Looking Forward

                                                                                                              written 19 Dec 2021

                                                                                                          published 26 Dec 2021

                                                                                                                                         

            As we come to the end of the year, it is traditional to consider what we would like to change in the new year.

            I would like to see the US get serious about the climate crisis.  Despite the record-breaking weather extremes of the past year, adversely impacting every part of our country, there are people who still doubt this is real, or that there is anything humans can do about it.  People who know better, but still think they can make more money from "business as usual", fund the media, sowing doubt, leading the faithful to their own doom.  I wonder how bad it has to get before folks question their blind devotion to the sources of information that care so little for their fate.  When that awareness comes, will it be too late?

            Getting serious requires reducing atmospheric carbon emissions by 50% in the next 96 months, necessitating doubling or tripling renewable production in that time period.  Getting serious would be adequately funding the transition away from fossil fuels, so that everyone benefits from the change, not just the wealthy.  Getting serious is recognizing that we could all go extinct in a few decades, no matter who you voted for. 

            I would like to see the US come together about Covid.  Despite having free, effective vaccines, only 72% of the country is fully vaccinated, and only 31% have had a booster.  With colder weather, and increased holiday gatherings, the average US daily case load and daily death rate are 50% greater than three weeks ago.  This is beginning to stress hospitals in some areas, and omicron, the more contagious variant, has yet to sweep through.  

            But these averages hide disturbing details.  Counties that voted more heavily for Trump have lower vaccination rates, and three times higher per capita death rates, indicating that people are choosing not to deal with the pandemic.  We even see this locally with organized unmasked groups performing political drama in local businesses, supposedly asserting their individual freedoms, while treating their neighbors badly by ignoring the collective health issue.  Such arrogant refusal to recognize their responsibility to the society that supports them bodes poorly for successfully avoiding climate extinction.

            I would like to see America recommit to our democratic ideals.  Most of the Republican leadership has embraced cult authoritarianism, completely abandoning any pretense of program, integrity, honesty, or cooperation.  I hope Republican voters realize their leaders are only working for the billionaire class, not for the rank and file, and choose to no longer vote for them.

            I would like to see our society shift away from prioritizing money over real values, such as kindness, charity, compassion, beauty, happiness, peace of mind, art, and music, to name a few.  Everything is focused on lowest, short term costs and increasing growth, which are foolish and unsustainable on a finite living planet, creating a society which is angry, obese, anxious, ill, and unhappy.  Even our democracy is threatened by those that want to keep the system of exclusive gain running a few months longer, while the people and the planet are crying for attention and change.  Globally, eight white men own as much as the poorest 3.6 billion people.  The Navajo's say of such greed, "they act like they have no relatives".

            I would like to see humanity respect the value and rights of other living beings and biological systems.  Fifty years ago, humans were consuming 100% of the annual productivity of the Earth, and that over-consumption is currently 170%.  This is completely unsustainable, destined to crash at any time.

            These all seem like unlikely changes, but I believe most people really want a world that is peaceful, healthy, and fair.  I have no idea how we get from here to there, but holding that as an intention is a start.  Recognizing the unsustainable, fundamental dysfunction of our current economic model is a start.  Acknowledging that all people and beings deserve respect and consideration is a start. 

            I am not a religious person, repelled by the history of hypocrisy, pain, and killing resulting from such rigid ideas.  But I feel the fundamental connection of reality.  Until we all begin to live from that unity perspective, our species is on borrowed time, with little future.  My New Year's resolution is to live life as if we are all sacred.

Caterpillar And Butterfly

                                                                                                              written 12 Dec 2021

                                                                                                          published 19 Dec 2021

                                                                                                                                         

            A caterpillar is an eating machine, focused exclusively on consumption, much like a capitalist corporation.  But unlike a corporation, a caterpillar is a living organism, part of a larger process.  At some point it stops consuming, forms a protective chrysalis, and totally dissolves, making way for the emergence of a butterfly.  The butterfly begins forming around multiple "imaginal buds" within the dissolved goop.  The caterpillar immune system attacks these growing buds as enemies, which accelerates the assembly of the butterfly.  A similar process may be at work within humanity.  

            Modern humans first emerged about 300,000 years ago, slowly increasing population to 20 million 10,000 years ago when agriculture began.  Increased food productivity allowed more rapid population growth, and we hit one billion in 1800, the beginning of the fossil fuel age.  Then population grew exponentially faster.  Humans reached 2 billion by 1930, increasing to almost 8 billion today, with another billion within the next 12 years.  Not only are there more of us, the technological revolution has amplified our impact, so we each consume more in the way of food, resources, and energy.  Exponential growth on a finite planet is unsustainable.  We are consuming the Earth to death.

            This situation has been written about, with increasing alarm, for decades, but like a mindless caterpillar, relentless consumption and economic growth prevailed.  We are now experiencing the leading edge of the collapse of our fundamental biosphere. 

