After the Collapse of Modernity

Alice: How long is forever?

White Rabbit: Sometimes, just one second.

- Lewis Carroll

Modernity: A historical category marked by the questioning or rejection of tradition; the prioritization of individualism, freedom and formal equality; faith in inevitable social, scientific and technological progress, rationalization and professionalization; a movement from feudalism (or agrarianism) toward capitalism and the market economy, industrialization, urbanization and secularization; the development of the nation-state, representative democracy, public education, etc. - From Wikipedia based on Michel Foucault 1977

This is a detailed continuation of my recent lyrical essay, “The Fatal Myth of Human Progress.” It covers the connections between U.S. politics and environmental protection in the late 20^th Century. It also discusses what actions and supporting stories Humankind must come up with as we near ecological and economic collapse.

Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

By Nathaniel Rich
Photographs and Videos by George Steinmet
The New York Times

August 1, 2018

The above exposé is a good late 20^th Century history of how the U.S. missed perhaps its best chance at ending its environmentally destructive ways, and leading the rest of the world to do the same before it became too late.

The Ronald Reagan and John Sununu types in power at the time, the 1980s, were not going to do that. Passing legislation containing environmental pollution restrictions on U.S. industry would go against their small government, free enterprise credo. To them, the scientifically established risks of continuing to produce ever more CO₂ to the detriment and perhaps end of Earth’s life-sustainability were worth taking. Here is what they did:

“After the election of 1980, President Ronald Reagan took office and considered plans to close the Energy Department, increase coal production on federal land, and deregulate surface coal mining. Once in office, he appointed James Watt, the president of a legal firm that fought to open public lands to mining and drilling, to run the Interior Department. ‘We’re deliriously happy,’ the president of the National Coal Association was reported to have said. Reagan preserved the E.P.A. but named as its administrator Anne Gorsuch, an anti-regulation zealot who proceeded to cut the agency’s staff and budget by about a quarter. In the midst of this carnage, the Council on Environmental Quality submitted a report to the White House warning that fossil fuels could ‘permanently and disastrously’ alter Earth’s atmosphere, leading to ‘a warming of the Earth, possibly with very serious effects.’ Reagan did not act on the council’s advice. Instead, his administration considered eliminating the council.”

…

“When the beaten delegates finally emerged from the [Noordwijk Ministerial Conference of 1989] conference room, [the Sierra Club’s Daniel] Becker and [environmentalist Rafe] Pomerance learned what happened. [Yale nuclear physicist and Science Advisor to President George H. W. Bush, D. Allen] Bromley, at the urging of John Sununu and with the acquiescence of Britain, Japan, and the Soviet Union, had forced the conference to abandon the commitment to freeze emissions. The final statement noted only that ‘many’ nations supported stabilizing emissions — but did not indicate which nations or at what emissions level. And with that, a decade of excruciating, painful, exhilarating progress turned to air.”

Sununu, White House Chief of Staff under U.S. President George H. W. Bush, had thereby prevented the signing of a 67-nation commitment to freeze carbon dioxide emissions, with a reduction of 20 percent by 2005. In doing so, he singled himself out as a force for starting coordinated efforts to bewilder the public on the topic of global warming and changing it from an urgent, non-partisan, and unimpeachable issue to a political one.

Here is what Rich’s article says happened after that:

“More carbon has been released into the atmosphere since the final day of the Noordwijk conference, Nov. 7, 1989, than in the entire history of civilization preceding it. In 1990, humankind emitted more than 20 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. By 2017, the figure had risen to 32.5 billion metric tons, a record. Despite every action taken since the [1979] Charney Report* — the billions of dollars invested in research, the nonbinding treaties, the investments in renewable energy — the only number that counts, the total quantity of global greenhouse gas emitted per year, has continued its inexorable rise.

“Like the scientific story, the political story hasn’t changed greatly, except in its particulars. Even some of the nations that pushed hardest for climate policy have failed to honor their own commitments. When it comes to our own nation, which has failed to make any binding commitments whatsoever, the dominant narrative for the last quarter century has concerned the efforts of the fossil-fuel industries to suppress science, confuse public knowledge, and bribe politicians.”

Also interesting in the article is the claim that Exxon and others in the private sector were at one time receptive to the inevitability of some form of less carbon policy and laws. They stood ready to retool and redirect their industries away from oil, natural gas and coal if they were going to be forced to, if for no other reason than to keep their operations profitable. It seemed they simply could not deny the science, much of which they had produced, unlike the politicians of the time.

The Fatal Myth of Human Progress

Once upon a time, long ago, in an ordinary part of space, a small but extraordinary planet gave rise to Life. Among its great variety of living things was an extraordinary animal.

This creature was not physically exceptional among its apelike cousins. But it was unique because it survived and flourished by dominating the planet’s resources. It did so by using its wits to cooperate, and by making and using tools. It was inconceivable to the planet, Earth, or to this unique creature we’ve come to call “human,” that this ape might ever pose a threat to itself and all other life forms on the planet. Humans thought little to nothing about the future. They remembered yesterday but lived in today.

Human survival skills were not always successful, especially in unpredictable weather places such as the Middle East. To avoid starvation in years of drought and food scarcity in this area humans began growing and storing food. They were successful. They also tamed cows, sheep and goats so they no longer needed to be hunted, and their meat and other products were tasty and useful. The bread humans made from the grain they grew filled their stomachs all through the year. Death from starvation seldom happened anymore.

Surplus food, mostly cereal grains, also became a highly valued commodity. That is, something of value that humans could trade with other humans for other items they needed or desired. Stored food became a prized possession that required new social structures, rules, and procedures for its protection and use. This surplus of food also became a source of conflict as a prized object of thieves and armies.