2011
Relief
April 4, 2011
In an essay
posted on October 17, 2010, I wrote about the feeling of relief that
comes from thinking about how, after the collapse of our civilization,
nature will reclaim the world.
This feeling of relief that follows the collapse of an evil
civilization is a very old one. I wanted to share an ancient example of
it. In the 34th chapter of the Old Testament book of Isaiah (apparently
written by the first of two or three prophets by that name), the author
condemns the kingdom of Edom and predicts that it will suffer a great
slaughter, and be destroyed. "Its smoke shall go up forever," he
writes.
But he also describes how nature will take over the ruins. Referring to
the land of Edom, Isaiah writes, "The hawk and the porcupine shall
possess it, the owl and the raven shall dwell in it. Thorns shall grow
over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses. It shall
be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches. And wild beasts shall
meet with hyenas, the satyr shall cry to his fellow; yea, there shall
the night hag alight, and find for herself a resting place." At first
this sounds like a continuation of the horrible fate Isaiah had
described earlier. However, this may not be quite what Isaiah had in
mind. Perhaps he, like modern naturalists, actually liked hawks,
porcupines, owls, nettles, thistles, jackals, ostriches, and hyenas. I
am not sure to what animal "satyr" may refer, and the "night hags" may
be bats.
The spirit of Isaiah's denunciation gradually changes. The wild plants
and animals that take over the ruins of Edom are now described in
gentle terms. ìThere shall the owl nest and lay and hatch and
gather her young in her shadow; yea, there shall the kites be gathered,
each one with her mate.î There is clearly a sense of rejoicing in
this picture. Families are safe and secure in prosperity, that is,
families of owls and kites. ìSeek and read from the book of the
Lord; not one of these shall be missing; none shall be without her
mate. For the mouth of the Lord has commanded, and His Spirit has
gathered them.î Remember that after the Flood, according to the
stories of Genesis, God made a covenant not just with Noah but with
"every living creature."
Isaiah's vision (perhaps from a separate writing) continues
straightaway in chapter 35 with a description of the healing of the
entire landscape. "The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the
desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it all blossom
abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon
shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon." These
references are to the mighty cedar forests (Cedrus libani) of
Lebanon, now mostly cut down.
I sincerely hope that our civilization can make a smooth transition
into ecological peace and prosperity, but if it does not, then Isaiah
will turn out to be right about us, as he was about Edom. The Earth
will heal up, with or without leaving our civilization intact.
Oath Upon the Earth
April 11, 2011
Environmental activist Bill McKibben is the founder of 350.org, an organization dedicated to
bringing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels back down to 350 parts per
million. It is, at present, a Quixotic enterprise, but one with
thousands of people (most of them young) tilting at the fossil fuel
windmill. Our little Green Club at Southeastern Oklahoma State
University joined with thousands of other groups in staging
environmental events in October, 2010. We set up a table in the student
union and asked students and staff to make a pledge to do something, of
their own choice, to reduce their carbon footprints -- then write it on
a poster and sign their names. We called the project Oath to the Earth.
We actually got several dozen people to sign up.
But many other people walked past as if they were frightened of doing
anything to make themselves even a little independent of fossil fuels.
I expect that many of them had been told over and over, in church and
at home, that God wants them to use up and wear out the Earth, since
Jesus is going to come back very soon and burn the Earth up anyway,
after kicking the bejesus out of all its remaining people, animals, and
plants. Of course, this is based on a really bad interpretation of the
Bible -- especially the part about the imminent return of Jesus, for
which there is absolutely no evidence. At least none of them came up
and preached at us about how sinful we were for trying to preserve
God's good green Earth.
Our Green Club president was telling the passers-by that pledging to
save the Earth was easy. This was probably a good strategy, as it got
many students to think about the effects of their actions on the Earth,
if only for a few minutes. Actually, to make any significant difference
is not all that easy.
