Another ten days have gone by, and some news want to be organized. That'll be the first part for today. Last time's questions -- on why "CLIMATE" or "NATURE" do not compute in the protestant American mind; on how neocon Gringos think differently; or on why the shouts of "global warming" have fallen on deaf Republican ears for 15 years -- need clarification. That'll be the second part.
First, the news. The Arctic melt unnerves the experts. Which is to say that the arctic heat wave stuns researchers. The UN warns that climate disaster is upon us. Record news come from Melville Island, with its thawing, changing contours, and a temperature of 22 C (71.6 F) at a place where until last year 5 C (41 F) had been normal. Meanwhile in Greenland, glacial acceleration has begun. If all of Greenland melts, world sea levels will rise by 7 m (23 ft).
John Howard, the smarmy Bush from Down Under, said the climate "shift" is no cause for panic. That's nice to know. The NOAA folks predict another warm winter for the U.S. The U.S. has lost its aura of competence. Europeans are angry after Bush climate speech "charade". Bush tries, but fails to change his image on climate change. The Republican Logo has become more sincere, looking now like an elephant going to jail. This year's Chicago Marathon was definitely too hot to finish. The greenest cities on the planet are Stockholm, Oslo, Munich, Paris, and Frankfurt. And here's a short video clip of the trains not allowed in the U.S.
fastest train in the WORLD 500 Km/h - video powered by Metacafe
So then. Why are neocon Gringos so clueless? It certainly didn't help to have been the most powerful nation. Anybody would have become a tad self-complacent. So it's no surprise that climate change caught this society off guard. Add to this the fact that the US Republicans are the world's top consumers, and you get a culture out of whack, which left a sane give-and-take attitude behind for the sake of an insane take-and-take-more posture. You wind up with an acquisitive society, of needy, narcissist, and oddly frightened people, in love with their self-reflection and only seeing the world as their oyster.
That the world can be seen as such is a Biblical tenet, and the neocon USA happens to be the most extreme Christian society on the planet. Other peoples caught on to the ramifications of Climate Change more rapidly simply because they're not trapped in the Republican beliefs. The reason neocon Gringos had been so slow on the uptake ties to the articles of their faith. They believe that Nature was made in one act of creation, and after the deed was done, nothing's supposed to happen anymore. Nature is not supposed to change afterwards; that would violate the faith and be plainly unfair. Conservative Americans find it already painful to accept the evolution of life. But to accept the possibility of an evolution of nature is just too much to ask. Republicans grow up with the trust that Nature is like a dead ticking clockwork, with moving parts, but overall steady and inert. That now Nature emerges, instead, as a dynamic, organic, and self-regulating structure, and that the watch is melting, in Daliesque fashion, right as we look, is something White Anglo Protestants couldn't react to since it goes against their social identity. Perhaps the Global Village shouldn't have expected a proactive attitude from US Neocons either. So perhaps we shouldn't judge too harshly. It's already bad enough that Nature is reordering itself. It must be worse for Republicans to discover, through simply following the news, the flaws in their faith.
Then again, is such a conclusion fair? Should one let U.S. Christianity off the hook so easily? E. O. Wilson's 2006 The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth is the appeal by a scientist to a Christian -- not the other way around. J. Lovelock's 2006 The Revenge of Gaia contains a 1988 quote by Mother Theresa who said, "Why should we care about the Earth when our duty is to the poor and the sick among us. God will take care of the Earth." All the pious talk about becoming good stewards notwithstanding, that is the reality of Christendom. How embarrassing. In the end it will boil down to this. The world's children, when grown up and struggling with the burden of climate change put on their shoulders by God's Own Country, the U.S. of A., will ask you what you did, here and now, in 2007, when the biospherical trendlines had already become as obvious as a pie in the face. They will ask you angrily, because you cheated them out of their future. Imagine you reply in defense of Joe Six Pack, "well, I come from a normal home; we just thought the way everyone did, so how could I have known any better."
Would the kids let you off the hook with this answer?
.
No comments:
Post a Comment