            As I write this, the mid-west is beginning to assess the damage from a wide spread extreme weather event, including an F5 tornado that stayed on the ground for over 200 miles, ripping the heart out of every community it touched.  Climate change is getting harder to deny, as the impact and costs increase every year.  Species are going extinct at unprecedented rates.  But perhaps there is a butterfly waiting in the dissolving goop of what we used to call normal.  What might that butterfly look like?

            The root dysfunction of our old civilization is belief in separation between individuals and nature: acting as if exclusive gain at the expense of others and nature was progress.  The consequences of this flawed model are now increasingly obvious all over the world.  This suggests an alternative: a new civilization that embraces the profound, sacred connectivity of reality, an ancient perspective still honored by indigenous cultures.  If we apply the technical knowledge that we have gained in the last few thousand years toward the nourishment of all life on the planet, imagine what we might accomplish!

            There is no model within human history for this kind of massively aware, cooperative society, but we can look to living systems for inspiration, since life has been dealing with these same issues for billions of years.  Looking to life for inspiration is called biomimicry.  Our own body, a large multicellular organism, is a wonderful example of the kind of collective that might arise on Earth: becoming a self-aware planet.  In such a connected system, killing the other is the same as suicide, so we could eliminate all the resources, anxiety, and energy currently spent on "defense", and those organized systems could instead work to clean up the messes we have created, improving the quality of life for all beings.  In a connected world, extreme wealth inequity would be recognized as a form of dangerous illness, like gangrene in the body, not something to envy or praise.  Humanity has expanded to the point of driving all other species to extinction, disrupting the larger order in the same way that obesity causes other bodily systems to fail.

            This vision requires a change within our dominant human awareness, which may seem impossible.  But this message has been taught for thousands of years.  Next Saturday is Christmas, honoring the birth of Christ, who stated that the most important commandments were: "Love God" and "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:30 & 31).  This is an affirmation of the unity of life, which is found in every spiritual tradition on Earth.

            We each have the power to choose to live in this unity perspective.  This is the butterfly emerging.  All the people who hate, and are working to stop this from happening, trying to preserve the old exclusive order, are just like the dying caterpillar immune system.  But that system is gone.  The future is the butterfly.

 

Concept And Experience

                                                                                                              written 5 Dec 2021

                                                                                                        published 12 Dec 2021

                                                   

            There is a contrast between concept and experience.  

            Concept is defined as ideas, or stories, that are fundamental building blocks of principles, thoughts, and beliefs.  Whenever you are thinking, you are in the world of concept.  Concepts are not of the moment, even though you are thinking in the moment.  The stories we hold about our past are all concepts, as are the fears, hopes, and plans we have about the future.  When you start to investigate your inner landscape, you will find that most of your attention is involved in concepts. 

            Experience is in the now.  It is the direct perception of what is happening in this moment.  But upon investigation, our experiences are quickly interpreted within the vast array of concepts that make up our description of who we are.  For example, I look outside and see one of our cats perched on the cat condo.  The direct physical experience of perception is immediately framed as "outside" and "cat", which are concepts that give me definition in relationship to my ongoing reality.

            There is nothing inherently wrong with this process, but it is important to notice that we experience in the moment and conceptualize outside the moment.  If we aren't paying attention, we can mistake the concept we create for the experience that initiated it, and believe they are the same thing.  It is in the experience that we engage reality, but it is in concept that we create our understanding of reality.

            This can work in reverse as well.  I am a woodworker, and make things.  I am strongly rooted in the conceptual, and carefully visualize what I want to make, and plan out the details and sequence of construction.  However, when I have completed my project, I sit and observe what has been created, because the reality of the piece is different for the conceptual plan and vision that guided my work.  In that moment, I experience the piece rather than the concept that guided it coming into existence.

            Experience is the natural domain of most living beings.  One of the transformative steps in the evolution of modern humans was the development of language, which was the beginning of concept.  Language is abstract sounds, given conceptual meaning within the group that speaks that language.  Writing of language came much later, and was just as transformative a step as speaking.  The first writings were very limited, and were often just stylized pictorial representations.  Alphabetic writing systems were another step into concept, as the individual letters no longer had any relationship to the words they convey, but the simplicity of the system allowed an explosion of literacy within the society.  Writing allowed wisdom gained from experience in the moment to be shared across space and time, but it deepened the immersion of humanity into concept, and allowed a distancing from experience.

            Humanity is now so steeped in concept that people can believe they know something about reality because they have embraced a detailed concept.  However, the experience of breaking a bone is quite different from the concept of breaking a bone.  There is a relationship, but they are not equivalent.  The conceptual portion of the brain is good at discerning differences and sequences, which are essential for gathering meaning from the written words.  But it is easy to mistakenly generalize such differences to the larger world, with possibly disastrous consequences.  For example, President Reagan said "if you have seen one redwood tree, you have seen them all," conflating his limited concept of a redwood tree to the reality of all redwood trees.

