2012: time to drop the heavy mood, dude?

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My problem is I feel compelled to do something about the stuff I read. This holiday season I finished off Jared Diamond’s 2005 bestseller, Collapse, How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail.

For those who haven’t read the wildly popular book (almost kidding), the ironically named Diamond takes us on an historical mining operation, uncovering the buried cultures of the Easter Islanders, Anasazi of the U.S. Southwest, Mayans, Norse Greenlanders and, of course, probing our modern trading nations.

There’s a pattern to his findings: cultures flourish, create complex vertical trading societies in which the wealth generated by the many is harnessed by an elite few who exploit the resources of the commons, over-tax their land and their people, and eventually fail, leaving the land barren and their societies in ruins. One of his key conclusions is that failing societies underestimate natural ecosystems, instead, tying themselves to traditions that limit new ways of thinking and innovation.

Diamond shows us that failing cultures are those most blinkered by their own paradigms or mindsets. He lists a few paradigms of our own at the end of his book. These include, “technology will solve our problems,” “if we exhaust one resource we can always switch to another” and “past gloom-and-doom predictions…have proved wrong. Why should we believe them now?”

I think we can recognize along with Diamond the false thinking in these views. A look at the environmental degradation and mass extinction of life over the past 50 years tells the actual tale of our “progress.” And the most real and present danger is putting economic progress ahead of protecting the natural environment from our own industriousness.

The biggest problem we face is the depletion of fossil fuels, which power everything we do, from production to reproduction. By 2040 or so, we will have run out of the easiest sources. To that point we’re already chasing the hard-to-get stuff right here in New Brunswick with natural gas fracking (which earned us a whopping $606,000 in royalties last year) and vastly more environmentally destructive tar sands in Alberta.

Canadians are also currently fighting a war in Afghanistan, not for democracy, but to secure the route for the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) natural gas pipeline, which will provide an alternative to the existing Russian-owned pipeline and bypass troublesome Iran. The objective is to prevent either Russia or Iran from holding the West hostage to their energy routes. And that’s why our Canadian soldiers are dying, and why American soldiers have been dying in Iraq since 1991.

In other words, the paradigm is to take control of and exploit the last remaining fossil fuel reserves on the planet. The investment in this effort dwarfs by far any investment in developing alternative energy systems. Meanwhile, the petro-energy companies doing the work are among the most profitable ventures that have ever existed.

Our global economy requires 80 million barrels of oil a day to feed. This non-renewable resource allows us to enjoy a complex, interdependent trade economy that, despite its powerful output, also happens to be very fragile, as we saw in the 1973-74 OPEC oil embargo that brought the world economy to its knees.

Today, we are entirely dependent on global trade to feed, clothe and support ourselves. Just 60 years ago we could have survived, albeit painfully, without world trade since much of what we needed we could still produce locally. Not any more.

The 1970s oil embargo is a prequel to what we’ll increasingly face over the next three to four decades and beyond. Meanwhile, we’ll also be dealing with the other side of our obsession with fossil fuel: the massive waste, over-consumption, chemical pollution on a global scale and, yes, climate change.

One would think a change in paradigm would be in order, perhaps something more in tune with natural ecological functions. But no. We’re still chasing the technological-innovation dream that leads us to this year’s biggest disaster (and one that’s not going away, except in the media), Fukushima.

So what’s the underlying problem and possible solutions? It’s simply the fact that we are merely another opportunistic species that has succeeded too well. We know how to invent tools to exploit the environment and our fellow creatures (including other humans) to produce offspring (7 billion and growing), wealth and social status. We’re just genetically hardwired to do it.

Can we change in the face of the looming collapse of our global civilization? Yes, I think so. But to survive, we are going to have to radically rethink what we’re doing.

First, we need a new ethical paradigm that puts environment above consumption. Second, we’re going to have to desktop, or re-localize, our economies. Third, we need to invest in and build alternative, non-polluting energy sources now. Fourth, we’re going to have to move from a 4-year political view to a 40-year political view, which would require abolishing both party-style partisan politics and corporately-dominated politics from our political systems. Those are not easy steps.

Can we do it? Can we redirect this Titanic fast enough?

