Is Economic Recovery Even Possible on a Planet Headed for Environmental Collapse?

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



Is Economic Recovery Even Possible on a Planet Headed for Environmental Collapse?

By Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.com. Posted February 19, 2009.

As the global economy melts down, so is the planet, with droughts threatening food production and industry across the world.



It turns out that you don't want to be a former city dweller in rural parts of southernmost Australia, a stalk of wheat in China or Iraq, a soybean in Argentina, an almond or grape in northern California, a cow in Texas, or almost anything in parts of east Africa right now. Let me explain.

As anyone who has turned on the prime-time TV news these last weeks knows, southeastern Australia has been burning up. It's already dry climate has been growing ever hotter. "The great drying," Australian environmental scientist Tim Flannery calls it. At its epicenter, Melbourne recorded its hottest day ever this month at a sweltering 115.5 degrees, while temperatures soared even higher in the surrounding countryside. After more than a decade of drought, followed by the lowest rainfall on record, the eucalyptus forests are now burning. To be exact, they are now pouring vast quantities of stored carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas considered largely responsible for global warming, into the atmosphere.

In fact, everything's been burning there. Huge sheets of flame, possibly aided and abetted by arsonists, tore through whole towns. More than 180 people are dead and thousands homeless. Flannery, who has written eloquently about global warming, drove through the fire belt, and reported:

"It was as if a great cremation had taken place… I was born in Victoria, and over five decades I've watched as the state has changed. The long, wet and cold winters that seemed insufferable to me as a boy vanished decades ago, and for the past 12 years a new, drier climate has established itself… I had not appreciated the difference a degree or two of extra heat and a dry soil can make to the ferocity of a fire. This fire was different from anything seen before."

Australia, by the way, is a wheat-growing breadbasket for the world and its wheat crops have been hurt in recent years by continued drought. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/water/127625/is_economic_recovery_even_possible_on_a_planet_headed_for_environmental_collapse/

[daninthemoon]

1. just might be a perfect storm. no artificial propping up of the economy

will make a bit of difference if we don't get off fossil fuel. is it just plain too late because the planets is dying? we're about to find out. but don't worry. remember james watt, rayguns sec of interior, the guy in charge of our environment? environmental conservation is sinful, because Jesus is about to come back, and that's why the planet is dying. just part of raygun's fundie legacy that today's repugs have bought into without even understanding it.

[liberal N proud]

2. Saving the environment could be the key to recovery

IF we are smart enough to pull it off.

[GliderGuider]

3. We were clever enough to create the problem

We're not wise enough to solve it.

[stuntcat]

7. :hope:

.. if the humans can straighten up and act right, AND FAST.

This is our biggest test ever, I think, We're already failing the animals species but we could save our own future by trying to help the economy and the environment together.

[Bigmack]

4. MANY thanks for this post -

I've been wondering when more folks would notice THIS elephant in the room. Ms Bigmack

[The2ndWheel]

5. A main reason for environmental collapse?

Economic growth.

[GliderGuider]

6. Like an airplane accident, this crisis isn't just the result of one or two failures

You need a lot of converging failures to crash an airplane, let alone to cause what we're seeing in the world right now.

It's called a collapse.

The main reason we don't recognize what's happening to us as a collapse is because the true nature of what is waiting for us just around the corner is still only visible to a very few. Most of us view our situation as though we were peeking into a tiny keyhole, through which only a small section of the vast room beyond comes into view. Only a small number of people have the necessary understanding that goes beyond simple economics or environmentalism to include ecology, energy analysis, history, anthropology, biology, politics and maybe a bit of evolutionary psychology. Fortunately, just a smattering of knowledge in those other fields will suffice, so long as one has the inclination to weave the disparate threads into a full picture.

Focusing on just one field will not reveal our full situation (though ecology will come closer than most). I know people in the alternative energy business, for instance, who simply cannot believe that the financial crisis has dashed their dreams of a solar-powered civilization. Most of us prefer to believe that a few simple reforms affecting our chosen field of interest is all that is required. Most of us are tragically wrong.

