The practical manifesto of one of the founding fathers of DIY, ecology, sustainability, alternative education, economy, and democracy, independence frThe practical manifesto of one of the founding fathers of DIY, ecology, sustainability, alternative education, economy, and democracy, independence from Big money, abundance, and a better, brighter, fairer future.
To have the smallest ecological footprint by producing most of the essential things needed for living alone or in cooperation with others in sharing economies was always a big thing, it´s how humankind rolled for tens of thousands of years, before agriculture and cities brought the absurd idea that some owned all land and enslaved the people this way by having to work for them because of taxes, interests, debt, or simply torturing them to death if they refused.
By not being part of a self-destructive, illogical, endless exponential growth consumerism cycle, people don´t only find independence by owning land, not lose money by paying rents after the mortgage is acquitted, but find sense and inner meaning by doing things they love, that keep them going, and activate their flow systems. After realizing that close to all products that aren´t reasonable for basic needs, work, creativity, knowledge, or entertainment, are trash, independent communities are closer than ever before to becoming autarchic.
Tribes didn´t have much fancy tech when they wandered through the ice- and warm ages, but the knowledge of the elder, given to the next generation, now lost forever and getting lost each second as the last torchbearers die and indigenous people are forced to leave the stolen land they lived on for thousands of years and vegetate in slums. Hippies and alternative communities of the last century had the one or other technical advantage, but with 3D printers, nano- and biotechnology, and computer science, software, and the internet, the dawn of a new age has begun. Imagine what all that enlightened young specialists will build together and without stupid restrictions and limitations of outdated economic, political, and democratic models.
It speaks for itself that the idea of holism (and publications like the Whole Earth Catalogue) are so extremely underrepresented and ignored, as they show that close to all of our current societal models are bonkers. Talking and thinking too much about it would lead to too many unwanted realizations, understanding interconnections, and finally the truth of the necessity of a post scarcity economy.
It´s interesting, if one gets a score of over 90 percent or even, let´s just say, hm 98,8 percent, the person would say that this is close to absoluteIt´s interesting, if one gets a score of over 90 percent or even, let´s just say, hm 98,8 percent, the person would say that this is close to absolute. No matter if it is a test, a comparison or whatever. But as soon as it goes like "You know, those missing 1,2 percent are the difference between you and a sh$§trhowing chimpanzee, the person goes like WTF and so on. So, as I always say, we are naked apes and each emotional and brain reaction that is explored in monkeys gives deep insights into our collective and individual nature. The knowledge could lead to a better social design from international organizations to small villages with just a hand full of houses.
Checklists are great, so let´s put monkeys vs humans on a kind of partner finding match list with the same interest. Violent without reason against the own people which harms the whole society? Check. Manipulate and lie around anything that comes just a mile close so some sexy time? Done. The tendency to despotism, genocide and determination wars? Getting closer to a full match. Same emotional reactions concerning love, fear, hate, etc? Got it, monkey owned. Excuse me, but could someone please explain the difference to me again? I mean, even the throwing sh$3 thing seems to be matching, be it verbally or in some rare cases, ahem.
Both the neurological and social development are so closely related that the functioning systems kept growing inside our heads and got probably a little bit modified regarding impulse control, subtleness and intelligence, but nature didn´t change much in this running system. Take away food, shelter and punishment and we are again where we were millions of years ago, extremely dangerous group raiders with an integrated attitude to madness. This is especially funny, because there are no lesser intelligent animals, especially biological very similar mammals, that have the same rate of lunatics that naturally occur because something like a human brain can´t be constructed or civilized without some damage. When there are millions of rabbits, deer, mice or cows, their behavioral anomalies are so few compared to when one puts a few million people together in one place.
One implication is, that like bonobos and chimpanzees, human society has different attitudes depending on the social structure. And as both humans and monkeys keep evolving, many new variants may grow out of the few concepts with the main difference that humans could form an environment for many experiments and plentiful family and social structures instead of the few monocultures we see today. With each acceptable ideology, that doesn´t include harming, discriminating or erasing other groups, many experiments would be possible with volunteer groups of environmentalists, futurists, etc. that want to try out something new. How to prevent them from going the way of sects and extremists might be a tricky topic, but at least the indoctrinated way of how to live would fall apart.
