From Thoreau to Thoreau

This morning, in my visit to my phenology journal, I ran across this about Henry David Thoureau:

"His [Thoreau's] records of flowering times at Walden Pond -- 160 years ago -- show us that spring now begins three weeks earlier than in his day." -- Emily Stone

This passage caused me to pull "The Winged Life: The Poetic Voice of Henry David Thoreau," by Robert Bly off my shelf.

Bly writes, "In 1859 he [Thoreau] began defending John Brown in his lectures. In October of that year he announced a lecture on John Brown at the Concord Town Hall. When the Republican Town Committee and the Abolitionists both advised against it, he replied to them, 'I did not send to you for advice, but to announce that I am to speak.' When the selectmen refused to ring the bell, he rang it himself." (pg. 143)

I'm confident today, given that atmospheric C02 levels are close to 410 ppm and the consequences thereof, Thoreau would support Deep Green Resistance and other so-called radical environmental organizations.

Anxiety and Collapse

"Anxiety is nothing but fear inspired by an imagined future collapse. It is the failure of trust."-Thomas Moore

A few questions come to mind after running across this quote this morning. What kind of future collapse do you imagine? Where should we put our trust to alleviate the general feeling of anxiety in this day in age?

Letter to the Editor 7/20/09

I wrote a letter to our local newspaper's editor this week.

Honesty

It was refreshing to read "Oil Prices Rising and as Supply Falls", by Dave Thomas from The Ashland Daily Press last week. It was especially refreshing to read this line at the end of his article: "As Oil prices climb higher, let's hope we find a third mode to address the challenges ahead. A good place to start would be to re-localize our food and energy production and scale down our community size to stay within local carrying capacity. It will happen anyway--through responsible planning, personal change, and careful transition, or through complaceny, panic, and crisis."

He's right, our civilization is collapsing. Of course, looking back at the history of civilizations in the past all of them eventually do. The question is: what are we going to do about it? Mr. Thomas's letter clearly and honestly states the issues that we have to address if we want this collapse to be less painful than others have been in the past. I'm glad he wrote it. I hope to see more like it printed in The Spooner Advocate.

If I could find the link to the article that I responded to I'd post it.

It was nice to see issues like: human overpopulation, carrying capacity, Peak Oil, local economies, and food production addressed in our local newspaper. Although I was hoping the author would've mentioned civilization. Those problems he talked about that need to be addressed are all symptoms of civilization, for the most part.

Two Authors Two Visions

Recently, over at The Ishmael Community Guestbook, John Kurmann posed this question about one aspect of Derrick Jensen's work to Daniel Quinn:

Post# 15601

This post is addressed to Daniel Quinn:

I first heard about Derrick Jensen's work through a recommendation you made on your reading list several years ago for his book A Language Older Than Words. I thought Language was a deeply moving and beautiful book--still do--and I also admired his next book, The Culture of Make Believe, though its subject was so dark as to make it far from enjoyable for me.

In his more recent work, though, Jensen has expressed his conviction that "[t]his culture will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living" (quoting from Endgame). Based on that assumption, he's argued that the very best those who love the world can do is to try to bring civilization down as soon as possible in a sort of planned demolition, like taking down a condemned building. While I don't agree with Jensen and see no reason to think you do based on my understanding of your work, my impression is that many people with an earnest desire to save the world have read books by both of you and would likely be interested in reading your reaction to his clarion call for us to "bring it all down."

