photo by lady

I believe we manifest possible realities. Every day I tell myself a mythology about two futures, one global in scope, and one more personal. In my personal future, Smith and I have great success with our books and artwork.

In the other future/present, everything collapses and there is no more civil society by, oh, say 2012. My personal, successful future is negated by this other future which seems more and more real. 2012 sounds hokey. But I believe in the collective unconscious and the myth of destruction seems to be winning over the myth of hope.

“Rational” people keep telling me that somehow the scientists are going to solve this environmental crisis and avert global catastrophe. I’m very skeptical of this brand of rationalism. (My own “credentials” in rationalism: I have an electrical engineering degree and have worked in the controls industry serving municipal sewer, water and power plants for ten years. Not that this sheep skin matters one iota.)

The scientific gestalt–for those in environmental sciences, at any rate–is in such a state that marine biologists break down in tears at press conferences.

The scientific gestalt–for those “scientists” in the petroleum industry–is that we’re going to extract every last bit of fossil fuel, no matter the consequences. We’re working on tar sands now, which when they are fully developed are estimated to only provide 10% of our fuel needs. If not the tar sands, then they’re in jubilation over the melting arctic and the possibilities of slurping melting methyl hydrate from the sea bottom, thus burning more fossil fuel, thus warming the earth more, thus melting the arctic faster, thus expanding the area of sunlight that is not reflected back into space, but absorbed by our dying oceans, absorbed by our warming planet, ultimate impact absorbed by us human feces species.

Environmental scientists are worried that the arctic’s melt will cause a gigantic “burp” of methyl hydrate, which would end life on this earth as we know it. And if the burp doesn’t happen, corporate scientists are greedy to extract the stuff anyways, dump it into our atmosphere. The only benefit of using methyl hydrate as a fuel is it produces 50% less CO2 emissions than coal. But believe you me, it’s not going to be a substitute for coal. They’re going after *everything.*

I remember when “rational” people were telling me, “Don’t worry, Lady, we’re going to use ethanol instead of oil. Brazil fuels their economy on sugar-based ethanol.” Never mind that Brazil uses slaves to do so because it’s such a labor intensive process it’s economically unfeasible otherwise. Never mind that we can’t grow sugar in America! Corn based ethanol? Never mind that it takes nearly as much energy in the form of fertilizer and fueling equipment to raise and process the corn as it does to use it.

Ethanol is a false panacea. Beware of people telling you that science is going to figure it out, that you won’t have to change your energy consuming ways.

Although I’m a fatalist, I still work on my soul. My soul urges me to divest myself of meat, of long commute, of plane rides, of energy-burning house, of car. (Still gotta stop riding planes and eating meat.) I want to invest myself in earnestness, in community, in good heart, in friendship with our home, the Earth.

Lady