Earth Day - What A Joke

Whenever I think of the WWF, which is thankfully not often, I think of that brilliant scene from Monty Python's "The Life of Brian," where the Crack Suicide Squad comes running up to Brian's cross, hails him with their swords and proceeds to disembowel themselves on the spot.

It's hard to take seriously an organization who's goal is to eradicate humanity, yet are not willing to lead by example.  In fact, it is the global warmists who are some of the worst offenders, as if they want to personally push civilization over the edge to prove their point.

It seems to be a common problem with all zealots, of any stripe, that they do not follow their arguments to their logical conclusions.  There is frequently the attitude that everyone else must follow strict observance, but the zealot is exempt because they must spread the gospel.  Their minds entrap glaring non sequiturs without cognitive dissonance, as they simply ignore those facts which do not fit the model.

The Jakarta Post this morning featured two photos that supposedly demonstrated the city's commitment to fighting global warming.  The upper photo was taken a few minutes before 'Earth Hour,' showing the glaring lights of Plaza Indonesia, and the bottom photo showed the same view just after lights-out.  There was hardly a difference, as the headlights from all the cars lit up the area quite well.  Apparently, the editors did not see the irony in those photos.

By contrast, on the holiday of Nyepi in Bali, the entire island goes completely and utterly dark.  All machines, all lights and even all gas stoves are turned off for 24 hours.  The networks stop broadcasting.  People don't leave their homes.  That is an example of something that people take seriously.

Earth Day is not.

Don't get me wrong.  I fully support good stewardship.  I support farming techniques that maximize yield, while minimizing pesticides and chemical fertilizers.  Related to that, I fully support the demise of corporate farming in favor of family farms.  I fully support turning off anything that isn't being used.  I fully support walking or riding a bike for any distance under 15 minutes by foot.

I support preservation of wild areas and forests, where animals can roam unmolested and unthreatened by economic activity.  I fully support protecting species from over-hunting and exploitation by greedy commerical interests.

All of these are noble goals and well worth pursuing.  However, they require a few things in order to realize them, all of which are virtually impossible, given human nature.  In the absence of consequences, many people would throw their mothers in front of a bus to get ahead.  This is especially true in high-density, high-stress megalopolises, which are growing all over the planet.  Throughout history, people congregate in large numbers in places where commerce and opportunity concentrates.  Populations rise to unsustainable levels, and then the region collapses, causing wide-spread economic disruption and die-offs.

This result, as far as history teaches us, is inevitable.  It follows as night does the day.  It happens in bacteria colonies in Petri dishes, and it happens in human colonies on Earth.

What we need are educational efforts and promotion of technologies such as the internet and satellite communications, not asinine, half-baked turn-your-lights-off campaigns that waste time and resources to achieve nothing.  Here in Jakarta, most people were not even aware of 'Earth Hour' and didn't even know that a few lights in the city center were dimmed for a moment.  Big achievement, that.

I see that look on your face.  You're looking at me like, "OK, so what's your idea?"  Well, I'm glad you asked.  But, be warned, it ain't easy and will require a prolonged effort on the part of a few generations of humans.  But hey!, if we can waste so much time and effort of fairy-tales like 'global warming,' we can sure do something that has a real effect on the health of the planet.

First of all, the problem is not population.  It is a fact that every man, woman and child on Earth could live quite comfortably in Texas.  In fact, each person would have 1,700 square feet in which to sit down and have a decent bar-b-que dinner.  Do the math.  I assumed 7 billion people coming for dinner.  The world is more than sufficient for all the people in it.  The problem is that when you are up to your eye-balls in people in major metropolitan areas, you tend to think the world is over-populated.

The first item on the action list is to strip corporations of anything even remotely resembling human rights.  They must lose their legal status as 'person' and any and all legal protections for the people who run them.

