Yesterday's Post, Open Thread

If I post something new today, giving everybody their daily dose of depressing realism, it will be as if I had never written yesterday's essay Authentic Versus False Hope. That effort will simply disappear into blogger oblivion.

That's unacceptable to me. That essay is a highly condensed summary of my conclusions following 25 years of observation and study of the Human Condition. I used that PBS atrocity Saving The Ocean as my example yesterday, but one could enumerate such examples ad nauseam.

In a comment, Richard Pauli called them the Petroleum Broadcasting Company. I agree with that.

Oliver said, regarding my writing this blog, that "there is a certain sense of camaraderie on death row." I agree with that too. I probably won't throw in the towel because of that camraderie. Discouraged people need a place to go where the truth gets told. There's a bogus Latin phrase illegitimi non carborundum—don't let the bastards grind you down.

That's a pretty good reason to keep going right there.

Speaking of bastards, there was some stuff I didn't have time to get into yesterday. Check this out, from Carl Safina's bio on the Guggenheim website, and make sure you have a bucket handy—

The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World (Henry Holt, 2011), the writing of which was supported by his Guggenheim Fellowship, is just the latest in an impressive line of books on marine conservation that have earned Carl Safina a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant, a Pew Scholar’s Award in Conservation, the Rabb Medal from Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo, and, perhaps most important, a loyal readership.

In its starred review, Kirkus voiced the critical and popular consensus that The View from Lazy Point “combines solid science and excellent storytelling,” praising it as a “superb work of environmental reportage and reflection.”

Compared by more than one critic to Henry David Thoreau, Mr. Safina is known for his accessible approach to conservation topics, and, unlike many writers in this field, his work is suffused with an optimism and joy in nature that, while not denying looming threats, adds a perspective too often missing from the more common “gloom and doom” accounts.

But unlike Thoreau, who spent a year alone at Walden Pond to write his masterpiece, Mr. Safina is as conversant with the abounding life in the arctic, Pacific, and Caribbean as he is with that right outside his door, in the Long Island Sound.

I'm sure you get the picture. No "gloom And doom" for Carl Safina! He is the "accessible" environmentalist, critically acclaimed by clueless humans everywhere. Carl tells people what they want to hear. He gets all kinds of awards, grants, medals and other accolades for doing that. Carl The Obsequious makes a living by not rocking the boat.

That's a common occupation here on Planet Earth. If you're good at it, like Carl is, you can be very successful here.

Needless to say, DOTE is not supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship, I have never been nominated for and awarded a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, and all the rest of it. All of which means I must be doing something right. But it bothers me that I live among a species which rewards mediocrity and punishes or ignores truth-telling. It grates on me. Perhaps it shouldn't, but it does.

Consider this open thread an interlude between yesterday and whatever I decide to do tomorrow.

Bonus Video — Why not? It never fails to cheer me up.

 

Comments

[rumor]

Honestly, I don't know where you get the grit to keep kicking at the darkness day after day but god damn if I'm not endlessly glad you do, Dave.

Incidentally, I can't tell you how relieved I am that there's someone out there to provide an optimistic perspective on all the "gloom and doom" pervading the public discussion on conservation. We were almost close to that doom and gloom actually convincing a majority of people in developed nations to reassess economic and energy growth and collectively commit towards paring back... wait, no, none of that was happening. Just kidding!

[Oliver]

Dave - right on the button: All of which means I must be doing something right.

It's painful but it's par for the course for truth-tellers to be anguished that all the rewards and plaudits are ladled over the mediocre. Fact: Shooting the messenger is the prevailing form of governance in this unfathomably screwed-up world.

At least you can look at yourself in the mirror without flinching. Allah/Jehovah/Krishna/Mrs Jones only knows what Saint Carl feels deep down about himself when he catches sight of his reflection - probably explains the beard.

[PBD]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall that pretty much all the people who died in the Costa Concordia disaster were the ones that followed "orders" and obediently returned to their cabins to wait for the "authorities" to come and rescue them.

I'm sure they were full of "hope".

PS: Maybe "Saint" Carl wouldn't even cast a reflection - it seems pretty easy to see through him.