But her idea was undoubtedly better than mine. My perversely sarcastic
mind had come up with the idea of having conservative students sign a
Pledge to hate the Earth. Oath upon the Earth, perhaps. Some ideas that
the students could have written include the following. I pledge to make
Jesus come back more quickly by destroying as much of the Earth as I
can. Or, I really want the ocean levels to rise and flood those
Bangladeshis, because I want them to die. Or, I really want malaria to
spread more and kill more of those dark people. Just fine with me if
those Russians and Europeans have heat waves. Fine with me if the
lodgepole pines in Colorado and the spruces in Alaska die. So I pledge
to drive as big of a vehicle as I can, absurdly large, even if the
expense of it drives me into bankrupture (a term I borrowed from George
Papashvily).
The opportunity exists to make good on such pledges. As I walked to
work one morning (yes, walking, which almost no other students or
faculty do at our university), I cut across a gravel parking lot. What
looked like the cabin and engine of a truck, without the trailers, was
leaving the lot. It had two big vertical exhaust spouts, and spewed
diesel fumes, just like a big rig. But it was labeled "recreational
vehicle." Yes, friends, you can now use as much diesel fuel as a big
rig uses to haul a houseful of furniture, just to drive around and let
people know much carbon you want to spew into the air. I also saw a
Hummer, which was miniscule in comparison.
Many people in rural Oklahoma would be happy to take a pledge to
destroy the Earth as much as possible. But not most people, even here.
I think. But maybe just being confronted by the opportunity to sign an
Oath upon the Earth might shock them into rethinking their values. Or
not. I fear that neither a positive nor a negative approach will work.
The Long Emergency
April 18, 2011
Humans, like all other animals, have evolved to be very good at dealing
with brief emergencies. Our bodies, activated by cortisol, are capable
of astonishing feats of strength and speed for brief periods, and these
abilities come to us without thinking. In prehistoric days, villages
had social mechanisms for dealing with brief emergencies, such as
battles with other villages. And the same is true today, on a larger
scale. If a community is devastated by a flood, wildfire, or tornado,
surrounding communities pour in to help them. Some people travel great
distances to help. The example that comes first to mind is the
immediate help that New Orleans received after Hurricane Katrina --
help that came more easily and rapidly from ordinary Americans than it
did from the discombobulated federal government. A more recent example
is the help that Gulf coast communities received after the BP (Broken
Pipe) Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010. People even sent in some of
their hair to help sop up the oil. In each case, there has been
closure, in which the rescuers could rejoice in their completed work.
BP cleanup directors even talked on the national news about the big
steak dinner they were going to have once the well had been permanently
sealed.
But what can we do if an emergency goes on and on, with no end in
sight, or if one emergency follows another in an endless progression?
Could we deal with a long, perhaps endless, emergency? Of course, we
would deal with such a situation just as we always have, at first,
because we would not know it will be essentially unending. But then
comes (to use another petroleum term) burnout. Human psychology evolved
in prehistoric (and historic) conditions of fight-or-flight emergency
followed by times of relaxation and recovery. We have never lived in
times of unending emergency and may not be able to cope with it.
But such a time is coming, as a result of global warming. Many
scientists think "climate disruption" is a better term than "global
warming," since the greenhouse effect will disrupt nearly every aspect
of climate that our society has grown to assume is constant. Not just
temperature, but rainfall and storms as well. Right now we treat
droughts in the agricultural heartland as emergencies. But what if the
drought does not end? What if severe storms become the norm, and we
never get a chance to rest from them? Not only would this exact an
unbearable psychological toll, but it would make it impossible for
people from a safe area to help those that are experiencing an
emergency, because we will all be experiencing, or just recently
recovering from, climate emergencies.