Very simple step, very hard to achieve.  The mega-corps have become so powerful that any attempt to do this will be met with the strongest resistance.  The Boards and Execs like being able to act in the name of profit with complete impunity.  When you have that kind of power, you don't let go easily.  However, it removes the incentive to violate the lives and property of real humans by making the officers and boards personally liable for the actions of the corporations.

The next step is to expand low-impact technologies, such as the internet, which offer dual benefits.  One the one hand, it brings education and the marketplace to any location on the planet.

At this very moment, I can access tele-medicine, vast literary libraries, college lectures, and textbooks online. I can easily obtain a degree from Oxford while living in Borneo, and never have to leave my bedroom.  The global resources used are absolutely minimal.  My 'carbon footprint' is virtually nil.  And through it all, I can attend lectures, ask questions, take tests, and even receive my diploma, all with the click of a button.

As far as the marketplace, I can buy and sell just about anything I need or make, and ship it from just about anywhere I want to live to anywhere else within days.  I can compete directly and independently with any individual or entity anywhere in the world for any market, all with the click of a button.

Through the use of tele-medicine, even the most remote, Stone Age villages (like the one here at LFS headquarters) can receive treatment and advice from the most advanced medical centers in the world.  I was part of an experiment in the early 90s, in which Dr. Michael DeBakey was able to diagnose and recommend treatment for a patient 2,000 miles away, simply by using a Star Trek-looking panel which gave a full read-out on the patient, as well as 2-way video communications between all parties.  If that was possible 20 years ago, why aren't we doing it commonly now?

So, four small steps utilizing current technology, and we have eliminated a major greed factor that is destroying human beings and environments.  We have brought the best possible education to even the remotest parts of the planet.  We have reduced the need for megalopolises and democratized commerce.  And we have increased access to the latest medical services.  It only took 30 minutes to write it up, as well.

We could go further.  You wouldn't need mega-malls and mega-stores that waste resources and space, when I can shop for the same items and have them delivered in a much more efficient manner, right from my desk.  We don't need movie mega-plexes, high-rise office towers or any of the other blights associated with high-density living.  We can grow more of our own food in our remote locations.  And we can put in high-speed rail systems to quickly and comfortably whisk people into specialized areas that offer entertainment and social contact.

The biggest obstacles to this mini-utopia is government control and corporate greed.  The desire on the part of 'officials' to control and corral humans is insatiable, and the lust for profit and shiny baubles is equally so on the part of corporations.

The steps are simple and require very little in the way of additional infrastructure.  In fact, it would require less resources and be far more ecologically friendly than anything being done at the moment.  the hardest part is the change of mind.

Getting people to think differently is never easy, but my proposal is far more workable and people-friendly that anything Al Gore and the WWF can conceive of.  It is much more effective in the long-term, and saves more resources than idiotic light-dimming for an hour every year, and needs about the same amount of public awareness and information dissemination as was used to turn off a few lights for an hour.

Certainly, if the WWF chose the Python-esque route and became "crack suicide troops,' it would save vast amounts of resources and hot air that achieve nothing.

We could then use all the money and effort wasted by their spurious PR campaigns to achieve real change.  In fact, with what they spent on light-dimming, we could have built a model, high-tech, advanced society in the heart of the Amazon jungle, with all the modern conveniences, and hardly cut a single tree to do it.  We would put that money where our mouth is and show the world just how workable and sustainable a community of a few thousand could really be.

So, we must assume that either the WWF is populated by a bunch of knuckle-draggers who are so bamboozled by their own bullshit that they can't see daylight in the dessert.  Or, they are not actually trying to achieve their stated goals, and in fact are just con artists taking people's money and paying themselves outrageous salaries to get a few lights dimmed once a year.

Take your pick.

Like any good Irish-Texan, I've done my job and saved the world, yet again.  Next go 'round, elect me supreme emperor of the world so I can start putting some of this into effect.  I give you my best Obama-promise that I will do everything I say and maintain my integrity in the face of vast wealth and power.

Really.