A huge misuse of anthropomorphism has been the tendency to think that we great humans should project our superior properties onto other, "lower" animals instead of considering that it might be that many animals are much smarter, complex and emotional than we thought or wanted to think. Just because human communication got overcomplicated with language, mimics and stuff that doesn´t mean that communications that are based on smell, varying sounds or just hormones aren´t as good, effective and a sign of higher intelligence instead of just instincts, as thought for a long time. With the help of neuroscience and biological markers, the truth can be shown. Tragically, the bad and wrong science of the past was used to discriminate animals and other humans that were both deemed inferior.
The work is primarily focused on apes, but let´s think about other animals, for instance, pigs, cows and chicken or, if they are on the dinner table and the imagination is too irritating, dolphins, octopi, crows, well, anything that has the intelligence and/ or social life to feel. And here comes the cornucopia of ethical, philosophical and sociological questions regarding both our connection to and behavior regarding many animals. Let´s say a scientist would find out or has already found out a long time ago that especially the tortured animals in the meat factories have not just more complex feelings and higher intelligence than supposed but understand the whole context of their situation at each moment.
The work of this outstanding author should be read and spread by everybody, because it opens new, interdisciplinary fields of both natural sciences and humanities and leads to a better understanding of both real and human nature and could help to stop repeating the construction errors and behaving like aggressive alpha males after a few million years of a wild, human adolescence and become adult and wise instead.
Finally, let´s try a self-test that is prooving all theories right. Look, I made this funny, for the sake of your mental sanity censored, list of emotions that would completely control me with full intensity if I wouldn´t be such a highly developed, smart super-duper alpha predator (meditation and mindfulness really help a tiny little bit): bored, stressed, happy, hungry, evil, scared, tired, excited, hungry again, dishonest, sensitive,...
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real-life outside books:
A description of how adults and parents can awake the fascination, love and interest for nature in kids and how mindfulness and sustainability can be A description of how adults and parents can awake the fascination, love and interest for nature in kids and how mindfulness and sustainability can be taught to the smallest that will grow to the decision-makers of the future.
As I like to say, this is a positive example of "Give them to us when they are young and they belong to us forever." and what lies closer, what is more logical, natural and self-explaining than to go outside in the wilderness and just be, examine, walk, hike, wander and absorb all those impressions, smells and unique panoramas and settings. Go, in contrast, in anything manmade, clinical, cold and empty and there is nothing, just the space filled with inanimate objects.
The research of the future will show how strong and important the environments we used to live in since just a few hundred years ago were for our health and how the lack of nature around us influences our mind, body, soul and evolution, what senses we lose and which one we might get. For kids, who are much more sensitive and openminded and live in the ever bigger and faster-growing cities, it might have consequences we don´t even consider yet. We already know much about the general health benefits and the ones for recovering patients, but nothing about the long term health and mental effects of a lack of nature, besides allergies and a much higher rate of psychological problems in cities.
Greening cities, new city planning concepts that include vast amounts of trees and bushes to fight overheating, air pollution and other consequences of climate change, is a great step in the right direction. Could be combined with including animals in those areas and an infrastructure and net of more conservation areas, national parks and city parks so that nature doesn´t have to stay an abstract something one has to drive hours to for a short visit or a holiday, but something omnipresent referring to the fact that we came from there and are nothing without out.
And it hasn´t to be focused just on kids, nobody is too old to learn to love the planet and each individuum whose mind has been opened is a strengthening of the civil society that has to promote a change to an eco-social focus in all regards.
Enjoying a good meal sounds so much better than livelong torturing and killing when fat enough.
Please note that parts of this review are unusually shoEnjoying a good meal sounds so much better than livelong torturing and killing when fat enough.
Please note that parts of this review are unusually short, collected speech notes. Could be offending to some bigoted unknowing victims of cognitive bias too. Go look a pig, chicken, or cow in the eye while eating your freaking bacon, chicken nuggets, or steak.