            Another significant conceptual obsession was the creation of money, which allowed an expansion of trade by creating a concept of value that could be easily shared within the community that agreed with the concept, even though money has no inherent worth.  These days, most money doesn't even exist in physical form.  But civilization is willing to sacrifice all real values for more of this concept, to the point of killing real people and the entire planet.

            Concept is a shallow reflection of the reality of experience.  It is a powerful tool, which has allowed humanity to out compete all other species, and expand across the planet to unprecedented scale.  But we have lost touch with the natural world that we arise from, and still depend upon. 

 

 

 

Corporate Limitations

                                                                                                              written 28 Nov 2021

                                                                                                            published 5 Dec 2021

                                                                                                                                      

 

            Wikipedia defines a corporation as "an organization authorized by the state to act as a single entity.  One of the most attractive advantages business corporations offer to their investors is limited liability, meaning a passive shareholder in a corporation will not be personally liable for obligations of the corporation, or for torts (involuntary harms) committed by the corporation.  There is significant concern that limited liability in tort may lead to excessive corporate risk taking."

            The last line is significant, because limited liability is a fiction in the interconnected real world, where all actions have consequence.  As capitalist theory has devolved over time, the corporate obligation has been narrowed to prioritize only shareholder returns, without regard for any other part of society.  In fact, a special category of corporation had to be created to allow a company to consider employee, social, and environmental concerns, in the face of shareholder legal pressure for maximum short-term return on investments.

            The limiting of liability encourages investors who might be too cautious to make more speculative investments, thus furthering economic development, but it legalizes irresponsibility.  When the impact of a corporation's actions exceeds the valuation of the limited liability, the corporation has no further fiscal or legal responsibility, which means someone else has to pay the price.  This capitalizes the profits, and socializes the losses.

            For example, a mining company can operate until the profitability of the deposit drops, then declare bankruptcy and close the mine, leaving a mountain of mining tailings leaching toxic waste into nearby rivers or groundwater.  The investors in the company have taken the profit, but leave the extensive cleanup costs to "someone else".  A more recent example in the news is abandoned oil wells.  Thousands of wells that are no longer economically profitable have been abandoned without incurring the cost of safely plugging the wells.  The consequences of such irresponsible, but legal, corporate actions are born by the larger society in the costs of an actual cleanup, or in a degraded environment and higher health care costs if nothing is done. 

             Two methods have evolved to minimize the social costs of corporate irresponsibility after the profit is gone: regulations to address the issue before it occurs, and taxes to extract funds in advance.

            Regulations, with the power of legal penalties, impose limitations on corporate activities that are risky or socially expensive.  This forces mitigation costs to be factored into the profit pricing structure while there is profit to be made, which actually saves money overall.  For example, it is cheaper to remove pollution from water during a manufacturing process than it is to try to treat ground water after it has been polluted.  The difference is who foots the bill.  But regulations can be difficult to define and time consuming to pass into law.  In addition, corporate economic power quickly captures regulatory boards, which are subject to political forces, shifting the system from preventing harm to the society into one defining how much harm will be permitted. 

            Taxes are the other way society defends against corporate irresponsibility, providing funds from the profitable portion of the economy to pay for the social and environmental damage done by irresponsible corporate activities.  This is less targeted, since all profit making is taxed to pay for the actions of a few.  But it does fund some cleanup costs, which would be even more costly if left unaddressed.

            Republicans, who are quick to point out the "moral hazard" of giving people health care or extended unemployment benefits, never address the moral hazard of legalizing corporate irresponsibility.  They focus on the exclusive gain portion of business, completely disregarding the social costs.  As a result, we have been subjected to decades of attacks on "job killing regulations", without ever considering why these regulations were imposed in the first place.  There has been a similar long-term assault on taxes.  

            Capitalism looks for the profit in any activity, then expands to maximize the take, and the economy has benefited as a result.  But the unaddressed costs have expanded as well, and have now reached the level where they can no longer be ignored.  We are eroding the habitability of the entire planet in the pursuit of short-term profits for a few.  If humanity doesn't address this imbalance on our own, nature will surely address humanity.  There is no planet "B".

 

 

 

 

Transcending Trauma

                                                                                                             written 21 Nov 2021

                                                                                                         published 28 Nov 2021

                                                  

            Dr. Gabor Maté, a Canadian physician specializing in healing trauma, has the following message.  

            "Trauma is not what happens to you, it's what happens inside you.  Trauma can also be inflicted by what doesn't happen that should happen.  When your needs aren't met, that can wound as well.  Even though you weren't overtly hurt, you're still wounded by not having your essential human needs met." 

