Conclusion
We can live on without electricity. It’s a convenience.
—Chief Caleen Sisk, Winnemem Wintu
A false premise underlies this book. It’s that people make choices based on the best available information, that when they’re presented with accurate and compelling facts and analyses, these facts and analyses inform not only their personal but collective choices.
That is, of course, nonsense.
A 2016 article in the Washington Post runs under the headline, “Global warming could deplete the oceans’ oxygen—with severe consequences.”1 The article was, given the headline, short on naming these consequences. Let’s fill in. These severe consequences can include the death of all life in zones devoid of oxygen, something already happening across the world. It’s entirely possible this could, along with agricultural runoff and industrial fishing, essentially end fish life in the oceans.
On a planet whose surface is primarily ocean, you’d think we’d act decisively to stop this from happening. But you’d be wrong.
How wrong? A 2018 article in The Guardian is titled: “Oceans suffocating as huge dead zones quadruple since 1950,” scientists warn: “Areas starved of oxygen in open ocean and by coasts have soared in recent decades, risking dire consequences for marine life and humanity.” Here’s a key quote: “‘Major extinction events in earth’s history have been associated with warm climates and oxygen-deficient oceans.’ Denise Breitburg, at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, who led the analysis, said: ‘Under the current trajectory that is where we would be headed. But the consequences to humans of staying on that trajectory are so dire that it is hard to imagine we would go quite that far down that path.’”2
Hard to imagine? We don’t even need to imagine. Just look around.
Another day, another headline: “Sea Level Rise Projections Double, Painting Terrifying Picture for Next Generation.” The article’s first three sentences: “In a consistent trend, future projections of an increase in the overall global temperature, as well as increases in sea level rise, continue to outpace previous worst-case scenarios. This is due to a simple equation: there is already enough CO2 in the atmosphere and heat absorbed into the planet’s oceans that even if we stopped emitting carbon completely right now, the planet would continue to experience and display dramatic impacts from anthropogenic climate disruption for thousands of years. The second part of that equation is this: there is simply nothing to indicate that national governments around the world are willing to take the immediate, radical steps that would be necessary to begin to seriously mitigate these impacts.”3
And now, here’s one that brings it all home. Headline: “As the Arctic Melts, Nations Race to Own What’s Left Behind.” A key sentence: “For the nations in the Arctic Council—Canada, Russia, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and the United States—climate change presents an opportunity for access to brand new waters, previously cloaked in ice, that are chock full of valuable resources.” The article states, “The problem is there’s a lot of overlap between each of the ... claims.”
Yes, that’s certainly the first problem that leaps to mind, except for that little one about murdering the planet.
The article continues, “A potential trove of resources hide in these contested waters, ranging from untapped fishing stocks of cod and snow crabs (in which even non-Arctic nations like China and South Korea have expressed interest), to rare minerals like manganese, uranium, copper and iron below the seafloor.
“Nations are also interested in drilling for energy resources in the Arctic, which the U.S. Geological Survey estimate contains 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas and 13 percent of the world’s oil.’”4
Pretty clear, right?
During my talks across the country, I (Derrick) have asked people, “Do you think this culture will undergo a voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable society?” and out of thousands of people at my talks, no one ever says yes.
I’m increasingly convinced that within this culture the primary use of human intelligence is to try to rationalize whatever behavior we already wanted to do. Much of our philosophy and religion—from Plato to the Bible to St. Augustine to Descartes to Adam Smith right up through today, including bright greens—can easily be seen as providing intellectual support for human supremacism and the conquest of the earth.
Recall Robert Jay Lifton’s understanding that before you can commit any mass atrocity, you must have a claim to virtue. That is, you must attempt to convince yourself and others that what you’re doing is not in fact an atrocity, but instead a good thing. So, you’re not killing the planet; you’re developing natural resources. You’re not killing the planet; you’re saving industrial civilization. You’re not killing the planet; you’re saving the planet.
But all the while you’re killing the planet. All of those claims to virtue must be devised and maintained. And we as a culture can harness tremendous intellectual energy to this end.
The attitudes of our culture are well articulated by Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon and the richest man in the world: “You don’t want to live in a retrograde world. You don’t want to live on an earth where we have to freeze population growth, reduce energy utilization. We all enjoy an extraordinary civilization, and it’s powered by energy, and it’s powered by population. That’s why urban centers are so dynamic. We want the population to keep growing on this planet and we want to keep using more energy per capita.”5
All of which is why, throughout this book, we’ve repeated Naomi Klein’s comments about polar bears not doing it for her. Not to be snarky, but instead because that’s the single most important passage in this book.
Although we’ve spent hundreds of pages laying out facts, ultimately this book is about values. We value something different than do bright greens. And our loyalty is to something different. We are fighting for the living planet. The bright greens are fighting to continue this culture—the culture that is killing the planet. Seems like the planet doesn’t do it for them.
