Michael Chenoweth

The Modern Pessimist.

I have been watching this circus we call “humanity” for the better part of 70 years now, and have some observations. We call ourselves “homo sapiens.”  If my memory of high school Latin is correct, that translates to “wise man.”  I call our selection of that name for ourselves “hubris,” a failure to connect with reality.

In man’s short history, he has been responsible for the extinction of numerous species of other animals and near extinction of many others. Not to mention a few plants as well. This has happened not always intentionally, but because we always put ourselves first, in disregard of the consequences. Sometimes, it is through ignorance, and sometimes, it is with full knowledge of the consequences of our actions, but we do it anyway, because we are the ones with the power to do it, and we are going to be richer if we do than if we don’t. Seldom is there any incentive NOT to wipe out a species or any thought of what the world would be without a particular species.

We, as a species, are death to living things. As our technology has developed, we have become better and better at killing. 

A few centuries ago, we killed the Dodo Bird and Stellar’s sea cow. A hundred years ago or less, we wiped out the Passenger Pigeon and the Carolina Parakeet. In Africa, many species that until recently were abundant are now almost extinct. With atomic weapons and nuclear power, we can annihilate millions of our own species in the blink of an eye, and leave industrial residues of our own existence that will continue to be deadly for many thousands of years after we no longer exist. To the list of Minimata and Bhopal, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, we now add Fukashima Daichi.

We continue to assume that we can anticipate the worst thing that can possibly happen and prepare in advance for it, and we repeatedly find that we are wrong, but continue to act as before and place millions of people at risk of catastrophic damage or death, far beyond our ability to predict or control, in order to satisfy a few people’s hunger for more money.

For the past several decades, I have been watching as more and more of the world’s best scientists have warned about global warming, global climate change and sea level rise. Despite these warnings, there has been no serious action by any of the governments of the world to change the way they or the industries in their countries do business.

I have read extensive literature, from industries, scientists and government agencies about the rate we are consuming the fossil fuels of the world, particularly oil, but also coal, natural gas and uranium, and their observations lead me to believe that all of those resources are finite and we can realistically foresee a time when none of them will be available, let alone plentiful or inexpensive.  Despite these warnings, there has been no effort by governments anywhere to put in place credible replacements for these soon to be used up resources.

I have listened to marine scientists, and to writers who have assembled their research into a form that is understandable and digestible by ordinary people like myself, as they warned of serious human-caused changes in the ocean itself, the greatest single resource on the planet. Despite these warnings, there is no action from any government, or from any national leader, in any major country, to address, or for that matter, even to acknowledge that these changes are a threat to us.

The world’s ocean is a sink for the pollutants that we spew into the atmosphere, and it produces between 1/3 and 2/3 of the oxygen we breathe. Over the last century, because of the amount of CO2 we have put in the atmosphere, the acidity of the ocean has increased dramatically. The marine animal communities that keep the ocean in balance are dependent on a high pH to enable them to build coral reefs, shells, and skeletons. That balance enables the micro-organisms to produce the oxygen we need.

But during that last century, as we burned up the world’s oil and coal, the pH of the ocean has fallen from 8.2 to 8.05, which is a very large increase in acidity. Remember that the pH scale is not linear, it is logarithmic, and a change from a pH of 9 to a pH of 8 is a 10 times increase in the acidity. If the ocean loses its ability to produce oxygen, which we need to live, life for humans and other animal life above the sea will become very tenuous and uncertain – maybe impossible.

Furthermore, much of the carbon contained in the ocean is in methane (CH4) dissolved in cold ocean waters, not as CO2.  Methane is a much stronger “greenhouse gas” than carbon dioxide, about 25 times as strong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane

Scientists are concerned that as the ocean warms, as it is doing now because of global warming, the methane could burp to the surface, like a seltzer bottle suddenly opened, and tip the global balance of greenhouse gases to a much worse state than we are now experiencing.

As an American, I look first to our government in Washington, DC, both Congress and the President, to display leadership and exercise their authorities in a responsible way to head off these threats. That leadership is remarkably absent.

We have, in this country, many people who are well-educated, wealthy and successful in business. One would think that they would be able to see, as I do, the danger to themselves, their families, their descendants and other humans, inherent in loss of the ability of the planet to supply us with the resources we require to maintain our standard of living, or even our life itself. They seem blissfully unaware, unconcerned, or at least silent.

