TimHicks
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The following comments are not meant to be discouraging, defeatist, or cynical. I do believe that it is better to be an optimist and wrong than a pessimist and right. But I find myself thinking also that to believe that our response to the dire circumstance we face should be other than it is, to be mystified and frustrated that we, as a species, are not “getting it” carries with it the danger of not understanding the reasons we’re not acting effectively in response in the first place, which in turn may reduce our ability to cultivate the change that does need to happen. It is from that perspective that I offer the following comments.
Re: “But the military culture that Dowding had to shatter to save Britain was a minor hurdle compared to the global perpetual growth culture, pervasive for a few hundred years and especially entrenched since World War II.”
I know that the growth ideology has seen its most extreme expression since the industrial revolution, but it seems to me that the growth-seeking character of human behavior extends back to our earliest life as a species and is characteristic of our nature. Our expansion since our near extinction at the surmised level of 2000 individuals demonstrates this growth behavior. Our behavior over the past couple of hundred years is not an anomaly of type, only of degree.
Re: “Many in the British military and public were convinced of the German threat by 1936, just as many today realize that population growth, overconsumption by the rich, and resultant abuse of the environment threaten the human future.”
This does not seem to me an accurate analogy. The many convinced of the German threat in 1936 were of a different proportion. The weight of concern regarding today’s crisis does not proportionally measure against that of the pre-war period regarding that impending crisis. Further, those who were convinced of the German threat in 1936 had more leverage to prepare and influence than that held by those convinced today of the climate threat we face.
“But in Britain in 1936 there were no well-financed, well-organized interests working on many fronts to obfuscate the situation.”
I don’t think the well-financed and well-organized interests working to obfuscate the situation currently are the primary problem, though certainly they are a significant problem. More accurate information countering the obfuscation is abundant and prevalent through many media venues. It seems to me that there exist a set of psychological, social, and economic barriers to taking in the information that explain our lack of sufficient action, and that the well-financed and well-organized interests are expressions in themselves of those psychological, social, and economic barriers. We find ourselves in an unprecedented circumstance that is the product of behavioral patterns that stretch back millennia. The psychological and behavioral shifts required are supremely difficult, at least to accomplish on an historical dime. The change necessary, in the time frame that appears required, is outside our group experience to date. We see the ultimate tragedy of the commons requiring what will seem to most of us as draconian regulation. And that regulation must be trans-jurisdictional and encompass all jurisdictions. At the moment, we don’t have the socio-political structures in place to set or enforce those regulations, as is so painfully apparent in the attempts at international climate change negotiations.
Tim Hicks
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