Environmentalists such as David Orr refer to this as "the long
emergency." When coastal areas begin to be flooded by rising sea
levels, this is not something to be temporarily tolerated while we wait
for the seas to retreat. They will not. Millions of climate refugees
pouring over borders (for example, from Bangladesh into India) will be
an ongoing problem -- for them, and for the whole world which depends
for its existence on peace and stability in every part of the globe. We
are not prepared, in economic or emergency management terms, to deal
with a prolonged emergency -- nor are we likely to handle it well in
psychological terms.
The Dangerous Conservative
Viewpoint
May 1, 2011
I wish to briefly present some important reasons why the extreme form
of the conservative viewpoint is dangerous much more often than even
the most extreme progressive viewpoints, even if both of them turn out
to be equally inaccurate.
The first reason is that the conservative mindset tends to divide
everything, and every person, into categories of absolute good and
evil. We all know this to be true, but it has also been substantiated
by psychological research. To a conservative, there are almost no moral
gray areas. For example, a progressive is likely to say that guns are
permissible in some circumstances, while a conservative is likely to
say that everyone should be able to own as many guns, of any kind, as
they desire. Similarly, a progressive would say that the time at which
a human life begins is unclear, but that late-term abortions are wrong;
a conservative will say that all abortions are wrong. The distinction
is between the progressive "sometimes" and the conservative "always."
In those cases where the correct viewpoint or action really is unclear,
there is little if any chance to discuss the ambiguities which, to the
conservative, do not exist. If you disagree with a conservative, the
only possible reason could be that you are unable or unwilling to see
their absolute correctness. Of course, there are some liberals who
cannot recognize ambiguity. One example is the 2010 Discovery
Channel
shooter. But this is comparatively rare. The danger, then,
is that the possibility of finding the truth and of taking the correct
action is vastly diminished by the conservative viewpoint.
The second reason is that the conservative mindset encourages quick
decisions. And why not? If there is no ambiguity at all, then why waste
time thinking about the question? The danger here is that the
possibility of finding the truth is vastly diminished because time is
not permitted for a careful examination of the facts.
The third reason is that conservatism appeals to angry people.
Nonviolent conservatives, which are the majority, are not directly
responsible for the actions of angry conservatives. I'm merely
explaining that this is how it works. Angry people are much more likely
to take violent action than calm people. Nearly every case of domestic
terrorism, from Oklahoma City in 1995 to Tucson in 2010, is the action
of an angry conservative. The only exception I can think of is the 2010
Discovery Channel shooter mentioned previously. The conservative
viewpoint appeals to angry people because there is no point in stopping
to think.
The fourth reason is that conservatism appeals to actions that often
have permanent effects. Progressives may choose diplomacy, which never
has a permanent effect; conservatives will usually choose war, which
has a permanent effect every time a bomb lands in a civilian
neighborhood. War may be necessary-at least President Obama thinks
so-but its actions have permanent effects. Progressives tend to build
things up, which is a slow and reversible process, while conservatives
tear things down (e.g. environmental protection), which is quick and
can be reversed only by totally starting over.
The fifth reason is that conservatives tend to grant to themselves the
personal moral rectitude that they ascribe to their viewpoints. This
allows them to be just as assertive in defending positions that
contradict their principles as when they defend those principles. This
leads to hypocrisy that they do not recognize. When George W. Bush
called for military action against Iraq, conservatives were ready to
roll, even before UN approval. But when Barack Obama takes military
action against the dictator of Libya, even after UN approval,
conservatives claim that he jumped too quickly into war. They accused
President Obama of having no clear plan or exit strategy for the
operation against the Qaddafi military. But his plan was much clearer
than Bush's plan at the start of the Iraq War. Conservatives also
accused Obama of using too much money for this operation, but they see
nothing wrong with Bush starting the Iraq War that has cost a trillion
dollars. It is as if they say, We are conservatives, so we are always
right, even when we contradict our own principles. This moves
government away from reason and toward a dependence on assertive
personalities.
