrial pollution, every mother has dioxin, the most toxic known chemical, in her breastmilk. New “benign” technologies like solar photovoltaics, electric cars, and wind energy turbines are receiving massive government subsidies, spawning a new generation of billionaires and leaving new swathes of ecological destruction. "
Thanks, Hart.
Chocked full of good quotes and thought-provoking-people-to-action. Many layers, yet also two areas of concern come to mind, as far as the addiction to technology, the making of the stuff/gadgets and the using of the stuff/gadgets. When, like big pharma, the products are market-driven, it's hard for the masses to reduce usage; and when the gadgets along with educational system are seen as a passport to a steady job, it's hard to reduce usage. "Ay, there's the rub?" Perhaps humans having "the direct experience of nature" and nature's direct experiences at humans i.e. droughts, floods, fires, etc. can serve as wake-up calls and turn the tide.
Absolutely, Mankh. These are social problems which don't have personal solutions.