The adverse effects are not limited to martyred animals and sick consumers, because before that is the exploitation and destruction of vast areas of land for animal feed and environmental damage. The contributions to global warming are manifold. The destroyed forests can no longer fulfill their task in the climate cycle. The methane emissions of livestock are considerable. Transport over the oceans causes immense CO2 emissions. The logistics, industrial processing, distribution, and operation of the meat departments in the retail chains cost tens of billions.
The agony of the animals. Be it the mercifully selected male chicks killed just after hatching, which are unsuitable for laying batteries. The castration of the piglets without anesthesia soon after birth. The narrowness. The cannibalism among the animals. Turkeys can no longer walk properly and permanently tilt forward because they are bred for maximum meat yield. The feces in multi-level laying batteries rain down. Calves are immobilized by being tied down to give the meat the desired consistency. Darning geese are forcibly fed with corn under high pressure. The beak tips of the chickens are cut off so that they do not pick each other in the narrowest space. One needs tons of medication and antibiotics, because the animals hurt each other and get wounds from the sharp and hard environment. Sweeteners, flavor enhancers, hormones, and all kinds of other chemicals are mixed into the feed to increase efficiency. One has to keep in mind that everything is subordinated to the increase in profits. If one cubic centimeter of stable space can be saved or the lining can be pimped with some chemicals, that will be done too.
Once the meat has been consumed for decades, the health costs for the community are added, just as with other, pathogenic habits such as sugar addiction, smoking, and various other substances. The ensuing incapacity to work, early retirement, disability, and long-suffering go at the expense of the general public and the relatives of the incorrigible carnivores.
It´s challenging to estimate whether antibiotic resistance or the plunge of zoonosis is more dangerous. The areas around industrial livestock farms are highly hazardous for health because contamination cannot be avoided. Either via the water or the contaminated dust, germs get into the environment. Moreover, as in hospitals, the messengers of the post-antibiotic age slumber here. If a pathogen manages to make the transition to humans in such large farms, it has resistance against most conventional defensive measures up its sleeves. As already demonstrated with swine flu and bird flu, not much is missing to compose the perfect disaster. It´s only a matter of time. And as long as the pharmaceutical companies shy away from the costly development of new antibiotics, as long as the old ones still work reasonably well, no savior can be expected.
It looks bigoted and mentally ill. In one country, the animals are eaten and in another used as a substitute for social contacts and treated as friends. While no expenses are spared for the pets, the purchaser of meat in the supermarket just looks at the price. Then it doesn´t matter how it came to this bargain. Expensive beef? An impudence! Cat food for a higher rate than human food? No problem. Which increases the pressure on the meat producers to still produce cheaper at the expense of the animals.
In one state or culture, pet owners sit with their favorite pets and eat different animals together. In other countries, the relationship is reversed. No, not that the animals eat humans. Feeding the domestic pig with cat and dog in aspic with pasta in a tomato sauce seems bizarre. However, there is no difference and, strangely enough, such a comparison causes more protest than the fact that meat consumption is a deviancy of epic proportions. People feel personally attacked when confronted, as if the use of corpses is a defensive pillar of their existence. They can´t do anything with the idea of associating something profoundly wrong and contrary to their behavior.
Imagining that the euthanized dogs and cats are mixed into the feed for the vegetarian farm animals, which appears consistently bipolar, is unbelievable too. As if those responsible had learned nothing from the problem of feeding meat and bone meal around BSE and didn´t conclude. The pets are raised to the level of humans, the livestock is degraded to objects, and meat consumption is considered legitimate. However, eat a canary or puppy, or kitten? That is, of course, perverted or even criminal!
Alternatively, suppose one would buy headless torsos from dogs and cats in supermarkets. So once a year everyone buys a considerable dog, and everyone sits together and has a good time, partying and laughing, let´s call it Thanksslaughtering or something. Or one spears the carcass on a suckling pig grill and lets it spin automatically. Alternatively, make the children argue about who is allowed to turn the meat. Or a kitten grill in which dozens of kittens rotate in circles in different cooking stages. In the restaurant: "Saint Bernhard English, raw, medium, done or well done, sir?" Not even a sausage will be eaten if one associates it with meow and wuff, let alone a whole animal. Why does the mere thought of such possibilities make one irritated, while the same cruelty to other animals is taken for granted, unavoidable, Flying Spaghetti Monster given, and systemic? Because it has always been that way, because one is so used to it because Grandpa still had one set up the battle shot apparatus and then you ate delicious pork together and went for a walk in the park?
