ennui2 wrote:Ibon wrote:Our politics divided, those preaching walls and fences and border patrols at the same time as bio-region collapse within borders forces action from those whose empathy and morals demand humanitarian solutions.
What kind of action might that be?
This opens up the question to address the mechanics on how consequences will begin to force cultural adaptation.
I have been considering in more detail the power of human migration. The jewish diaspora, the migration to the Americas starting at the end of the 15th century, the 20th century migration of vietnamese, russians, mexicans, and countless ethnic groups. The dynamic that this creates.
Human migration in the 21st century may very well be defined by failing bio-regions. Rising sea levels, droughts, failed agriculture, rising temperatures, depleting aquifers. Wars and conflicts that will increasingly be secondary factors of these primary forces but all of these examples will create a repetitive current of humans on the move. These migrations will be pure physical adaptation to bio-regions in distress. Memes form through repetition. Language is learned through repetition. Cultural adaption and shifts will also occur through repetition and my crystal ball at the moment sees human migration as that patterned repetition that begins to move culture. It will directly touch on morals and ethics from lifeboat ethics to the heroism and empathy of helping the fallen. Decade after decade this cannot fail but to impact culture.
How do you get from there to actually codifying sustainability? Well, that is beyond my crystal ball at the moment but one thing is certain. Stability will become a value cherished. Maybe, just maybe, the way we cherish consumption today will be the way we appreciate stability tomorrow. Stability will represent peace and oddly, prosperity.
When we get to that point culture shifts toward holding stability as a universal value.
That creates one of the key bedrocks to sustainability.
We need the instability to make us appreciate what a stable biosphere really means.
Remember, today that biosphere is invisible. Just like oxygen, it is only noticed in it absence.
That is the hard road we have chosen to one day elevate the health of our mother as a universal value that people choose to put before consumption. I don't think this works on the rational and logical dimension alone. It is spiritual and existential and frankly biblical in proportions when all of this cuts our global population in half or to a lesser fraction within a century or two.
I am the optimist here right? Well, that is what optimism means!