            "If the trauma is what happened to you, it'll never unhappen.  But if trauma is what happened inside you, the wound you sustained is the meaning you made of past events, the way you then came to believe certain things about yourself, or the world, or other people.  The trauma is the disconnection from your authentic self, and that can be restored at any moment.  We don't have to allow trauma to define our lives, how we see ourselves, how we see the world, how we relate to other people, how we relate to possibilities, how we relate to even spiritual transformation."

            A huge percentage of families (estimates range from 60 percent to 95 percent!) are considered emotionally dysfunctional, suggesting that most people have been traumatized, under Maté's description, and disconnected from their authentic self.  This helps explain the history of our species. 

            The traumatized forget we are all one, we are all unique, and we are all created from the same stuff despite all our differences.  Your authentic self is who you truly are as a person, an honest representation of yourself through your thoughts, words and actions.  Authenticity is a value that makes us an individual and, simultaneously, part of the oneness of existence, a multidimensional universe of inner connection.  Being your authentic self means you make your choices based on your inner knowledge and personal experiences. (Wikipedia)    

            In a traumatized state, a person is operating as a "conditioned self", locked into a defensive shell of old stories, unable to respond freely to the events of life.  Without awareness that the "inside" and "outside" are both parts of the same whole from which everything arises, the "outer" world becomes a screen upon which all the unresolved inner issues get projected.  For example, a person with deep unresolved anger issues tends to see reasons to be angry everywhere they look, and then wastes their energies attacking the "problem out there", with no resolution possible.

            This dynamic has endured for thousands of years, through successions of civilizations and empires, which have all failed eventually.  The last two centuries have seen the amplification of this process by increasingly powerful technologies, bringing us to the brink we're experiencing today.  Facebook, Fox News, and international corporate monopolies are examples of this.  All over the world, the conflict the "conditioned self" projects on the "other" is destroying not only societies, but the biological viability of the entire planet.  

            From a traditional point of view, this is a disaster with no good outcome.  But if we understand that the root issue is the unresolved trauma most of us carry, then we can view all this as an opportunity for global transcendence: an evolution of consciousness.

            Despite Trump being such a powerful example of the selfish individual writ large, he really only amplified issues that have been endemic in this nation since its formation: racism, misogyny, economic inequity, and plunder of the biosphere.  Trump and the GQP have no solutions for the problems we face, but they appeal to the masses of folks who are oppressed by the real inequities of our system.  It is a fair critique that the corporate dominated members of the Democratic party are just as clueless in the face of our mounting crises.  But there is growing popular support to address the monumental changes required to really have peace on Earth, and goodwill toward all life.

            We live in a time where changes to life-long patterns are demonstrably possible, ranging from 12 step programs to the Gabor Maté's work with trauma.  The same powerful technological connectivity that is currently dividing humanity is also creating powerful new channels for change.  The global nature of COVID has brought an end to much of the old ways of life, and we will never return to the previous "normal", but that reality was heading toward disaster even before the pandemic.  We are facing unprecedented challenges, demanding a new paradigm for humanity.

 

 

 

 

Contemplation On A Sunny Day

                                                                                                              written 14 Nov 2021

                                                                                                          published 21 Nov 2021

                                                

            I start writing my column every Friday, giving me two days to polish it, before submission on Sunday, when the previous article is published.  Between Sunday and Friday, I spend the days not thinking about what to write, allowing ideas to surface, or not, trusting that "something" will arise on Friday.  

            This Friday was a beautiful sunny day, and I spent time on the deck, enjoying the lovely green vista to the south, very much at peace with life, and grateful for the moment.  But I didn't have a "topic", and my mind churned.

            Of the almost eight billion people on the planet, three thousand are billionaires, while three billion live on less than three dollars a day.  How much is enough?  Why don't people share more?  Christ taught love of God, so how did a "good" Christian become defined as God fearing?  Free market capitalism is supposed to enhance competition and produce fairer prices and better service, so why are most industries controlled by 3 or 4 massive corporations?  Why is the company formally known as Facebook, currently valued at over $100 billion, so popular, yet thrives on discord, hatred, and disinformation?  With health care and climate change two of the most popular concerns in the US, why is so little changing?

            For my own peace of mind, I sit meditation twice a day.  This practice pulls me out of my endless mind chatter, giving me a break, and allowing inspiration to softly speak to me from time to time.  From that perspective, I can then re-engage with the larger world, with perhaps some insight as to what to do and where to do it.

            One of the messages is to "allow", trusting that there is a larger pattern in play, beyond what I currently understand.  As a chronic "doer", this is a difficult practice for me.  But I have come to understand that there is really only one person I can have much effect upon, and that is me.  I can change my own awareness and practices.  I know that is true, as I have had some success over time, and I am not driven by all the same patterns and obsessions that once were dominant.  It is a simple truth, but not easy to accomplish.

