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Enviro Eco Nature    H2'ed 9/21/21  

Beyond the tipping point

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Jim Miles
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How many millions have already died due to drought and famines? How many have perished in sudden catastrophic floods? How many areas have highly reduced crop production from the opposites of heat and floods? And no, the warming of higher latitudes will not bring in more agricultural land as most of that land is either rock or tundra swamp with minimal good soils. How will people fare in areas already susceptible to heat and drought through centuries of human manipulation of the environment, with the "Fertile Crescent" being a prime example? The centuries of deforestation and salification of the soil through irrigation have already exacted a heavy toll on the region, aggravated by the last century's ongoing wars by imperial powers.

Culture, capitalism, and the military.

There is no real escape. The best humanity can hope for is mitigation, lowering the level of harm. Our main enemy is mostly first-world consumer capitalist society: the consumers themselves always wanting more stuff; the huge demands on carbon fuels to keep us warm in winter, cool in summer, and our recreational vehicles running all year; most importantly the greed of profit seeking and the military-industrial-financial complex supporting it all.

The militaries of the world are the largest institutional users of carbon energy. The U.S. military is mainly used to protect corporate profits and the reserve-currency status of the petrodollar. 'Western' society is one large complex of empirical extraction for the profit of the already rich and powerful, the entertainment and pacification of the majority, and the subjugation of all other people of the world as indentured wage-slave workers.

Improbable solutions

Solutions are available, but highly improbable until we are even further past the tipping point than we already are. Bring all militaries home and reduce them to much smaller self-defence and civic-support forces. Stop consuming stuff for the simple sake of having stuff in order to display one's self-image, or to be continually self-distracted by the latest video or podcast or the many social-media services - all prompted by advertising that creates wants rather than servicing needs.

Involved with all this are other issues of social inequality, racism, poverty, refugees, homelessness, child abuse and trafficking, all readily available under neoliberal economic structures, all ameliorated by a progressive social agenda required in order to alleviate the disasters of capitalism, the largest disaster eventually being climate change.

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Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and analyst who examines the world through a syncretic lens. His analysis of international and domestic geopolitical ideas and actions incorporates a lifetime of interest in current events, a desire to (more...)
 

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