Here in Florida, in an election marked by "Tea Party" demonstrations of the worst kind of self-indulgence and greed, the electorate chose Voldemort to be our new governor. His record speaks for itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Scott  His campaign promised jobs for Floridians, who are presently experiencing high unemployment. He claimed he would bring 700,000 jobs to Florida.

Since his inauguration less than four months ago, the new governor has systematically moved to dismantle every protection for Floridians’ quality of life that has been adopted by bipartisan efforts of prior governors and legislatures over the last forty years. Florida’s environment, on which its primary industry, tourism, is critically dependent, is particularly under attack. The changes he has proposed, such as eliminating EPA rules for water quality, would most likely benefit a few seriously polluting industries, like the paper mills in north Florida, but not only wouldn’t create any jobs, the pollution those industries generate and would generate in the future would kill jobs in the recreational boating, canoeing and fishing industries on Florida’s rivers, as well as jeopardizing  commercial offshore fishing jobs that those rivers support.

Our Republican-controlled legislature is virtually silent in the face of this assault. Their mantra of cutting taxes to benefit the richest of the rich, and their goal of cutting state expenses, particularly education, are decidedly only for short-term benefits for the wealthy, and not for the long-term health of Florida’s environment, residents or economy.

These machinations are not exclusive to Florida. In Wisconsin, the lie is perpetuated by its governor and legislature. Instead of admitting that the state’s previous government lied to its voters and failed to properly fund the pensions bargained for state employees, the governor and legislature are trying to blame the public employees, and their unions, for the state’s fiscal insolvency.

Those efforts at placing blame are black lies, but are not unique to Wisconsin. In Indiana and Ohio, the same false messages are being published. Indiana has not properly funded its teachers’ pension fund. Whose fault is that? The teachers? Or the government who made the promises of pensions in exchange for low salaries? 

Public employees often work at wages that are below the level of other similarly educated and skilled workers in private industry, specifically because of better pension benefits. Who is to say that accepting a lesser pay for a career teaching in anticipation of a better retirement is not a benefit to the public. These are the people to whom we entrust the education of our children. Why should they be penalized when we, as the state, break our word to them adequately to fund their retirements?

At the national level, we are seeing Congress, particularly the Republican members, marching in lock-step, calling for more or continuing tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers, while blaming the nation’s fiscal problems not on themselves and their predecessors, but on Planned Parenthood, Public Radio, and poor Women, Infants and Children, whose federal programs they are working diligently to de-fund. 

Planned Parenthood commits the cardinal sin of counseling pregnant women about abortion. Public Radio commits the cardinal sin of telling the truth about political issues, unlike the darlings of the right wing, Fox “News”, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, whose pronouncements bear so little resemblance to reality as to be unrecognizable to any who take the time to seek out the truth for themselves. Women, Infants and Children commit the cardinal sin of existing and having been recognized as needy.

The Democrats, such as they are, lack the spine to ‘put the lie’ to what the Republicans are spouting, to call it for what it is, which is, blatantly false. Instead, they have “Blue Dogs,” who call themselves Democrats but vote as Republicans. They support the “me-first” ideals of the far right, while pretending to be concerned for their constituents, and prevent the real Democrats from making progress on key issues.  That is a recipe for failure.

The reality of all of this, as I see it, is that the problems we are facing in Florida, in the United States, and globally, can be solved. But if we refuse to confront them head-on, they will overtake us and do us in.

I have watched carefully for any sign of hope, at any level of government. There are faint glimpses from time to time, but those are rapidly snuffed out by the tidal wave of lies and false accusations from the right. Senator Bernie Sanders is a breath of fresh air, as is Representative John Conyers, Jr., but they and others like them are too few. One need look no further than the debate immediately after the election last fall, when Congress decided to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the richest of the rich. During the campaign, Republicans and Tea Party activists accused those who would have ended those cuts of trying to “raise taxes on ordinary people.”  In fact the increases would have hit only the most wealthy 2% in this country.  That fact never made it through to the ordinary voters, who responded as they usually do, and voted against any increase in their taxes by electing the Republicans who don’t give a damn about the ordinary voters.