            But that means being at peace with "what is", for the most part.  That is not to say that there is nothing relevant to do, but I have to accept what is before I can even consider what to do.  Sometimes that requires a hard look at what is, without glossing over embarrassing or difficult parts.  I think that helps explain the right-wing reaction to so called "critical race theory".  We are God's chosen people, so we can't have made such a mess of things getting here.  It must all be a treasonous lie!

            But America has always been more of an ideal than the accomplished reality.  Try reading Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States".  Our ideals are noble and worthy of admiration and effort, but they are radical compared to most of the history of humanity.  We have to admit that we are a long way for equal treatment under our laws, without regard for wealth, race, or gender.  If we can't honestly see where we are, we have little hope of getting any better.

            One of our biggest stumbling blocks is the idea that we are a land of rugged individualists.  While honoring the individual is important, it is a fallacy to think that we are nothing more than individuals.  I have stated many times in this column that our core delusion is the belief in separation within a fundamental unity reality.  We are both self and society, self and planet.  But we have prioritized self to the extent that we are killing each other and the entire planet.

            This issue has been around for thousands of years, and leaders have pointed out the problem for all that time.  However, we are slow learners.  While it is hard to kill a good planet, we are too numerous, and too powerful, to be this ignorant much longer.  

            So, I sit on the deck, and appreciate the lovely sunny day.  We wake up, or we don't.  If we do, we have a lot of work to do.

 

Global Impacts

                                                                                                                written 7 Nov 2021

                                                                                                          published 14 Nov 2021

                                                

             A 6 mile diameter asteroid hit the northern edge of the Mexican Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago.  The Chicxulub impact released 100 million megatons of energy, throwing glowing debris into the atmosphere, raising surface temperatures to killing levels and starting fires all over.  Dust blocked the sun for months.  About 3/4 of the species living at the time died, including the dinosaurs.

            The theory of an asteroid impact ending the dinosaurs had been around for some time, but the first impact evidence was published in the late 70's, with the report of a thin layer of soil enriched with iridium, an element rare on Earth but common in asteroids.  This layer, found around the world, also contained grains of quartz that had been deformed by a high pressure shockwave, and had soot from massive forest fires.  In 1990, the crater was located, despite being buried under deep sediments, using gravity field measurements and seismic profiling.

            Humanity has produced several global impacts of our own, although over longer time periods and with a lot less energy involved. 

            From 1951 until 1962, humans detonated 528 nuclear devices in the atmosphere, releasing over 400 megatons of energy, the equivalent of 29,000 Hiroshima sized blasts.  The winds distributed this radioactive material around the world.  Kodak noticed that the film it produced was fogged at certain times, and discovered it was associated with tests in Nevada.  The company had enough economic clout to demand the government let them know when a test was scheduled, so they could halt production, even though none of the people living downwind were notified. 

            To this day, all the steel smelted since atmospheric testing began has traces of radionuclides.  Very sensitive radiological instruments have to be made from steel smelted before 1940.  One of the largest sources are the 52 German war ships sunk at the British Navy base of Scapa Flow in 1919, after the first World War.  

            Another global human impact is the wide spread pollution by plastic.  Since 1950, over 9 billion tons of plastic have been manufactured, 380 million tons in the last year alone.  Plastic trash has been found everywhere, from the peak of Mount Everest to the depths of the Mariana Trench.  While undigestible, the molecular structure of plastic breaks down into small pieces, creating microplastic, which is now in the air, rain and snow.  Plastic bio accumulates and is in everything we eat. 

            Microplastics entering the human body through ingestion or inhalation can lead to an array of health impacts, including inflammation, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases, and exposes us to chemicals found in plastics that are known to be harmful.  These chemicals, called endocrine disruptors, mimic hormones and have been linked to a variety of health problems, including obesity, organ problems, developmental delays in children, and reproductive issues.

            Chemical contamination is also widespread, particularly the family called PFASs (perfluoroalkyl substances), known as "forever chemicals".  First introduced in 1946 by Dupont as Teflon for non-stick cookware, they are now in a staggering array of consumer and commercial products.  PFASs are used in fire retardants, and oil and water stain repellents in clothing, carpets, and furniture.  They are used extensively to coat paper and cardboard wrappers for fast food take-out food containers and bakery goods.  One of the most widely used class of chemicals, PFASs now contaminate water, and soil, where they never break down and bio accumulate in our bodies.  

            As early as 1956, research began showing health problems.  Very small quantities are linked to cancer, reproductive and immune systems harm, as well as other diseases.  Researchers looking to document this contamination found everyone has detectable levels in their blood, including new born babies.  The only samples found to be free from PFASs were blood the Army had taken before the Korean war, and stored for research.

            The world is connected, and we ignore that fact at our peril.  Business never considers the larger impact of their actions, if they can hide the consequences.  That is the nature of "externalized costs".  They make the profit and someone else pays the cost.  Our technology is so potent that we now see global consequences, including declining birth rates, wide spread chronic diseases, degraded biological systems, and of course, accelerating climate change.  To survive, an evolution of consciousness is required, including whole systems thinking at every level.