This is why I believe conservatives should be kept out of power
whenever possible. They are welcome to present their viewpoints, and
progressives should consider them, for the conservatives are sometimes
right. (This is something they are unlikely to admit about
progressives.) But once conservatives are in power, it really doesn't
matter any more whether they are right or not-you will get unthinking,
quick, irreversible, and damaging action.
Background reading: Jost, John T., et al. "Political conservatism as
motivated social cognition." Psychological Bulletin 129 (2003):
339-375. Available online here.
Cottonwood Investments, Part 2
May 10, 2011
On February 15, 2009, I posted an essay
about how cottonwood trees had short-term investments (rapid growth,
numerous seeds, short life span, cheap wood), in contrast with the
long-term investments of oak trees (slow growth, fewer seeds, long life
span, strong wood). The cottonwood type of investment makes sense for
environments in which a tree could not expect to live very long. Strong
wood and a long life span make little sense for a tree that lives along
a river, where a flood is likely to destroy it in a century or less.
At the time, I drew the obvious analogy between cottonwood investments
and those of the financial services corporations. Corporations such as
banks and AIG were, in fact, fixing us the way a rancher fixes many of
his bulls. The "financial meltdown," as it is now popularly called, was
largely caused by corporations investing as if there were no future.
Their prophecy fulfilled itself.
Now, we are supposedly recuperating from the recession. I am not
convinced that we are doing so. To build an economy that has long-term
resilience, we need to grow like oak trees and not like cottonwoods.
Many individuals and families, desperate to protect their long-term
interests, are spending less money, building up their savings, and
paying down their debts. This is what we need to do. Then along comes
the government, guided by big corporations (even the "Change We Can
Believe In" president relies on them), and tells us that we need to
spend more. The recovery must be "consumer-driven." And, in fact, many
people have gone right back to big spending, happy enough to feel
patriotic about doing so. We are switching back to cottonwood spending.
But it is not just in financial terms that we are failing to build a
resilient future. It is in everything we do. Corporations, eager to get
back to massive executive compensation, are cutting back on
expenditures -- mainly by cutting back on quality. I am not the only
one to notice that "durable goods" are no longer durable. Appliances
used to last for a long time. But now you are lucky if they last more
than a few years. The government defines durable goods as those
intended to last more than two years -- and industry now happily
provides us with things that last no more than two years, whether
through flimsier components or through light inspections. Here is just
one example. I have always bought and used pressboard bookshelves from
discount stores, and I do not expect them to be robust. But I have
noticed that the ones I bought and assembled in the 1990s have survived
two moves, while the ones I bought last year (from the same retail
corporation) are falling apart in the very place that I assembled them.
I have even noticed it in education. As a university professor, I have
long attempted to train students to think and to have a solid knowledge
of the science that underlies the world. This will, many educators
believe, give students the flexibility to adjust to a world in which
new facts will emerge and a marketplace whose technology will change,
during their lifetimes. But many students want to learn as little as
possible and receive as many points as possible with as little work as
possible. To them, education is an investment, but not a long-term one:
it is merely a way to get certified to get a job. In an economy with
high unemployment, a college degree is more important than ever.
"Just give me the freaking A," is the unspoken (at least to
me) message. They treat classes as mere impediments to getting a
degree. While this situation has always existed, it is now stronger
than ever, possibly because of the increasing individual assertiveness
in our society today, possibly because of the students' anxiety about
finding a job when they finish. Many of them are working to pay for
their education, and they demand courses where they can get an A by
studying the couple of hours a week that is left over from their jobs
and limited recreation.
Corporations, and students, are insisting on developing themselves as
cottonwoods rather than as oak trees. This can, alas, mean only one
thing: that they are simply assuming that there is no long-term future
for which we should bother to prepare.
Disruptive Energy
May 18, 2011
The accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is clearly
causing the Earth to retain more sunlight energy than it has in the
past, with the inevitable result of global warming. This fact is no
longer disputed by anyone who has fully acquainted themselves with the
facts and is not receiving money from the coal and oil industries.