Early in this book we quoted some of the bright greens, including Lester Brown: “The question is, can we save civilization? That’s what’s at stake now, and I don’t think we’ve yet realized it.”6 And Peter Kareiva, chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy: “Instead of pursuing the protection of biodiversity for biodiversity’s sake, a new conservation should seek to enhance those natural systems that benefit the widest number of people.”7 And climate scientist Wen Stephenson: “The terms ‘environment’ and ‘environmentalism’ carry baggage historically and culturally. It has been more about protecting the natural world, protecting other species, and conservation of wild places than it has been about the welfare of human beings. I come at it from the opposite direction. It’s first and foremost about human beings.”8 And Bill McKibben: “We’re losing the fight, badly and quickly—losing it because, most of all, we remain in denial about the peril that human civilization is in.”9
Do we yet see the pattern?
And no, we’re not losing that fight because “we remain in denial about the peril that human civilization is in.” We’re losing that fight because we’re trying to save industrial civilization, which is inherently unsustainable.
We, the authors of this book, also like the conveniences this culture brings to us. But we don’t like them more than we like life on the planet.
We should be trying to save the planet—this beautiful, creative, unique planet—the planet that is the source of all life, the planet without whom we all die.
No, we shouldn’t be trying to save the planet. We hate to quote Yoda, but “Do or do not, there is no try.”
So many indigenous people have said that the first and most important thing we must do is decolonize our hearts and minds. We must grow, they’ve told me, to see the dominant culture for what it is: not as the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to human beings, but instead as a way of life that provides conveniences—luxuries—to one set of humans at the expense of everyone else—human and nonhuman. We must recognize that everything comes from somewhere, and that someone else already lived there. We must recognize that the dominant culture has always been based on taking land from indigenous peoples, and it has always been based on drawdown.
And we must recognize that because the earth is the source of all life, the health of the earth must be the primary consideration in our decision-making processes.
This is the first and most important thing we must do. This changes everything. Because the truth is that we can debunk each and every piece of bright green technology, and ultimately it won’t make a bit of difference to bright greens or anyone else whose loyalty is not to the earth but to the economic and social system that is dismantling the earth.
The murder of the planet has never been a question of facts. The facts are clear and obvious, and they have been since the beginning. The question has always been one of value. People protect what they value, and so long as they value this culture and the conveniences it brings to some humans over life on the planet, so long shall they try to save this culture and their own conveniences at the expense of the life that does not seem to do it for them.
If the planet—and ironically enough, if we ourselves—will survive, it will only be because enough of us begin to value life over these conveniences. The irony comes because the bright greens claim that their proposals are “all about us.” But “us” clearly doesn’t include those who will inherit the wreckage of a world their plans will leave behind.
When we change our values, previously insoluble problems become soluble. Instead of asking how we can meet insatiable industrial energy demands and still live on a planet at least minimally capable of supporting life, the question must be: How can we help the earth to be stronger and healthier while still meeting human needs (needs, not conveniences, not luxuries, not addictions, and further, human needs, not the needs of industry and commerce).
So long as we continue to ask the wrong questions, the world will continue to be destroyed, and we will continue to waste time we don’t have on solutions that won’t help the earth.
When, on the other hand, we start asking the right questions, and start acting in the best interests of the natural world, we will find ourselves beginning to live our way into the answers to these questions.
We will find ourselves no longer having to lie—to make up bright green lie after bright green lie—but we will find ourselves where we should have been all along, in alignment with the earth and with the powerful, wonderful, beautiful, creative processes that have made life on this planet what it is.
1 Chris Mooney, “Global warming could deplete the oceans’ oxygen—with severe consequences,” Washington Post, April 28, 2016.
2 Damien Carrington, “Oceans suffocating as huge dead zones quadruple since 1950, scientists warn,” The Guardian, January 4, 2018.
3 Dahr Jamail, “Sea Level Rise Projections Double, Painting Terrifying Picture for Next Generation,” Truthout, January 2, 2018.
4 Francis Flisiuk, “As the Arctic Melts, Nations Race to Own What’s Left Behind,” The Revelator, January 4, 2018.
5 Jeff Bezos, “Jeff Bezos vs. Peter Thiel and Donald Trump / Jeff Bezos, CEO Amazon / Code Conference 2016,” Recode, YouTube, May 31, 2016.
6 Lester Brown, “The Race to Save Civilization,” Tikkun, September/October 2010, 25(5): 58.
7 Peter Kareiva, Michell Marvier, and Robert Lalasz, "Conservation in the Anthropocene: Beyond Solitude and Fragility," The Breakthrough Institute, Winter 2012.
8 Gabrielle Gurley, “From journalist to climate crusader: Wen Stephenson moves to the front lines of climate movement,” Commonwealth: Politics, Ideas & Civic Life in Massachusetts, November 10, 2015.
9 Bill McKibben, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math,” Rolling Stone, August 2, 2012.