 

What Is A Person To Do?

                                                                                                              written 31 Oct 2021

                                                                                                           published 7 Nov 2021

                                                      

            As I have written before, the consensus of climate scientists is that we must make a 50 percent reduction in atmospheric carbon emissions within the next 8 years (less than 100 months!) in order to have any chance of avoiding a runaway climate emergency leading to complete economic collapse and possible near term human extinction.  Conditions are changing so rapidly that some feel we need a 75 percent reduction within 3 years!  Climate disasters in the US continue making headlines across the country, with economic impact beginning to approach $1 trillion per year.

            It is estimated the complete decarbonization of the planet will cost about $20 trillion, which means the US would have to invest $400 billion per year (only half the Pentagon budget) for the next 8 years, to hit the 50 percent mark.  

            Despite all that, with atmospheric CO2 concentrations still increasing every year, "business as usual" is fighting to avoid admitting there is even a problem.  The CEOs of the major oil companies recently testified before Congress that they never denied climate science, despite decades of funding the deniers.  Supposedly "moderate" Democrats are working against funding even $50 billion per year to address the climate emergency.  

            I still believe that enough Americans across the political spectrum are beginning to realize we really are all in this climate crisis together, and will vote the obstructionists out of office in order to support a concerted effort to preserve a habitable planet for our grandchildren.  But I have overestimated the political sanity of our country many times before.  So, what is a person to do?

            At one level, it is important to sit with the idea that we may already be too late.  I hit that mark several years ago reading the extensive scientific literature about abrupt climate change, such as McPherson's book "Extinction Dialogs".  It took me months to come to terms with the idea of near-term human extinction.  I noticed how much of my conversation and thinking presupposed an ongoing future.  It made me more aware of my daily activities, and sharpened my appreciation for the beauty of life.

            Our cultural pathology, which has difficulty addressing even individual death, has no place for contemplating death of our species.  As I have aged, I have made some peace with my own death, and appreciate that I have had a good life.  But much of my acceptance of personal death is balanced by the assumption that someone will still carry on.  That civilization will endure, even as I exit as an individual.  Letting go of that was another level of grief.

            Joanna Macy, in her "Work That Connects", is clear that our primary work is grief work.  Feeling it, embracing it, honoring it, and transforming it into a deep experience of healing, love, and gratitude for this beautiful planet and all the life forms that share it with us.  This deeper appreciation can renew us in the task of doing what can be done in the time remaining, for we are not extinct yet.  

            Corporate capitalism, rooted as it is in the illusion of separation and the fallacy of exclusive gain, can't rescue itself from its own extractive excesses.  There is no more time to waste pretending the fiction of the "free market" will save us, or that "business as usual" must be preserved.  The Titanic is sinking, and society must begin preparing the lifeboats.

            Even the larger business community is beginning to recognize this fact, as the looming tidal wave of the climate disruption builds each year.  Shareholders are beginning to demand climate assessments in corporate business considerations.  Insurance companies are starting to ban some of the worst climate polluters from further coverage.  Hedge funds are asserting their awareness that a dead planet is bad for business.  Some states are stepping up to the task of climate leadership.  This trend will only grow as the reality of the climate impact accelerates.

            There is no certainty of success.  Humanity may indeed already be dead and just too distracted to know it yet.  But it is worth trying to transform our economy and society.  For such a global issue, a viable solution must be massively inclusive, transcending all the illusions of separation humanity has used to define ourselves so far.  

            What an interesting time to be alive!

 

 

Killing For Power And Profit

                                                                                                              written 24 Oct 2021

                                                                                                          published 31 Oct 2021

                                         

            Two weeks ago, John Arteaga commemorated the 20th anniversary of the 9-11 attack.  I spent the day watching the news, feeling an ominous shift in the world.  Years later, details surfaced that were contrary to the official version, some mentioned in Arteaga's article.

            In the history of steel framed skyscrapers, only three buildings have completely failed due to fires, and they all happened in New York on 9-11.  The wide spread news coverage shows that all three buildings started to collapse at the top, and then fell into their own footprint at free fall velocity.  Only two of the buildings were struck by planes.  Despite this rare failure, no detailed structural investigation was conducted.  The owner made a 40:1 return on his investment.

            Even questioning the official story is treated as pushing conspiracy theories, lumped in with flat Earthers and those who doubt the moon landing really happened.  When I have tried to discuss this with people, a common response is "who would do such a thing?"  Obviously, someone with no regard for the "other", in a quest for exclusive gain of power and money.