And we all know that the result will not be simply a gradual and gentle
accumulation of warmth. It will be disruptive. In particular, there
will be more strong storms as global warming progresses. This is why
climate scientists now refer to it as climate disruption or climate
destabilization rather than simply climate change. Already the number
of extreme weather events has been increasing, and scientists predict
this will continue.
Whenever you add energy to a system, disruption occurs. The release of
energy from a system is less likely to be disruptive, except for
explosions of high energy materials. You already know this. If you heat
a pan of water, you can see the currents of hot water beginning to
flow, the dissolved gases to come out of solution as bubbles, and then
a relatively sudden boiling. On the other hand, when you turn off the
heat and let the water cool down, the water is still, as it gradually
radiates and conducts and evaporates the heat into the surrounding
environment.
We also see this principle at work every spring. Warming temperatures
cause storms to brew. This is why thunderstorms and tornadoes are much
more common in the spring and early summer than in late summer and
autumn. Winter storms result from weather fronts, as do many summer
storms, but in the spring and early summer local conditions (such as in
Oklahoma, where I live) generate their own disruptive weather as well.
Autumn is relatively calm as the weather cools off.
We see an analogous situation in politics. It is usually, though not
always, the conservatives who infuse anger into political discourse,
with disruptive results, in contrast to the progressives, who usually,
though not always, appeal to reason and compromise. Political conflict
is nearly inevitable when one side insists that our only choices are to
do everything they want or to do nothing, which is a position found
almost exclusively on the conservative side.
The Republicans are trying to lead us into a world of hot, disruptive
energy--in which anger is the appropriate response to every challenge,
and in which the global climate is disrupted.
Biodiversity and Noah's Ark: The
Solution You've Been Waiting For
May 26, 2011
I have sometimes wondered if the indifference that many creationists
feel toward rescuing biodiversity from extinction is that they do not
want to believe there is very much of it. In particular fundamentalists
must believe that there have never been more animal species than could
fit into Noah's Ark.
The obvious problem is, how could two of every kind of animal fit into
the Ark? This question has been asked thousands of times on websites
and in blogs and books, including several of my own, which criticize
creationism. The dimensions of the Ark are fairly well specified by
Genesis (there is only so much leeway that you have in defining the
length of a "cubit"). Creationists believe that Noah had all of the
species of dinosaurs on the Ark also, since dinosaurs had to be alive
before the Flood and Noah took two of every kind onto the Ark--though
dinosaurs apparently became extinct in the post-Flood environment. We
know that this is what they believe, for kids sit on saddles to ride
dinosaurs in the creation museum run by Answers in Genesis.
The problem is that scientists keep finding the bones of new species of
giant dinosaurs. It's not just brontosaurus (Apatosaurus)
anymore; it is Supersaurus and Ultrasaurus and Argentinosaurus.
How
would
a
pair
of each of them fit onto the Ark? Creationists have an
answer: hibernation. Noah could just pile them up, and not have to feed
them, if the dinosaurs came in and fell asleep. This would require a
miracle, not recorded in Genesis. But creationists have no problem just
making stuff up. However, creationists would need to make up a lot more
miracles than just hibernation. How can you physically fit all of those
giant dinosaurs in the Ark? If you take the volume of the Ark and
divide it by the number of species, you find that there is, in fact,
space for all of them. But in order to use that space for giant
dinosaurs, you would need the following miracles. First, God made all
of the giant dinosaurs turn rigid. Then, God levitated them. Then, God
guided them into slots, as if He were playing Tetris. If you admit the
possibility of these miracles, then the problem of space on the Ark is
solved. And to creationists, made-up miracles is an unlimited resource.
I would like to suggest a much more elegant approach for creationists
to use, one that would be harder for evolutionists such as myself to
answer. The approach is for creationists to assume that God is like Dr.