[John D]

You are right about like minds needing the camradery of this site. I got finished reading the comment section of a NYT's article about the limits of economic growth. Simply amazing the number of techno-optimists with absolutely no concept of physics or mathematics blubbering on about how mankind's genius will save the day. I had to go to DOTE to clean myself up and get my sanity back!

[Bill Hicks]

I was away from my computer most of the day yesterday and didn't get to the post until this morning. Something that needs highlighting:

"Those who won't buy in must be forced to cooperate."

That sentence is particularly striking as it could pertain to any other major issue confronting mankind--overpopulation, peak oil, climate change, ground level ozone, etc. Collectively, we have our heads so far up our own asses that it would take a totalitarian political system to achieve the level of coercion that would be necessary to effect the kind of change that would avert global catastrophe, and that would be a catastrophe in and of itself.

[PBD]

For whatever its worth, I believe James Lovelock has suggested the same thing :

"But even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while."

( http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock-climate-change )

[Ken Barrows]

Sure, we have our heads up our asses, but boy, how about the profit at Goldman Sachs! ;)

[Bill]

Whoring - especially good whoring by good looking whores - pays better than anything but banking, which was how Guggenheim made, and still makes, the money.

[Nat]

Yes, false hope abounds. Apparently, it is very rude to dash false hope in polite society. I've tried that a few times and the honesty is not appreciated. Talking of authentic hope, we could perhaps hope that out of the coming bottleneck will evolve a more prudent human species. With luck, "homo prudens" will be able to make a living despite the wreckage we're leaving behind.

[Mike Roberts]

I'm glad you decided to stay, Dave. The few sure need places to go.

I didn't realise Carl Safina was a marine scientist; I thought he was a writer and journalist. Anyway, I was looking for some links, to see if Jeremy Jackson refuted what Safina was saying. I haven't found that yet, though I did come across a piece where Jackson appeared to be reprimanding some scientist who was painting an even grimmer picture than he was, with Jackson saying that there was still Hope. Anyway, I also came across a TED talk by Safina which, I think, shows another side of him. No optimism is really evident (though perhaps creeping in at the end) in this talk:

http://www.ted.com/talks/carl_safina_the_oil_spill_s_unseen_culprits_victims.html

This official site cuts the very end of the talk off, so you'll have to download it to see the final minute or two.

[Dave Cohen]

@Mike Roberts

I watched that Ted talk. Safina gave it a few days before the Gulf oil spill was capped. He subsequently wrote a book about the spill, and whitewashed the deal, as he is required to do.

I quote this review of the book Safina wrote about the spill--

As “A Sea in Flames” progresses, its author undergoes several conversions. Expecting to find evidence of terrible harm to the gulf biosphere, instead he finds only mild problems. Expecting to discover that the dispersants caused widespread marine death, instead he discovers that by breaking up crude, these chemicals speeded the oil’s natural decomposition. After Allen and Lubchenco grant him an interview, Safina switches ground and decides they are not as bad as he thought.

By the end, Safina is nearly a contrarian. Fertilizer runoff from the Mississippi, he concludes, causes the gulf more harm than did BP, while the fishing ban that went into force just after the spill might have helped marine wildlife more than the oil hurt it. Is gasoline always bad? “A whale might think, ‘Thank God for petroleum,’ ” Safina writes; the end of demand for whale oil saved some whale species. Government officials may have sugarcoated the situation, the author supposes, but the Deepwater Horizon spill just did not do much environmental harm.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/books/review/book-review-a-sea-in-flames-by-carl-safina.html?_r=0

-- Dave

[Mike Roberts]

Thanks for the heads up, Dave.

I was quite surprised by that TED talk, given other work by him, as you've pointed out. The guy was practically in tears at one point in the talk, when relating a story about a dolphin. "Hello," I thought, "here's a guy who seems to care and seems to understand at least one of our many predicaments." I should have looked further, of course, so thanks again for doing my work for me. I'm so glad you stayed!

[Oliver]

Just had a thought further re Mike R's comment: The guy was practically in tears...

I always beware of croco-tears. The story goes that Hitler was practically in tears in his Berlin bunker in 1945 - not because of any sudden contrition over the slaughter of millions of innocents, but because he had to shoot his beloved dogs, before killing himself (12 years too late).

Welling up over a dolphin while acting as a glove puppet for big business doesn't wash for me - white or any color.