Here was Daniel Quinn's response:

In ISHMAEL (pages 105-110) I dubbed our civilization "the Taker Thunderbolt," a badly designed aircraft that began in free fall and is still in free fall--in the air but not in flight. Nowadays, Ishmael says, "Everyone is looking down, and it's obvious that the ground is rushing up toward you--and rushing up faster every year. Basic ecological and planetary systems are being impacted by the Taker Thunderbolt, and that impact increases in intensity every year. Basic, irreplaceable resources are being devoured every year--and they're being devoured more greedily every year. Whole species are disappearing as a result of your encroachment--and they're disappearing in greater numbers every year. Pessimists--or it may be that they're realists--look down and say, 'Well, the crash may be twenty years off or maybe as much as fifty years off. Actually it could happen anytime. There's no way to be sure.' But of course there are optimists as well, who say, 'We must have faith in our craft. After all, it has brought us this far in safety. What's ahead isn't doom, it's just a little hump that we can clear if we all just pedal a little harder. Then we'll soar into a glorious, endless future, and the Taker Thunderbolt will take us to the stars and we'll conquer the universe itself.' But your craft isn't going to save you. Quite the contrary, it's your craft that's carrying you toward catastrophe. Five billion of you pedaling away--or ten billion or twenty billion--can't make it fly. It's been in free fall from the beginning, and that fall is about to end."

Derrick Jensen sees as clearly as I do the disastrous impact the Taker Thunderbolt is having on our planet. It is at this point that our visions diverge. I would like to avert the crash if at all possible by making the "passengers" of the Thunderbolt understand WHY the Thunderbolt can't stay in the air–and never could have. I want them to understand this for two reasons: first, to get them working on making the Thunderbolt airworthy, and second, if they can't do that–if the Thunderbolt crashes–to make sure they understand that they must not just BUILD IT AGAIN. Jensen merely wants to accelerate the crash. My point is that, if that crash were to occur tomorrow, the people of the world would, I believe, immediately begin rebuilding the Thunderbolt, putting themselves in a position to repeat the catastrophe once again someday in the future. As I say, I would like to avert the catastrophe; but if that's not possible, I would like time to make as many people as possible understand WHY it happened and that we must not just start doing it all over again. Jensen puts his faith in destroying civilization; I put mine in changing minds.

Awakening to the Insanity of Civilization

Here is a really good essay by a young psychiatrist talking about his personal journey after coming to the realization that civilization is not sustainable and is unhealthy.

Quote from article: Early on in medical school, around 1997, I first read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. The book, which explores the origins, history, future and challenges of modern industrial civilization, changed my thinking more profoundly than anything I had read up to that point and exposed me to a number of concepts that would influence my life forever after. Though at the time I may have related more personally to some of the symptomatic consequences discussed by Quinn, ultimately the most fundamental realization to which I was first exposed at that time was the book’s overall conclusion that civilization as a social structure is inherently unsustainable and unhealthy for human beings.

Derrick Jensen's Talk on YouTube

For those of you who aren't familiar with Derrick Jensen's books these two videos are an excellent primer. A few years back I attended one of his talks in Minnesota. The videos and his talk were very similar.

Endgame Video One

Endgame Video Two

If you haven't read Endgame, I highly recommend it! Derrick puts forth a really good argument on why we need to take down civilization as as possible.

Kurt Vonnegut Dies At Age 84

The amazing human being and author Kurt Vonnegut died today at the age of 84.

Here is a really good essay titled: Cold Turkey, that he wrote in 2004.

Preparing for Collapse

Thanks to Willem over at The College of Mythic Cartography for posting this slideshow titled: Closing the 'Collapse Gap': the USSR was better prepared for peak oil than the US, by Dmitry Orlov. Orlov lived through the Russian economic collapse.

I especially like Slide 24: "There are some things that I would like the government to take care of in preparation for collapse. I am particularly concerned about all the radioactive and toxic installations, stockpiles, and dumps. Future generations are unlikely to able to control them, especially if global warming puts them underwater. There is enough of this muck sitting around to kill off most of us. I am also worried about soldiers getting stranded overseas – abandoning one's soldiers is among the most shameful things a country can do. Overseas military bases should be dismantled, and the troops repatriated. I'd like to see the huge prison population whittled away in a controlled manner, ahead of time, instead of in a chaotic general amnesty. Lastly, I think that this farce with debts that will never be repaid, has gone on long enough. Wiping the slate clean will give society time to readjust. So, you see, I am not asking for any miracles. Although, if any of these things do get done, I would consider it a miracle.

It really would be a miracle!

