Ibon wrote:Can this ever change?
A big problem as far as values go is that the US notion of rights was formed on the basis of manifest destiny back when the US was one big unexploited pie. That's where "pursuit of happiness" comes from. That's where the worship of free market capitalism and rags to riches stories comes from. You would need to update the constitution to bake in constraints on consumption in acknowledgment of tragedy of the commons. So sure, there is still a notion of a "commons" in US government, but it is largely reactive, like imposing water-restrictions when things get close to the brink, or designating national parks here and there. There is no line being drawn at an individual level on how much common natural resources they should or shouldn't consume.
A technocracy might at least allow us to crunch some numbers, as inconvenient as they may be. Human footprint numbers. Environmental impact numbers, etc... This has been done to some extent but it falls upon deaf ears. Even Plant lives with cognitive dissonance between whining about AGW on the one hand and feeling entitled to fly around the world on the other. Plus he keeps bagging on Obama's environmental record while running defense for Trump, who has the most corrupt and damaging environmental cabinet in history. (I keep pointing this out not so much to attack him personally but because for someone who has been here all these years, he should know better. If he can't escape his own cognitive dissonance and petty conservative tribal loyalties, how can we expect anyone else to do so?)
So it's not even a US problem as much as its a problem of human cognition. It requires a concerted effort to transcend that human flaw, as it were.
I mean even here on this forum you simultaneously have people who seem to grasp limits to growth and at the same time believe in various quack conspiracy theories. It seems somehow impossible for humans to really clear away the bullshit and see the world as it is. We fall prey to all sorts of falsehoods. It's that vulnerability that leads people to believe AGW is just a lefty scam or a bunch of a greedy scientists looking for funding, etc...
I just can't stop circling back and pointing the finger at
human nature. I don't think it's due to any sort of top down elite propaganda thing, because smart people aren't swayed by propaganda in the first place. The problem is we're just too dumb and selfish. And I don't buy into noble savage fantasies ala Ishmael. I think this is who we all are and always have been. Just been waiting for the right conditions to manifest, the sugar dropped in the petri dish.
And really, these articles that pop up now and then (more in european MSM than US these days) warning about catastrophic AGW consequences come and go without moving the needle. The arctic ice cap is melting away. Greenland and Antarctica are following suit and
nobody gives a flying fuck.
Hicks in the bible belt roll coal and
block Supercharer stalls and wear MAGA hats. Even problems like mass shootings are going on unaddressed with no resolution between those for and against gun control. If we can't even fix that we can't fix anything more macro-level.
There is simply no light at the end of the tunnel in any of this. The only positive development (and it's a modest one at that) is the rise of EVs and even that is experiencing speed bumps due to Elon Musk's mismanagement of Tesla.
So I really don't see any sort of proactive moves being possible at all. I see things being serendipitously helped by shifts in buying habits (like EVs) and the rest is going to be reactive.
Sea-walls and border walls with shoot-on-sight orders ala Earth 2100.