             History is rife with examples of killing for political gain, going back to the beginning.  It is the last escalation in the domination game and the foundation of war.  After the 9-11 attack, President Bush the younger, who squeaked into power by a Republican Supreme Court power play (dramatic foreshadowing?), was suddenly popular, and even won the popular vote in 2004, the only Republican to manage that in 32 years.  The country lurched to the right, civil rights were curtailed, and we poured $7 trillion into the military industrial complex, destroying stability in Afghanistan and the middle east.  While not proof of government involvement, the attack did advance key Republican goals.

            There is also a long history of individuals and corporations killing people for profit.  In the 50's, the tobacco industry aggressively denied the hazard of smoking, despite copious in-house research.  Smoking still kills almost 500,000 Americans per year.

            In the late 70's, Ford had a design problem with the Pinto gas tank, and fifty-nine people died.  The company decided it was "cost effective" to pay the resulting law suits, valuing a human life to be worth $200,000, rather than recall the Pintos and make the $11 repair. 

            In the 80's, the fossil fuel industry used not only the same play book as big tobacco, but even the same public relations firm, to sell climate denial in the face of in-house research showing fossil fuel combustion damaged the environment.  Current estimates are that at least 250,000 die each year from the degrading climate, with an increasing risk of near-term human extinction.

            In late 2020, after more than 500,000 died from opioid overdose in the previous two decades, Perdue Pharma admitted "knowingly conspiring to dispense medication without legitimate medical purpose".   

            A very recent example is Fox News.  In mid-June, new COVID cases in America had declined to 10,000 people a day, with about 300 people dying each day.  The vaccine had become widely available, and it looked like the economy could begin to recover.  Businesses were opening to customers, and masking restrictions were eased.

            Fox News decided to demonize the vaccine in order to enrage their conservative base.  They not only popularized false information about the vaccine and urged viewers to NOT get vaccinated, but also railed against vaccine mandates by governments and businesses.  The result was a slowing of vaccination rates at a time when the delta variant was sweeping the country.  Daily cases and deaths peaked again in mid-September and are slowly drifting lower. 

            Since the beginning of the Fox tirade in June, another 135,000 Americans have died, and our daily death rate is still 1,700, which is a 9-11 death toll every 42 hours.  Most of those dying are unvaccinated, and a large percentage are Fox viewers.  Fox contributed to killing their own viewers in order to energize their political base and maximize their right-wing viewer share, which is the point of their business.  The irony is that Fox News instituted a vaccine mandate early on, and all the on-air hosts shouting against vaccination were already vaccinated themselves.  

            Who would do such a thing?  Now we know.  It is baked into the economic system which believes the fiction of exclusive gain.

 

 

 

 

 

Not So "Just-In-Time"

                                                                                                              written 17 Oct 2021

                                                                                                          published 24 Oct 2021

                                             

 

            Our society suffers from the fundamental flaw of perceiving the world as separate parts, and the economic limitations of capitalism are symptomatic of that error.  These express as: degrading every value other than fiscal, social disruption from extremes of exclusive gain, destruction of natural resources, and increased economic risks from chasing short term profits.  The rise of "just-in-time" supply system, which arose in Japan in the 70's, is an example of the last. 

            Previously, businesses needed to have adequate in-house supply of parts and materials to ensure their own production flowed smoothly.  This inventory, and the required warehouses for storage, tied up funds.  Toyota began reducing this expense by coordinated production throughout their supply chain, so parts were produced and delivered as they were needed: just in time.  The savings were significant enough that the practice eventually expanded globally.  This approach depends on good estimates of product flow, a reliable global delivery structure, and a stable economic environment, but reduces resiliency to unexpected changes: short term gain with increased long-term risk.

            As "just-in-time" was expanding, the manufacturing world was concentrating into fewer and fewer companies and facilities.  In some cases, a single plant would be producing an item critical for a host of industries around the world, increasing the vulnerability to unexpected events.  In 2011, an earthquake in Japan caused a fire in a plant that produced a majority of the global supply of an epoxy critical to the manufacture of semiconductors.  This caused widespread disruption and price hikes while other companies scrambled to ramp up production. 

            The COVID pandemic affected the entire global economy, with business closures and social lockdown occurring everywhere at the same time, with little warning.  All levels of businesses were hit by a simultaneous loss of workers and loss of customers.  The resumption of business, as the surges passed and the vaccine arrived, has been spotty at best.  Just being open for business doesn't mean customers show up, and not all businesses resumed production at the same pace.  The smooth functioning of the just-in-time system has yet to return.

            One example is the backlog of ships waiting to unload at west coast ports.  Before COVID, LA would have one or two ships anchored offshore waiting for one of the 60 berths.  Now there are over 80, with little developed infrastructure for such magnitude.  The recent southern California oil spill was caused by an anchor snagging a buried oil pipeline, causing it to rupture.

            Odd shortages are now normal.  A friend on the coast, working on a plumbing project, said he couldn't find PVC elbows anywhere.  Glass is in short supply, and lack of bottles has affected many businesses, from small vendors to big ones, like McCormick spices, which has slowed production due to lack of the glass jars they need.   