It is "nice" together as a family, as a childhood memory, to eat a dead animal. Festivals all over the world revolve around it, are impossible without it. See the public and religious holidays practiced in every culture related to grazing animals. Sometimes the slaughter itself is integrated into the ceremonies and rituals. Everyone is looking forward to it for days, it´s sentimentally and nostalgically transfigured. As if people needed a corpse in their midst for the confirmation of their sense of family, which had previously been adequately tortured for a lifetime to affirm their sympathy. Everything is highly ritualized from shopping for food to cooking together with the children. The expectant time until the exceptional food is finally ready. Many adults probably have had one too many and play even more cheerful with the kids. There are gifts. It´s altogether very nice and one wants to do it with own kids later in life too.
Given the minimal animal suffering associated with organic free-range farming and sustainable farming, the question of the absolute benefits of vegetarian nutrition and the vegetarian movement arises. An unrestricted yes in contrast to products from animal factories and with animal suffering. However, what is with exemplary farms that preserve cultural landscapes, practice biological pest control, can be visited by children and school classes, act as graces farms for animals and inspire people? Which are strictly checked for compliance with all production processes? In such cases, giving up on their dairy and eggs harms more than a purely vegan diet would help. Also, why should vegetarians be ashamed of consuming such products if they are extremely low on animal suffering?
Indeed the goal is to exploit no animal at all. Only as a society as a whole develops slowly, for example, from theocracy to dictatorship, monarchy, to militaristic theocracy to fascist dictatorship to social, democratic market economy to neoliberal nightmare, etc., so a change of diet can be made only in the long term. It´s too radical and for many also dissuasive and expensive (organic) to renounce all animal products. Vegetarianism is a useful intermediate on the way to a broad acceptance of veganism. Only until that happens aggressive advertising for new vegans can be counterproductive and could scare people off, arouse in them the fear of being stigmatized by their carnivore friends too.
The author goes through a transformation in the course of the book. Like any average citizen, he has never known the actual dimensions of the problem before, just as the reader who remains baffled after reading. One has eaten meat all her/his life. It tasted good. And now it has got a dark aura associated with environmental destruction, animal factories, industrial agriculture, and immeasurable suffering at every step of the production chain. It literally stinks, and it seems to be surrounded by dark streaks, the associations are no longer sufficiently positive. The symbols of advertisements have got cracks with blood floating from in between.
And sure, the easy way is always the pleasant, joyful one. Procrastination against diligence. Sitting instead of exercising. Passively consuming rather than actively shaping. Eat meat instead of consuming vegetarian food. Lazy evil is strong in us. It is extremely unpleasant, and it begins to tingle in the neck when dealing with such issues. One doesn´t want to have that feeling, preferably displaces it. The fact that we are physiologically composed of this suffering meat, that we are what we eat, is better ignored.
It is easier, as always, to point the finger at minorities. Oddly enough, discriminating against someone because of their gender, skin color, or sexual orientation is just illegitimate. To bask against vegetarians and vegans, on the other hand, is instead a trivial offense. The stigma of militant teachers, do-gooders, and spoilsports is anyway not too politically incorrect. It´s much easier to slander them in this way rather than critically reflecting on their diet. This goes in part so far that they have to justify their children's nutrition and the child's welfare is doubted. While fast-food-consuming people don´t have the slightest need for explanation, supporters of a sustainable way of life must expect a visit from the social welfare office.
So many industries depend on it, so much advertising, so many powerful corporations. Almost everyone is involved. It´s a bit like with oil, media cartels, all monopolies past present, and future. If all people became allergic to meat overnight, the animals and the planet would be helped. The stock markets would collapse. None of the profiteers would allow such a development. It seems more likely that widespread acceptance and, above all, a dominance of animal-free products will result in a PR advertising and marketing war. A triumphal procession of meatless nutrition would be their downfall, and therefore they have nothing to lose. However, probably the producers of artificial meat will destroy the previous top dogs, while they are still busy discrediting exemplary people.