Yes, I can hear it now. “Geez, man. It’s the New Year. Can’t you just lighten up a little?”

I guess I could. I'd just rather not have my grandkids singing "Auld Lang Syne" for civilization 50 years from now.

How one woman’s sense of entitlement changed the world

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I made the mistake of reading the comment section under a National Post editorial. The piece was knocking Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty for his alternative energy program (which I happen to support). But some of the comments had me wondering about the mental capacity of Canadians, such as this:

“Leftist policies cause disaster because they aren't capable of thinking things thru, in any area. Millions died in Cambodia because of an incompetent vision for society. About 8 million Ukrainians starved. Rethink things like garbage and recycling policies. Climate change policies would cause a world of harm for no intelligent reason.”

I admit the comment does have a certain irrational poetic appeal. But its wildly gyrating scope is astonishing. Apparently “leftist policies” (not people) are responsible for the worst human atrocities including harmful climate change policies—and dealing with garbage and recycling. Uh, well OK. One can’t help but admire how the commenter brings new meaning to the phrase, “no intelligent reason.”

Online experiences like these are about as pleasant as wandering into a thicket of burdocks.

Other than the Internet exposing the illiterate, illogical thinking of ordinary Canadians, one wonders how these lines of thinking got started? How did this rapidly reactionary seed get planted? Well…

Ayn Rand was a Russian immigrant who moved to Hollywood to write screenplays and novels. After two unsuccessful novels she hit pay-dirt with “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” in which she laid out her philosophy: that ego, talent and hard work trump ethical altruism, and that the rewards should go to those superior beings who most deserve them. The books are an unbridled defense of laissez-faire capitalism vs. evil collectivism, the individual vs. the state, and promote material ambition as the motive force of humanity.

Rand's ideas found resonance in a generation of leaders that included Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, economists Alan Greenspan and Milton Friedman, and of course our own Stephen Harper, and shaped the basic framework for both neo-conservative and libertarian ideologies.

Just in case you’re not up on your ideologies, neo-cons and libertarians favour deregulating business and lowering taxes on the wealthy. They believe everyone has the opportunity to work hard and achieve wealth. Those who don’t work hard enough deserve to remain poor and suffer the consequences. According to Rand and her followers, the wealthy and successful should not bear the burden of supporting the idle masses.

I admit the Randian philosophy of constructive greed has a certain appeal if one already has wealth and privilege. But somehow I don’t think it’s been working out too well for the poor, who are already burdened with significant disadvantages from birth.

But, wonder of wonders, the very group of people—the poor—who should be most incensed by Rand’s philosophy are often its biggest supporters. A lot has been written about this, the general consensus being that the American (Canadian) Dream is predicated on the notion that everyone has the opportunity to become a billionaire in our “free” society.

Sure. So, the six heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune will be dividing up $69 billion, which is equal to the net worth of the entire bottom 30 percent of income earners in the US. It’s hardly surprising to note that the Walton family has been lobbying aggressively to cut estate taxes. And the effort is working. The same sort of pressure from wealthy families is happening here in Canada.

So what are the chances of the poor becoming the wealthy? The odds are against it. Whereas incomes for the top one percent of income earners grew by 275 percent, they only grew 18 percent for the bottom 20 percent between 1979 and 2007. And from 2000 to 2007 the incomes of the middle and lower income groups have actually declined. In the words of Rand, "What are your masses [of humanity] but mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned for those who deserve it?"

Meanwhile, instead being educated, the so-called masses are fed a steady diet of Fox and Sun disinformation by elite-serving Randophiles like Sean Hannity and Ezra Levant.

And where has 40 years of Rand-informed politics taken us? To Thatcherism and Reaganomics and deregulation of business that inevitably led to the financial meltdown in 2008. To Iraq, Afghanistan and other points in the Middle East for other people’s oil. To a senseless War on Terror, the erosion of civil liberties and the steady expansion of police state powers. To the widening gap between the rich and poor. And the dismissal of real collective dangers such as climate change.

In a twisted bit of irony, Rand’s early recoiling from Russian collectivism and subsequent proselytizing for free market capitalism has led to the equal and opposite reality: totalitarian capitalism. Her theories have led to corporate-run collectivism rather than the state-run variety. Yes, Rand has managed to change the world. Now it’s run by a different set of power-hungry bastards.