            One of the largest disruptions is in the automotive industry.  When travel shut down, the rental car industry sold off their inventory, to save money.  Now that people are beginning to travel again, demand has increased.  However, the automotive industry hasn't been able to ramp up production fast enough, so there is a shortage of rental cars, and used car prices have leaped.  One of the limiting issues is a shortage of the semiconductors needed for these modern vehicles.

            The most powerful computer chips are only manufactured in Taiwan, even though the technology was developed in the US.  It takes about 9 months, from beginning to end, for one of these chips to be created.  When the economy shut down, so did the chip manufacture.  When the economy began to recover, the demand was greater than their ability to respond.  In addition, Taiwan is suffering a climate change induced drought, creating serious water shortages.  The semiconductor industry requires massive amounts of very clean water, further slowing production increase.

            Our previous economy was based on a stability that is no longer.  Increasing resource depletion, accelerating climate change, and ongoing geopolitical upheaval threaten to continue and enhance the disruptions we are now experiencing.  We will have to re-localize our essential systems, produce more of our critical needs within the US, and within our county.  We have to economically reward people who are doing "essential" services, rather than exporting the labor overseas, and curtail the economic excesses of exclusive gain, which bankrupt the country and create social unrest.

 

 

 

 

Personal Choice

                                                                                                              written 10 Oct 2021

                                                                                                          published 17 Oct 2021

            Biologist E. O. Wilson said: "the real problem of humanity is that we have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology".  

            The paleolithic emotions are the flight/fight response rooted in the limbic system at the base of the brain.  When activated, by either real or imagined events, the body shuts down higher thinking processes and suppresses immune and digestive functions.  When this becomes chronic, we are more stupid, sicker, and weaker. 

            The medieval institutions are tribal structures that fear the "other", working to dominate them and the world through dogmatic rules and punitive social/religious forms.

            The technology created by the scientific revolution amplified this medieval human perspective.  But the rise of quantum mechanics a century ago created a paradigm shift, recognizing that the world is fundamentally whole, in constant resonant relationship.  In the last few decades, technology arising from this physics has given us the godlike powers of total annihilation with nuclear weapons, and instantaneous global connection with the Internet of computers.

            We are biologically and socially inclined to be fearful and insular, within a society shaped by technology reflecting our fundamental connection.  This tension creates the multiple crises of our day, demanding a complete transformation of human civilization, including our personal evolution.

            Philosopher David Spangler writes: "the distinction and boundary between our inner and outer worlds simply is not there.  We cannot foster a whole world if we are divided in ourselves.  We cannot walk our spiritual journey divorced from the physical well-being and wholeness of each other and of our world.  It is a shared path, a mutually dependent path."

            “From this perspective, the climate crisis can be seen as involving both the outer climate of the planet and the inner climate of our minds and hearts.  As wildfires are raging in the world, so also anger and hatred are raging in our inner lives.  As floods are swamping the land, so also fear swamps our inner stability.  It’s not a matter of dealing with one or the other but rising to deal with both.  The wholeness of the world is not divided between human and non-human, organic and inorganic, the spiritual and the material; it is one world sharing one future."

            "What we are facing is as much a crisis of consciousness as of climate.  It is a crisis of who we believe we are, a crisis of changing to be the kind of humanity the planet needs us to become.  In this area where we face the inner manifestations of the climate crisis, none of us is powerless.  Here we can do something to learn, to grow, to change.  In the process, we also discover how to act in ways that will build a new world with a new way of being human within it.”

            The current drama around Facebook is an example of the conflict between divisive form operating in a connected reality.  It began 17 years ago as a program to rate which college coed was prettier, prioritizing superficial form over true worth.  Today almost 3 billion active customers use the connectivity of the program to share information and pictures.  Valued at one trillion dollars, Facebook makes money by capturing customers attention and selling that to advertisers.  The longer it holds your attention, the more it profits.  However, internal company research, which has recently been leaked by company whistle blowers, documents the adverse impact this business model has on mental health of individuals and society.

             While Facebook rightly states that it is not responsible for the content of the posts on its platform, the damage comes from the way Facebook holds your attention by manipulating what you see next.  Their deep analysis showed that sites with higher degree of conflict in the comments are more engaging to the paleolithic flight/fight response, mindlessly holding attention longer.  A powerful computer algorithm selects similar sites as suggestions of what to see next, without regard for the accuracy of the information.  By intentionally amplifying discord, Facebook rapidly spreads inflammatory disinformation, which threatens the fabric of society by increasing political polarization, all in the name of short-term profit.  Godlike power, serving medieval institutions, without regard for consequences.

            While Congress is considering how to respond, we can take individual action by refusing to participate and delete our Facebook account, exercising choice about where we put our attention.  It is a start.