Human extinction by 2026?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSnrDRU6_2
Hmmm, I think this is just sensationalist nonsense which does the cause of fighting climate change no good. It undermines the credibility of the argument that climate change is indeed happening by linking it with some totally improbable apocalyptic scenario. It thus ironically disempowers and demotivates the struggle against climate change. I wish people would not resort to hyperbole to make a point but RT seems to be prone to doing this
Another prediction which at least has the merit of keeping humanity intact by 2050 as opposed to being rendered extinct by 2026 "Natural disasters displaced 36 million people in 2009, the year of the last full study. Of those, 20 million moved because of climate-change related factors. Scientists predict natural disaster-related refugees to increase to as many as 50 to 200 million in 2050. This will cause increasing social stress and violence, mostly in developing nations without the resources to cope, such as in poorer coastal countries in Asia, and in regions of Africa subject to desertification" http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/12/01/climate-change-and-coming-humanitarian-crisis-epic-proportions?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork
Hmmm…Robin, why are they taking such an optimistic view?The Doomsday Clock
Quote:In its two most recent annual announcements on the Clock, the Science and Security Board warned: “The probability of global catastrophe is very high, and the actions needed to reduce the risks of disaster must be taken very soon.” In 2017, we find the danger to be even greater, the need for action more urgent. It is two and a half minutes to midnight, the Clock is ticking, global danger looms.alanjjohnstone wrote:Hmmm…Robin, why are they taking such an optimistic view?The Doomsday ClockQuote:In its two most recent annual announcements on the Clock, the Science and Security Board warned: “The probability of global catastrophe is very high, and the actions needed to reduce the risks of disaster must be taken very soon.” In 2017, we find the danger to be even greater, the need for action more urgent. It is two and a half minutes to midnight, the Clock is ticking, global danger looms.Well Alan I wouldnt want to rule out "global catastrophe" of some sort. It could happen although equally it might never happen. Weve had these doomsday scenaros before – The Club of Rome "Limits to Growth" Report in 1972, The Population Bomb of Paul Erhlich, Famine 2000 by the Maddocks (cant remember the exact details) etc. The prognoses offered in these various publications all singularly failed to materialise I dont want to be blase about the risks but I am quite concerned the psychological impact of dire warnings such as the one provided in the OP. If it is intended to galvanise people to do something about climate change I think it will have the opposite effect, It wll induce a sense of crippling pessimism with "crippling" being the operative word here, meaning disempowering I sometimes wonder if these sensationalist scenarios are deliberatley fashioned with a view to keep us passive and resigned to a bleak future or no future at all in this case. Why do we find whenever the future is depicted in films or TV it is almost always presented as some kind of grim fascist dytopia from which we can be delivered only by the intervention of some charismatic rebel leader. I think there is a hidden agenda being pushed here….
Many religions were based upon apocalypic eschatology and it seems (apart from when material conditions reflect real chaos) the membership potential appears to be confined to the fewEven with the environmental movement, catastrophism is in the minority with the majority being more accepting of the reform potential for change.However, i am always minded of the slogan "socialism or barbarism". Many Marxists have espoused such a future, even if a time-scale is never placed upon it.As others know, i am the glass-half-empty type. Do we present the case that capitalism is flexible and adaptable as it actually is and minimise the extinction threat by climate change and pollution? I believe one radical group (with that German name) produced an article explaining how alternative energy and green policies will succeed in being adopted by capitalism…and so capitalism will stagger on and on until people intevene to end it. I see that the eco-socialist argument as very much like the tendency for declining rate of profit Marxists, such as Mattick…capitalism although not collapsing of its own accord by some automatic determinism, but producing the chaos and disequilibrium which creates a series of intense social conflicts that indeed we face a choice and reality of barbarism or socialism. A paradox…seeking suffering to end suffering. But that too is merely a tendency with countervailing influences. Climate change under capitalism may well not be the trigger for humanity's extinction, or even societal collapse. It leaves us in the Socialist Party with the eternal question…what will be the spring-board of socialist consciousness and momentum for Revolution? If it won't be barbarism, can it be prosperity, as some said that ignited the 60's social changes? Does that mean we must be apolgists for capitalist progressThe other important social development is robotics and automation being the driver for social evolution…but even there some such as Hawkings ( i think) suggested that humans will be redundant and androids replace us…dystopia and not utopia.
There is an interesting article here on the links between Trump, Putin and the "carbon bubble" which feeds directly into the argument about climate change https://thenearlynow.com/trump-putin-and-the-pipelines-to-nowhere-742d745ce8fd#.jbf9slmm3
robbo203 wrote:I sometimes wonder if these sensationalist scenarios are deliberatley fashioned with a view to keep us passive and resigned to a bleak future or no future at all in this case. Why do we find whenever the future is depicted in films or TV it is almost always presented as some kind of grim fascist dytopia from which we can be delivered only by the intervention of some charismatic rebel leader. I think there is a hidden agenda being pushed here….I feel the same about those TV programmes of the "We-shouldn't-complain-because-there's-always-someone-else-worse-off-than-you" variety.
robbo203 wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSnrDRU6_2 Hmmm, I think this is just sensationalist nonsense which does the cause of fighting climate change no good. It undermines the credibility of the argument that climate change is indeed happening by linking it with some totally improbable apocalyptic scenario. It thus ironically disempowers and demotivates the struggle against climate change. I wish people would not resort to hyperbole to make a point but RT seems to be prone to doing thisNever mind the humans, what about that poor bloody penguin,
This article came across my horizon and although I strongly disagree with much of it the scenario of the future it presents does provoke thought
Tim Kilgallon wrote:Never mind the humans, what about that poor bloody penguin,And what about this poor frog ! .