Last night, in a move to keep the federal government from shutting down, Congress reached an agreement to continue funding for another week. What was the price? Cuts in funding for Head Start, the program for young children to help them succeed in elementary school, and cuts to Pell Grants, which help less affluent students go to college. What kind of insanity is this?

Obviously, voters want the budget balanced, and their taxes reduced, without any reduction in any of their government benefits. Those goals could be met, if the taxes on the most wealthy were increased appropriately, but that was never in the cards, particularly since the President, who was elected to “Change” the way business is done in Washington, DC, instead chose to play “get along’ and to settle for business as usual with the Republicans. That single decision cost Americans between $500 billion a year and $1 Trillion a year in increased debt.  The Republicans whine about the huge federal debt, but really aren’t serious about reducing it.

Republicans have for decades labeled the opposition as “tax and spend Democrats.”  However, a careful look at the federal deficit, since the end of World War II, expressed as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product, shows a different reality. The most fiscally responsible presidential administrations have been Democrats, and the most wildly frivolous administrations have been the Republicans, particularly beginning with Ronald Reagan.

When he took office in 1981, the national debt stood at $934 Billion. Claiming that “trickle-down economics” would result in an improved economy, Reagan cut tax rates on the wealthiest taxpayers, while simultaneously spending large amounts on the military and eliminating the protections that were in place for the mentally ill. 

At the end of his and George H.W. Bush’s administrations the national debt had soared to over $4 Trillion, more than a 400 percent increase. At the same time, we gained a whole new class of homeless people, many of whom suffered from various mental disabilities for which the Reagan administration had cut funding.

Also since that time, NOT coincidentally, the earning power of ordinary working Americans has declined, while the richest of the rich have seen their earnings grow at a fantastic rate. Is it any wonder that ordinary Americans are pissed off?

Their problem is that they have bought into the fiction that their problems are the result of high taxes and tax and spend Democrats, rather that the reality, that their problems are because Republicans have given away their prosperity to the richest campaign contributors.

Anyway, taking a step back for a broader view, I have reached the conclusion that Congress lacks the will to do what is necessary for our nation to survive. And because the rest of the world is following our lead, we can expect the same result for them. What kind of chaos will develop as coastal areas, where most of the world’s population lives, go under water, as the air becomes less breathable, as people discover that there is no food in their grocery stores because the tractors don’t have fuel to grow it and the trucks don’t have fuel to deliver it to the store? I can’t really predict, but it is ugly.

It is going to get very ugly, very fast. And my prediction is that humanity will not survive the cataclysm.

There is a revolution brewing.

On the right, the Tea Party and other right-wingers are agitating for smaller and smaller government, as if we were a one horse frontier town (think Wasilla, Alaska) where one sheriff and a justice of the peace could handle all government. Their view is insane. That world no longer exists, but they aren’t smart enough to know it, or are too mule-headed to admit it. Americans continue to be divided increasingly into the haves and have-nots, the rich and the poor. The middle class that gave America its time of greatest strength and prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s is dwindling as a percentage of the overall population.

On the left, crime in increasingly poor neighborhoods, in every large city, is more and more of a problem, as jobs remain out of reach for a growing number of people. Police intervention is a more and more frequent occurrence. Police departments have turned, since 9/11, into small paramilitary armies, with helicopters, tanks and weapons more suited for international war than for community policing. On the left, public concern about increasing inequity in treatment of rich and poor is growing. Police shootings of unarmed people in poor neighborhoods are increasing in number and outraging more citizens.

In a nation where gun ownership is an act of faith, the problem of drive-by shootings is a serious concern. The organization most involved in promoting gun rights, the National Rifle Association, has turned a blind eye to those who abuse those rights and create crime in our communities, instead focusing on promoting wider and wider gun ownership, without promoting responsibility. Eventually, gun crime will provoke legislatures to enact anti-gun laws, as happened during the 1980s and 1990s when the Brady Bill and Assault Weapons Ban were passed by Congress.

Make no mistake. I am a strong supporter of and advocate for the Second Amendment. Our nation still exists, more than 200 years after its founding, because, in my opinion, no one, not even our own government, will ‘mess around’ with us, the armed public. We don’t have military coups, unlike other nations, because the people hold the trump card.