The End of the American Empire

Listening to DemocracyNow! this morning, I caught an interview with Chalmers Johnson about his new book, Nemesis. The last book in his trilogy that includes Blowback and Sorrows of Empire. I've never read any of them, but I've listened to a few interviews with CJ. I have a pretty good idea of what his work is about, and I really like what he has to say. I hope to read the trilogy some day.

The answers to the last two questions that Amy Goodman asked him have really stuck with me. The reason why they have is because basically he is saying there really is no salvaging the American empire and way of life. Here they are:

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Chalmers Johnson, you have just completed your trilogy. Your first book, Blowback, then Sorrows of Empire, and now finally Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic. What is your prediction?

CHALMERS JOHNSON: Well, I don't see any way out of it. I think it's gone too far. I think we are domestically too dependent on the military-industrial complex, that every time -- I mean, it's perfectly logical for any Secretary of Defense to try and close military bases that are redundant, that are useless, that are worn out, that go back to the Civil War. Any time he tries to do it, you produce an uproar in the surrounding community from newspapers, television, priests, local politicians: save our base.

The two mother hens of the Defense Facilities Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the people committed to taking care of our bases are easily Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Dianne Feinstein of California, the two states with the largest number of military bases, and those two senators would do anything in their power to keep them open. This is the insidious way in which the military-industrial complex has penetrated into our democracy and gravely weakened it, produced vested interests in what I call military Keynesianism, the use and manipulation of what is now three-quarters of a trillion dollars of the Defense budget, once you include all the other things that aren't included in just the single appropriation for the Department of Defense.

This is a -- it's out of control. We depend upon it, we like it, we live off of it. I cannot imagine any President of any party putting together the coalition of forces that could begin to break into these vested interests, any more than a Gorbachev was able to do it in his attempted reforms of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.

AMY GOODMAN: Is there anything, Chalmers, that gives you hope?

CHALMERS JOHNSON: Well, that's exactly what we're doing this morning. That is, the only way -- you've got to reconstitute the constitutional system in America, or it is over. That is that empires --once you go in the direction of empire, you ultimately lead to overstretch, bankruptcy, coalitions of nations hostile to your imperialism. We're well on that route.

The way that it might be stopped is by a mobilization of inattentive citizens. I don't know that that's going to happen. I’m extremely dubious, given the nature of conglomerate control of, say, the television networks in America for the sake of advertising revenue. We see Rupert Murdoch talking about buying a third of the Los Angeles Times. But, nonetheless, there is the internet, there is Amy Goodman, there are -- there's a lot more information than there was.

One of the things I have experienced in these three books is a much more receptive audience of alarmed Americans to Nemesis than to the previous two books, where there was considerable skepticism, so that one -- if we do see a renaissance of citizenship in America, then I believe we could recapture our government. If we continue politics as in the past, then I think there is no alternative but to say Nemesis is in the country, she's on the premises, and she is waiting to carry out her divine mission.

What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire

This film looks like it is going to be one of the best I've watched in a long time. You can watch the trailers HERE.

VisionQuest Pictures presents a Storkboy Film WHAT A WAY TO GO LIFE AT THE END OF EMPIREA middle class white guy comes to grips with Peak Oil, Climate Change, Mass Extinction, Population Overshoot and the demise of the American Lifestyle.

What is it doing to us as thoughtful human beings as we face the overwhelming challenges of:

• Dwindling fossil fuel reserves?
• Critically degraded ecosystems?
• A changing climate?
• An exploding global population?
• Teetering global economies?
• An unstable political climate?
• And what is it doing to the rest of the life on this planet?

Featuring interviews with Daniel Quinn, Derrick Jensen, Jerry Mander, Chellis Glendinning, Richard Heinberg, Thomas Berry, William Catton, Ran Prieur and Richard Manning, What a Way to Go will look at the current global situation and ask the most important questions of all:

• How did we get here?
• Why do we keep destroying the planet? and
• What do we truly want?
• Can we find a vision that will empower us to do what is necessary to survive, and even thrive, in the coming decades?