The future sees many positive alternatives to meat consumption. For example, by cloning small amounts from animal donors who do not suffer for it. Alternatively, eat artificially produced meat that works without any animal components. It can also incorporate positive health effects, be individually adapted to the nutritional needs of different groups of people. Ultimately, the mass application and the ever-cheaper technology will make the difference. People will not stop eating flesh because of remorse, instead, the meat will be artificially produced. Also, because this is cheaper than conventional animal breeding, it will disappear. Perhaps at most as a deluxe segment for snobs, it will lead a shadowy existence.
Until that happens, the decisive factor will be the readiness of the population to change. If no renunciation, then at least a reduction. So that meat, as in earlier generations, again becomes an unusual and rare food and from that grows a more responsible consciousness. That, at least, like the indigenous people living in harmony with nature, they pay respect to the dead animal. For being able to continue living thanks to its death.
Moreover, if one's health, as well as ethics and morality, do not affect one, then perhaps the future of one's children and grandchildren do. With unreflective, excessive consumption one cannibalizes these too. The occupation of the meat mincer is not in vain defined as detrimental to enlightenment in Asian cultures. Because she/he works with death. Because interpreted metaphysically, one takes in parts of the souls of the martyred creatures. Whether they continue to scream, become part of one? And one day, after decades of consumption, large parts of one are made of such elements of torment, suffering, and misery?
The peaceful and important protest against a mass extinction couldn´t be shown more disproportionate in mass media.
What extinction rebellion does andThe peaceful and important protest against a mass extinction couldn´t be shown more disproportionate in mass media.
What extinction rebellion does and wants: In contrast to WWF, Greenpeace, Fridays for future, etc., who mainly deal with general environmental and climate change topics, the very dark and depressing facts are brought to a broader audience by extinction rebellion. Things that are not going to happen as the worst-case scenarios for climate change, but have already happened and are happening just right now and.... once again a species extinct. There are no numbers, as no politician cares to create enough jobs for biologists to do fieldwork, so we don´t even know how many we exterminate. So or so many millions, but basically indifferent, because it happens anyway.
Think a moment about how much one hears about oilsand, rainforest destruction, mass extinction, biodiversity loss, etc. in contrast to climate change. The large problem of the instrumentalization of the climate change topic by governments is that they use it to avoid other topics and to a certain extent each NGO has to deal with the problem that people get conditioned to forget the other topics about this omnipresent "Oh my god, the poor polar bear." It´s quite handy for a political party to talk about long-time goals and ignore the problems that could, but shouldn´t, be solved today.
Mass media and governments would never dare to criticize Gandhi, Martin Luther King,... but against a new movement with exactly the same principle to nonviolent, civil disobedience, they dare to use each unfair rhetorical and psychological trick to make the population believe that they are chaotic extremists, close to real criminals.
If there would be any kind of intelligent, sustainable public transport system instead of roads with cars, there would be no such evil possibility as to bring the whole system to a hold for a short amount of time and to be denunciated as anarchistic, dangerous lunatics cause one doesn´t like that nearly all life will die out.
Cause I already mentioned Gandhi, I will add the quote. “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
No matter if it is the occupy Wall Street movement, Fridays for future, alternative political parties or anything just a little bit progressive, it gets flamed, hatetrolled and overaggressively attacked by certain pitiful people. History will show them as embarrassing footnotes before a brighter age began.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this, yuck, ugh, boo, completely overrated real-life outside books:
As other examples like collaborative learning, cataloging, creative commons, sharing economy,... collaborative consumption leads the way to a fairer pAs other examples like collaborative learning, cataloging, creative commons, sharing economy,... collaborative consumption leads the way to a fairer post-scarcity economy.
By enabling each human to become a sharer, host, producer, worker, gardener,... and, most importantly, connected with all kind of people who can do things one can´t do, the fruits of the labor don´t go to the ones who do nothing and just own, inherit or steal. As the taxi industry is confronted with Uber and hotels with Airbnb, banks with social lending, the building sector with independent technicians, credit ratings with a social reputation system based on competence and friendliness, the food industry with self supporters... more and more branches get confronted with a wonderful problem. The people who worked for low wages become independent, share their own homes and cars and help others for a fair price if they have craftsmen or educational skills.
