Don Chisholm presents a cogent and clear picture of the green movement.
What is more to the point is the reaction which he has seen from the
general public and from the parishes where the church leaders with whom
he met tried to explain the situation.
I can not argue with the assessment of the earth, today. Where I have a
problem is with the "future". Whenever we have gone to "war" be it with
guns or with science to cure a problem, there has been an "end"- A hill
we could reach and watch the sun come up on a new day-some hope for the
future- an opportunity to strech and breath and move forward to.....
What the "green" visions hold is not such a possibility but the idea
that if we all get behind the movement the human race and the planet can
survive- humans get to live another day. yes, the air will be clean and
the fields will be green and the waters blue. But what of the human
spirit? And there is the rub.
Don says that it is time to stop the metaphysics and get with the
program. But, what the greens offer is not hope but a plan to get us off
a "sinking ship" and onto some island, an idyllic one, perhaps, but a
New Age munchkin land, never-the-less. It's that or destruction
I remember an interview with a worker in the former East Germany where
there was discussion about closing a factory because it was so polluted.
And the worker replied that he would choose a potentially slow death
from cancer rather than a quick death from starvation. And there is the
old story about the African standing with the Peace Corps worker looking
at mining spoils. The African turns to the Peace Corps worker and says,
"let me, first, get my TV and phone and... then we can talk about the
environment."
That is the problem with the "green" movement. It offers only a possible
vision of some stasis in a "village" if we are "lucky" and megadeath if
we follow the path we are on.
I think I would rather put my faith in human ingenuity- take the chance
on humans rather than be caught in some reconstructed vision of the
past. George Land has a seminal book called "Grow or Die". I think that
is what the worker in Germany is saying and what many citizens of the
world are saying. The human spirit and creativity has made many mistakes
in the past and will continue to make more in the future. But humans
learn from their mistakes quickly because intellegence is Lamarkian and
doens't require many generations of Darwinian evolution to change.
One can't argue with Jay's predictions on energy. One can make more
energy efficient "things" and find alternative paths. But to do that one
has to see the benefit beyond survival in some world which seems one
step above that of a Penatante.
Philosophy and Visons are what make us human. If we stop hoping and
aspiring, then capitulation maybe the path.
thoughts?
tom abeles