But what happens when the poor people who are increasingly besieged by criminal elements in their own communities (and these communities come in all colors and flavors, not just black or Hispanic) find themselves in conflict with the paramilitary government? What happens when that paramilitary government decides that there are too many guns out there and tries to reduce the number? Where will the right-wing, gun-owning citizenry be in that argument? The potential exists for an alliance between the under-paid and out-of-work gun owners and the besieged poor, in a stand off or worse against law enforcement agencies. We have seen minor examples of this in Waco and Ruby Ridge. How will it work out in cities, or in rural communities?  However it works, it can’t be a desirable result.

These issues tie in with three others, which I have written about elsewhere in this website; those are globalization, unemployment and birth control.

Globalization is important because it has been adopted as a way to reduce the cost of production for manufacturers and sellers of many different products. We have exported manufacturing jobs to countries where labor is inexpensive. It is understandable and perfectly reasonable that a vendor selling a particular product would want to reduce his cost for that product to the lowest possible level, and thereby increase his profits.

While there may be a small reduction in the sale price as a result of a reduced acquisition cost, I am very skeptical about the likelihood that any particular seller will pass on the saving to his customer. For that conclusion, I rely on the cost of Levi’s blue jeans. When they were made in the USA, they were MUCH less expensive than they are now, even though now they are no longer made in the USA. The increase in price has to be in increased profits for those in the sales business, and of course, bigger dividends for shareholders.

In a similar way, manufacturers reduce their production costs through technology. Whether automation or computerization, more modern production techniques reduce the number of employees required to make any given article. We call this the “Wonder Bread” syndrome. When bread makers invented a machine that would take in flour at one end and pump out wrapped loaves of Wonder Bread at the other end, it eliminated a lot of bakery jobs. This has happened in every industry in America.

Both of these phenomena reduce the number of domestic jobs that are available. But the number of people here isn’t reduced accordingly. Current labor statistics indicate that there are five unemployed people for each job that is available. The unemployment rate, contrary to the opinion of some of my right-wing friends, isn’t because people aren’t willing to take the jobs that are there. It is because the available jobs are too few.

Now, add into this mix opposition to abortion. In reality, it is “opposition to abortion for anyone except my family,” because wealthy women always can get an abortion if they want one. For many members of Congress, this can be translated to “opposition to abortion funded by the government.” The consequence of this attitude and policy is that the poorest people have the highest birth rates. Many children born in minority communities are born to unmarried mothers, i.e., to women who cannot afford to pay for an abortion.

Women in the wealthier segments of our society, who have an unwanted pregnancy, will find it easier to pay for their abortion. Since our educational system has traditionally done worst by the poorest segments of our community, the consequence of this is a continuing downward spiral of poor women, poor children, poor education and unemployment, all fueled by right-wing opposition to abortion.

Interestingly, the best way to break this cycle is not directly related to abortion. It is rather to insure that all women are well educated, because the rate at which women choose NOT to have children, and their ability to implement that decision, increases with their educational level.  Are we educating women as we need to? No. We are not. Example: the cuts last night in Head Start and Pell Grants.

This discussion has dragged on long enough. The bottom line is that as a keen observer of what is going on, I don’t see any sign that humans, as a group, are putting their own creature comforts aside enough to address the serious issues facing us. We are not doing any of the things that need to be done in order to avert the coming crises. We are not smart enough to do what is necessary for our species and our highly prized society to survive in the face of our own selfish behavior.

Ultimately, it is my conclusion that home sapiens is not a species that is going to survive here. Like those other species, who weren’t smart enough to take action to save themselves from human impacts, neither is man himself. We are not going to put alternate energy into place fast enough to avert a humanitarian crisis in food delivery. We are not going to clean up our CO2 emissions fast enough to prevent a six to ten meter increase in sea level rise, putting most of the world’s coastal cities under water. We aren’t going to cut CO2 emissions fast enough to keep the oceans from ‘tipping’. Simply put, conditions on Earth are not going to be suitable for human life. And we will have done it to ourselves.

April 9, 2011

A few references:

What’s the Matter with Kansas, How Conservatives Won the Heart of America by Thomas Frank, 2004  

Sea Sick, The Hidden Crisis in the Global Ocean. by Alanna Mitchell, 2008

With Speed and Violence, Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change  by Fred Pearce, 2007