Certainly, there is a huge problem of companies exploiting many autonomous, one person company workers and precarious working conditions are often reported, but that are examples of the old model in new clothes. Cause the platforms offering the services depend on pleased costumers, they need a non-exploitative, sustainable business model. The ones with that change the world for the better and I seldom say something like that about a corporation.
The only thing the state, controlled by lobbies, can do, is to try to delay the development with chicanery and ridiculous laws, but it´s unstoppable. It might get pretty impossible to try to prohibit people to drive their car, rent out a room in their apartment or work with their hands or minds. Of course, the government tries it, as it sabotages all good approaches, but come on, what can they do?
Tax terror for everyone who dares to do that, yes, but no more in a stable democrazy, sorry democracy, of course, that would just match if we would be ruled by... Oh wait, yes. Probably they try to reintroduce a new red scare tactic by telling that sharing a drill, snowblower, chainsaw,... is just one step from Stalin style hardcore communism.
In the farther future, even more sophisticated machines may be produced by independent creative workers, engineers and an increasing number of fab labs. As 3D printing and technology in general advances, more and more will be produced under a free license and without planned obsolescence. Don´t forget aquaponic, producing food, greenhouses and that all powered by sustainable energy, especially biogas, biofuel and other commodities produced in fermenters and bioreactors.
What might seem utopic could be far spread in just 10 to 20 years from now as tech developments tends to accelerate and costs sink rapidly and it opens up one perspective. As soon as a community of enough skilled people comes together to produce everything they need by themselves and sell it to and share it with the rest of the world, this whole endless growth economic circle comes to an abrupt end.
Or all business models and platforms are bought by the existing leviathans and all is business as usual, except that it is probably a bit more humane and motivating inside another kind of hamster wheel with more space to play and be social together and connect, share, unicorns and stuff like that under the brand of a multinational conglomerate that is mightier than anything ever created by humans.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this, yuck, ugh, boo, completely overrated real-life outside books:
A Cascade effect: excessive meat consumption, vast pasturages, monocultures, oil to keep the machine running, environmental degradation, climate changA Cascade effect: excessive meat consumption, vast pasturages, monocultures, oil to keep the machine running, environmental degradation, climate change.
It's not just eating the meat. Only the health disadvantages and ethical aspects. That heavily processed red meat is now being compared to asbestos by the WHO. The unfortunate chain ends in the stomach of a carnivore, but it begins elsewhere.
It is beyond question, how despicable factory farming is. Just the topics relating to huge stables, antibiotic resistance, environmental contamination, spillovers,... are worrying. Concerning climate change, cow farts are the smaller problem. Rather, the amount of CO2 that is released during the entire meat processing process. From breeding, farms to slaughterhouses, the food industry, distribution, logistics and electricity for the refrigerated counters.
To fatten all the tormented souls, one needs the largest monocultures of all time. No matter where, be it in increasingly compressed, over-fertilized, for desertification and desertification predestined areas or in the rainforest. And the food has to be transported by fleets of huge ships.
These ships must be built and maintained, which consumes raw materials. And they drink oil, much of it. From politically unstable regions, which are instrumentalized and even more destabilized. Or from oil and tar sands depletion, maybe soon from the drilling of the untapped spouters at the poles.
It is virtually impossible to eat meat without potentiating this process. Even if one reduces meat consumption and practices self-deceit with the schizophrenic argument of killing only very few animals to calm one's conscience. It is unrealistic that people exercise such self-control. Much worse, the West has no legitimacy to criticize the coming explosion of meat consumption in other countries. That would be the same bigotry as with emissions. And as more and more people consume more and more dead animals globally through cheaper and cheaper meat, it will be no longer hundreds of millions of people consuming meat. But billions with corresponding CO2 footprint.
A silver lining is the progress made in the production of artificial meat. Be it by breeding it in the laboratory or making life-like replicas with the same consistency so that one feels no difference while chewing it. There is also immense potential in insects. And if one has the moral issue between consuming intelligent mammals and critters, the answer should not be, "Yuck, I'm not eating mealworms!". That would be too infantile to stay stubborn with a mentality of just eating what one knows. Not to forget the irony of all the chemicals and food ingredients that are consumed without any protest. And a few little, friendly grasshoppers won´t be such a big deal for model adults. "Eat your maggots kids, or you won´t get dessert." If it would be that drastic, ok, but one even doesn´t recognize the difference, cause it´s in the food.