I was once at a debate between Wedgewood Benn and the Green Party at which he made the point that revolutions are inspired by hope of a better future rather than by fear of worse one (predictably, the Green Party representative was speaking doom and gloom and predicting the end of the world in 40 years, etc, etc). I think Benn had a valid point. In fact fear can lead people to support reaction rather than revolution.
“A period of revolution begins not because life has become physically impossible but because growing numbers of workers have their eyes suddenly opened to the fact that problems hitherto accepted as part of man’s unavoidable heritage has become capable of solution…No crisis of capitalism , however desperate it may be, can ever by itself give us socialism.” Will Capitalism Collapse? Socialist Standard April 1927 Perhaps this quote is appropriate.
ALB wrote:I was once at a debate between Wedgewood Benn and the Green Party at which he made the point that revolutions are inspired by hope of a better future rather than by fear of worse one (predictably, the Green Party representative was speaking doom and gloom and predicting the end of the world in 40 years, etc, etc). I think Benn had a valid point. In fact fear can lead people to support reaction rather than revolution.That is very true and is also a very important point to make as well. There is a persistent strand of thinking that argues that things need to get worse before they can get better. You hear this kind of argument quite frequently on the Left – those social engineers with their mechanical-cum-teleological view of history. Capitalist crises and collapse brought on by the falling rate of profit, or whatever, is the only way we can move forward. It is the only way, they say, we can shake off the lethargy and compliance of the workers that bind them to the system. We have to go through the purgatory of a deep recession and grinding poverty in order to arrive at the pearly gates of a communist heaven. I’m very sceptical about this kind of argument. There is a lot of evidence around in the form of social surveys and what not that suggest workers tend, if anything, to become more conservative and unwilling to rock the boat when things are getting bad. Marx noted how the lumpenproletariat, those unfortunate workers at the bottom of the economic pile and suffering the greatest hardship, were often a force for reaction. Hitler came to power on the back of the 1930s Depression and the populist desire for a strong leader. You could say the same of Trump although Trump is not really a Hitler figure. In fact, much of right wing shift in politics in recent decades seems to be linked to economic problems. Go back to the watershed decade of the 1970s when the long post war boom came to an end and ushered in the neoliberal order commencing with Reagan and Thatcher. Sure, this is a simplification and one can point to counter evidence. The 1919 Spartacist uprising, the Anarchist collectives during the Spanish civil war (some of which sent so far as to abolish money and even – briefly – economic exchange itself) and so on, were all born out of harsh circumstances. Nevertheless I think on balance the evidence shows that when things get worse or, at any rate, when there is an expectation that things will get worse, people tend to draw in their horns. Conversely, when things get better, or seem to be getting better, people get more radical and trade unions, for instance become more militant in their demands precisely because they have a stronger bargaining position to work from All this has lessons for us socialists and the style and content of our propaganda. It suggests we need to be focussing on the more positive developments taking place around us and encourage workers to engage in a process of imaginative extrapolation to reflect on what is technically possible rather than depress them with thoughts of imminent apocalyptic collapse. That’s why I quite like memes such as “Fully Automated Luxury Communism”. Its forward thinking and positive. Yes the concept can be criticised (see for example https://libcom.org/blog/fully-automated-luxury-communism-utopian-critique-14062015) but at least it focusses on a brighter future and in so doing sheds lights on what gets in the way of us creating such a future
Our blog has touched on FALChttps://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2016/08/fully-automated-luxury-communism.htmlhttps://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2016/09/luxury-for-all.htmlBut there exists equally the other risk of appearing to "utopian" as Zeitgeist is often accused of being…that everything will be solved by the application computers and technology.What Marxism has going for it that no matter how generalised it may be, we possess a theory of social change and as a party we have developed a political road-map of how to achieve it. However, rather than our goal being rejected, it seems to be our means and methods of accomplishing our aims which people cast doubt upon and lack confidence in.
Quote:we need to be focussing on the more positive developments taking place around us and encourage workers to engage in a process of imaginative extrapolation to reflect on what is technically possible rather than depress them with thoughts of imminent apocalyptic collapse.This brings me to my favourite prescription that i usually quote
Quote:7. Meaningful action, for revolutionaries, is whatever increases the confidence, the autonomy, the initiative, the participation, the solidarity, the equalitarian tendencies and the self -activity of the masses and whatever assists in their demystification. Sterile and harmful action is whatever reinforces the passivity of the masses, their apathy, their cynicism, their differentiation through hierarchy, their alienation, their reliance on others to do things for them and the degree to which they can therefore be manipulated by others – even by those allegedly acting on their behalf.How we exercise Solidarity's principle in practice, is quite another question which has to be addressed and be subject to constant shaping and molding as events unfold.
We all know that the next revolution will be unlike all past revolutions and I agree we need to be positive about our case. But I think people will not be drawn to our party if it appears to be a bland and humourless. (Not suggesting it is ) I would like to see more humour in our literature and social media and of course our forums.For all his faults, I think Brand had a point that Revolution can be fun. Doesn't have to be angst and violence.
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