Who. Dr. Who had a time travel spaceship called TARDIS, which stands
for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. On the outside it looks like
a British police call box (a blue phone booth for police use). But
inside, it has infinite volume. Now, if Noah and family built an Ark,
then God changed it into a TARDIS, then there would be plenty of room
for everything inside--and only a single big miracle would be
necessary, rather than lots of little ones.
I'm just trying to be helpful to the creationists. I hope they
appreciate it.
This essay
also appeared on my evolution
blog.
Built to Last
June 1, 2011
During
my years of teaching, I have repeatedly noticed a disturbing pattern:
That it tends to be the most religious, often creationist, students who
do the sloppiest work in class, and who are the most likely to cheat
(e.g. through plagiarism or by making up data for a project they are
supposed to do on their own). This upsets me because, back when I was a
conventional Christian, I believed that any poor behavior on my part
reflected badly on Jesus. As a continuing admirer of Jesus, I still
feel that way.
I suspect that the answer is that they believe in a God who
did a half-assed job making the world. When he slapped the world
together in six days, about 6000 years ago, he never intended for it to
last. He always knew that, after about 6000 years, he was going to just
burn it all up anyhow. Why should he build a strong house on a firm
foundation if he is just going to use it for a movie set? Now, of
course, they won't actually say this, or even admit it to themselves,
but I suspect that it is the motivation behind their thinking. And
guess what. That 6000 years is mostly up. If Jesus is coming back in
this generation, and is going to burn everything up, then why should we
bother doing professional work right now? I wonder if these particular
students in my classes are really preparing for a career or just to get
started in a job that will not last very long because the end of the
world is coming. I wonder if maybe some preacher has told them, "Don't
save for the future! Go ahead and give me your money now!"
The oak tree, the alder tree, even the cottonwood tree build
trunks and roots that will last at least as long as their allotted
lives.
I mentioned this idea briefly in my evolution blog on October 28, 2009.
How to Reduce Our Impact on the Earth
June 18, 2011
I
must be on the mailing list of every environmental organization. I
frequently receive from them many "gift" items that I did not request
and most of which I cannot use. You have probably had similar
experiences. I do use the wall calendars that they send. But the
others? Greeting cards. Pens. Notepads. Mailing stickers. Christmas
tree ornaments. Dream catchers. (Well, that last one was from an Indian
school in South Dakota.) Of course, all of these items are
environmentally friendly, made from recycled paper, etc. I feel bad
about recycling these items, or throwing them out when I cannot. But
what else can I do?
As I have noted in these essays as far back as September 21, 2008,
the best way for us to reduce our impact upon the Earth is to use less
stuff. The word, considered almost treasonous in the modern economy, is
frugality. Rather than to use notepads made out of recycled paper, I
can just use the backs of old papers. Instead of driving a hybrid car,
I can just drive less.
Economist Kenneth Boulding said that to believe in unlimited
growth in a finite world you either have to be a madman or an
economist. Economic (and population) growth has to end somewhere. It
would be political suicide for any candidate to favor economic
equilibrium or steady-state (they would call it stagnation) over
economic growth. But we, as individuals, can reduce our impact the most
by just using less material and energy. In the long term, we will
continue to experience recessions that counterbalance economic growth,
and with any luck the result will be equilibrium rather than collapse.
Civilizations of the past have experienced collapse, whether
gradual or dramatic. Of course, they had much less information about
how the world works than we do. But they had enough. The Chaco Canyon
civilization in what is today New Mexico could see their trees
disappearing. Furthermore, many people ignore the mass of information
we have today about our impact on the Earth, such as the evidence of
global warming. Our scientific insights seldom translate either into
legislation or into lifestyle changes. We may gradually collapse, as
did the Chacoans, the only difference being that our collapse will be
well documented.
We need to be content with using less material and energy.
This is something that even environmentalist organizations seem to not
completely grasp.