Foer's emotional and stirring style portrays the subject on a personal level. This methodology already made his novel "Eating Animals" a memorable experience.
PS: It's just about the influence of food. And alone this footprint is so immense. Things like consumerism, energy waste, and generally unsustainable economic models are even worse by dimensions. The masses of literature showing alternatives make hope and motivate to get active.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this, yuck, ugh, boo, completely overrated real-life outside books:
Brand offers realistic solutions, focuses on hard science without fatalism or downplaying, shows how to optimize cities with the main focus on technolBrand offers realistic solutions, focuses on hard science without fatalism or downplaying, shows how to optimize cities with the main focus on technology, alternative tax and subsidy models, and the 2 most essential parts of biotechnology and nuclear energy. Not to forget geoengineering aka terraforming.
He is pro nuclear power and GM crops, 2 topics avoided and hated by the green movement, but essential for a change. Until sustainable energy can produce enough ultimate power, nuclear is needed and much less problematic regarding climate change than fossil energy like coal and being against genetic engineering is so stubborn and ignorant that there is no adjective to describe it. Both topics are reasons why I switched to a more a neutral position (don´t worry, I am still a leftist), am just pushing ideas of great thinkers such as Brand and promoting activism, but warning everyone of participating in the wisdom castrating and mindcrippling stupidity of any political ideology.
The green politicians make no difference between extremely safe, modern reactors with permanent repository sites such as the ones build in Scandinavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_... and just keep repeating how nasty anything nuclear is. Do they think a few toxic wastelands are worse than a runaway greenhouse effect that makes the majority of the landmasses uninhabitable or aquatic? The worse problem is that they, just like the ones who use faith as an argument, are against any unnatural genetic engineering, delaying one of the most important technological innovations, the ultimate milestone for all life sciences, the key to stopping world hunger, possible immortality. They think that because it feels unnatural to them, they have the legitimation to delay the development of crops that could save hundreds of millions of people from malnutrition, starvation, and death.
Of course, there is still much more unbelievable destructive potential in the neoliberal form of how international energy companies and agro conglomerates operate and a change to a sustainable ecosocial business model with a Keynesian post scarcity economic model has to come as soon as possible, but with demonizing the 2 key technologies to make such jumps possible, no consensus can be made. Why should companies try to adapt to such unrealistic, for everyone counterproductive, dangerous ideas that worsen the whole situation for everybody with less food and no electricity?
I can meanwhile fully agree with everyone who is bashing the green parties, as they could have found strong partners in the nuclear lobby, food giants,… who would be very interested in greenwashing themselves and showing that they are really willing to change to a more sustainable business model. If they would have been courted with Brands´ logical, intelligent, and realistic arguments, a solution could have already been found, but instead, the pseudo alternatives are as ignorant and stubborn as the conservatives they are bashing all the time and do as much or even more harm than the companies could do.
And yes, I am so arrogant as to say that I have certain N word privileges https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph... because I have seen and experienced the idiocy of these wannabe hippies live as part of the movement for nearly 2 decades until much reading made me see their mentality as so destructive that I couldn´t bear it anymore, resigned with the insight that everything coming out of politics is poisoned and run by bigots, and changed to NGOs and activism instead. I guess Brand must have had a similar epiphany before deciding to write this book.
What shocked me the most is that, the more books I read and the more I realized that leading politicians are unable to build wisdom by just absorbing the essentials of a few dozens of books with ideas worth spreading and having the courage to not be opportunistic yes-men, they aren´t even realizing how onesided, antiquated, and anachronistic they have become. Yes, companies are greedy, but at least they are not that unable to adapt to new circumstances and meanwhile I see more hope coming out of the economic sector and the civil society than anything out of this pseudo democratic farce.
This is one of the best collections of ideas for sustainable change, if it would be used as a blueprint for future politics, many problems could easily be solved.
Mario the lone bookwolf
>
Books:
0-environmentalism
(67)
Loading...