Why should Ayn Rand matter to you and me? Simply because we’re still being directed by the invisible hand of her philosophy as we speak.

Christmas shopping viewed from the other aisle

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It was a really eerie moment. I was shopping in a nearly empty Wal-Mart store a couple of days ago, and I got the strange feeling I was walking around inside a church. I was overcome by a sense of complete peace, surrounded by every consumer good one could ever need sprawling out in front of me.

But all I needed was a few rolls of paper towels, and as I checked out I noticed that most of the employees were people I’d never hire. Many were older, a few had big tattoos, some of the men had long hair tied back in ponytails. A few of them seemed to have handicaps. All of them were just plain folks.

So, I wondered, what could possibly be wrong with any of this picture? There I was, surrounded by super-affordable, reasonably high quality stuff served by people who otherwise couldn’t find jobs. It seemed like the most democratic setup going. Needless to say, the epiphany was quite different from my usual reflex, which is to dislike everything about Wal-Mart. So why was this trip so different?

Well, I somehow managed to change my point of view from being some kind of social critic to simply being a person who was grateful for everything available to me. And with so much of it around I felt no desire whatsoever to purchase anything at all.

In fact, the effortless abundance helped me appreciate the stuff I already owned, some of which I’ve kept for decades. Occasionally I remember that there’s a sanctity to objects that transcends the physical, like the spirit of a carpenter’s favourite hammer or a beautifully functioning chrome toaster that might work flawlessly for a quarter of a century or more with minimal care.

That evening we were sitting around after dinner and the phone rang. It was a “customer service” call from one of our banking companies. The service rep, a rather bright and assertive woman, was, from her accent, actually a telemarketer based in India, who was trying to sell me our bank’s new life insurance product. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, except we’re on the Canadian no-call list—our bank gets around this as we’re customers—and it was supper time.

What did bother me was the outsourcing of Canadian jobs by my Canadian bank. Couldn’t we Canadians do the same (annoying) work and keep the wages here? I asked myself. And of course we all know the answer: it’s cheaper to hire these workers overseas. And in a global economy, it’s all fair game, at least according to the big companies.

But what would we think if our Crown corporations such as NB Power started doing the same thing? What if they began hiring Chinese contract engineers to redesign Point Lepreau? Or contracted out to an Indian firm to operate the plant? Sure, we New Brunswickers would probably pay less for their services and be able to buy power more cheaply. But we’d all know that we’d be building a false economy.

So why is it OK for our Canadian banks and other commercial entities to do the same thing?

It was then I reconnected to my earlier Wal-Mart experience. It’s not the Wal-Mart commercial outlets or its marketing model that bothers me; it’s the offshoring of all the production that bothers me. And that’s not all Wal-Mart’s doing, it’s the producers: the television and electronics manufacturers, all the clothing and toy companies, all the makers of trinkets and housewares and tools and just about everything we buy except maybe food. And even a lot of that is imported.

Meanwhile, Peter Kent, our Canadian Minister of the Environment, just informed the media that Canada would not be renewing its commitment to the Kyoto Protocol to minimalize climate change because, and here’s the sticky detail, the developing countries such as China would get a temporary free ride while we’d have to clean up our emissions first. So, I guess he’d rather have no agreement at all, at least for the time being. Meanwhile Canada will provide $300 million in aid to help nations develop cleaner and more efficient energy technologies with a matching amount in loans to trigger private sector development. Well, it’s better than 30 pieces of silver, I suppose. But not much.

On the other hand, I doubt it’s escaped anyone that we are the ones consuming all those products produced in the “developing” countries. So, if China is completing a new coal-fired generating station every four days as is popularly noted, who’s funding them? We are, directly, every time we purchase a Made In China product. And China now uses, according to the New York Times, more coal than the United States, Europe and Japan combined, making it the world’s largest emitter of gases that are warming the planet.

So all of us, and Peter Kent too, have offloaded our climate-saving responsibilities on that nasty China, while we continue to gobble up everything the Chinese can mass-produce for us. How nice. And just in time for another Christmas.

And if you’re reading this, you’re welcome, Wal-Mart managers. But you might try buying a hell of a lot more at home.