We are standing on the threshold of the collapse of this version of human civilization. Recognizing that fact radically changes your assessment of the oughts and shoulds that might be useful in addressing any aspect of the crisis. And it completely changes your ideas about what approach might be useful in addressing the whole thundering avalanche.

[Bigmack]

11. Yes

My husband and I each have one child....mine's adopted....and we've just had our first grandchild, and like most grandparents....we're totally smitten, but scared shitless for the lass's future.... Ms Bigmack

[wuvuj]

8. The truth is...

...that the big scramble to get the economic engine running again is missing the main point....that continual growth isn't possible anymore. What are people going to make and consume at a 3% increase per year that doesn't worsen the environment and use up resources?

Maybe "they" can invent a successor to the service economy where people do a lot of things that don't use real substances and don't pollute...maybe trade holographs or something.

In the real world...or thereabouts...I don't see that things will be changing fast enough....too many dragging their feet. Most people I deal with apparently think things are not going to change all that much...I have problems convincing myself that what is happening is for real....though I think the evidence is there.

I'd say in about 2 years or so...when unemployment is around 9-10% (20%?)...new wars are starting...countries crashing....riots....droughts are getting worse...food shortages begin...more fires....then...when it is essentially too late...the avg person will get the message?

In the mean time there isn't all that much any individual can do to prepare...stock up on essentials...have a plan?

[XemaSab]

9. What does "stocking up on essentials" mean?

We've got 1/4 acre on the floodplain, and we could certainly grow all our own vegetables, but protein and grains?

That would be more of a challenge.

Another challenge would be cooking our food. After the oak trees on the corner lot are gone, where will we get fuel wood? The park? :shrug:

Or would it be better to use the oaks for acorns? If we did that, what would we cook with? :shrug:

[wuvuj]

10. Even those who might be able to see what's coming...

...are unwilling to do what's necessary? Afraid they'll be wrong? Afraid of ridicule?

[DemReadingDU]

12. sounds like spouse

He doesn't deny the economy is bad, people losing jobs and healthcare, no money to buy necessities. He things because we pay taxes, the government will step in and help.

I ask him to remember Katrina. He says that was the Bush administration. Obama's the president now, he's intelligent, and if (not when) the collapse comes, Obama will get the right people so that we have electric, food, water. Because to him, the alternative (riots) is unthinkable.

Once he is personally affected, I'm sure he, and others, will be thinking much differently.

[XemaSab]

13. I'm not sure you're getting my point

Yeah, you can store enough food for a couple of months.

5 20-lb sacks of rice might not be a bad start.

You can grow vegetables, but those would take six weeks or so to begin to produce anything at all.

Okay, so when the canned food and sacks of rice begin to quit, the veggies can take over.

But man cannot live by Sweet 100 tomatoes alone. Without a starch, cooking becomes awfully dull. And without a protein you starve.

But all that is moot if you have nothing to cook the food with.

Raw collards morning noon and night? I'd almost rather starve.

[hunter]

14. Maybe I'll hang out in Sherman's Lagoon and pretend I'm a shark.

Hairless Beach Ape, the other white meat.

http://www.slagoon.com/cgi-bin/sviewer.pl

[NickB79]

15. Starches can be satisfied by potatoes. Proteins by beans

If the SHTF, I don't have any doubts that my family and myself could survive on the family farm from what we can raise, grow, forage and hunt ourselves. After all, if my great-great grandfather could do it on that same family farm 130 years ago, so could I.

I see your point though. The problem isn't that people can't live off of the land anymore. It's that there's so damn many of us all trying to live off smaller and smaller pieces of land.

[DemReadingDU]

16. Perhaps we could be friendly with the neighbors

Maybe we shouldn't do this on our own. Maybe a neighbor has solar panels to heat and cook food? Maybe another neighbor is a hunter? Share and work together, form a self-sustaining neighborhood?

[XemaSab]

17. My neighbors have pecans and fruit trees

Pecans are a good start, and fruit is helpful, but fuel is still a problem. :shrug: