Blog Action Day: At Earth's Bedside

I promised to write a post for Blog Action Day 2007 because this is a wonderful initiative uniting people, who in essence are very individualistic, on a matter that requires a collective will.

So here is my contribution, centered on collective will, and illustrated with a picture of the gulf of Korinthos, Greece.



My daughter inspired the title of this post. When she brilliantly finished college and didn't know what to do next, my husband, who is a doctor, and myself, a scientist, convinced her to study Medecine. You've got what it takes to become a doctor, we said to her, a passion for science, a passion for people, a passion for Human Rights, and compassion. After one year in medical school, my daughter showed no interest in a medical career. Instead, with our guidance, she started a bachelor in Biology.

During her three years study in Biology she was interested in everything related to the environment: Ecology, Climate change, Biodiversity, etc...After finishing her bachelor, she applied for law school with the goal of working in the new emerging field of environment and the law. At the same time, she applied for a one year master program in European studies focused on Science and Society, including learning to communicate Science and make risk assessments. She was accepted in both but choose to do her master first because she saw in it an opportunity to study how Science affects us in both ways, for the bad and the good, how it might be our only chance to save our planet from a large scale looming catastrophe, and how technological progress can be socially and responsibly monitored.

The looming catastrophe for future generations

When I compare my daughter's generation to mine I see a shift. Most advocay groups from my generation have been preoccupied by the health and the wealth of Humanity, by peace and war, by social struggles. My daughter's generation is preoccupied by the health of the planet. But it is not only a question of generation, it is a question of structure and substance. Despite technical and ethical progress, the moves forward and backward, there is some constancy in Humanity. But what about the earth, I asked myself when I started exchanging on a daily basis with my daughter on the matter since she started her master, will it ever be the same for us, humans, across generations ?

Every indicator, up to now, is telling us that the changes introduced by human activity and march toward progress in the earth's structure and substance are probably irreversible. The problem is serious and requires urgent thinking and urgent solutions.

For the advocates of piecemeal technological solutions and economic measures, like changing light bulbs, driving electric cars, a Carbon Dioxide stock market, and so on...I am frankly afraid that, despite the good will and the fact that such measures have tremendoudly helped environmental awareness among the public, time is running out.

For the advocates of Geoengineering, an engineering made on the scale of the planet inlcuding such radical measures as: "1) underground storage of carbon dioxide, 2) wind scrubbers to filter carbon dioxide from the air, 3) ‘fertilization’ of oceans with iron to encourage growth of plankton, 4) petrification of carbon dioxide, 5) deflection of sunlight from the earth through the use of a giant space mirror ‘spanning 600,000 square miles’" , I am afraid that, not only time is maybe running out too here, but that the solution, even though more radical and having a wider impact, will be more challenging than the actual problem.

Although, if we are to compare the earth to a living organism, but an ill organism on its death bed that will not be cured with few local interventions, large scale solutions might well resemble a Frankenstein approach.

Neoliberalism, collective will and the decentering of our social selves to meet our biological needs as a species.

We need collective will. Humans in the 21st century sadly lack this collective will because Capitalism, and especially its new form, Neoliberalism, have championed competition, and artificially suppressed our biological ability for solidarity by negating the existence of humans as a collectivity, a homogenous species, substituting it by the notion of the self centered individual consumer. The self-centered individual consumer on which neoliberalism thrives is a social construction based on an overinterpretation of Darwinian theory as applied to the social sphere, a biological theory itself inspired by the social theories of early Capitalism. Capitalism created differences in ecological niche construction between one individual and another, and inside the species, leading to the building of many special and individual interests, and eclipsing the interest of the species.

The main challenge facing advocates of the environment is this gap among individuals and countries, in our species' ecological niche, created by Capitalism and Neoliberalism. Is it normal that at a time we face a major catastrophe in our ecological system resulting from an over exploitation of resources that a small part of humanity have slandered and squandered these resources for its progress and wealth while the rest, the many, are still looking for their fare share of this progress and wealth, and probably won't have it ?

At Earth's bedside, we need to unite in one voice, one humanity, one species, one family near the ailing mother. The earth is an organism, a whole, a habitat on which depend our lives and the survival of our species. Our generation is witnessing the beginning of the catastrophe, my daughter's generation and her children and future generations will witness the convulsions and maybe the end. More than piecemeal measures, more than global measures, we need to accept the fact that what counts for us as one humanity and one species, is our habitat. We all depend on the earth and we depend on each other. We need to leave our egos and to unite, rich and poor, to developp solidarity with other human beings, and between human beings and the earth.

Maybe my daughter is right. Maybe we need to be at the earth's bedside before everything else, because by doing so, we will be rebuilding our species long lost ability for cooperation and solidarity from its roots. If we succeed by doing so, we will be able to feel the same solidarity for others and reverse the logic of Neoliberalism. For this is the ultimate test for globalised Neoliberalism, will it be able to adapt from the inside, change its concepts, work on different assumptions, and save humanity, or will it sink us alltogether ? Because if we follow socio-Neodarwinian logic in Neoliberalism, maybe the few wealthy will make it, on the expenses of others, and that's what most people think of what is behind the inaction of our governments, but then Neoliberalism will have defeated itself anyway. It won't be able to profit from wars, toxic toys, toxic food, cheap goods, and cheap labour. During our planet convulsions, it will surely profit from these convulsions with no concern for the grim future that is awaiting everyone of us. Neoliberalism is ahistorical and where there is no history, there is no future.

As much as individual freedoms and individual concerns were the Achille heel that led to the fall of communism, collective freedoms, the freedom to act together, and collective will for solidarity with each other, and with our habitat and species, to save our planet, will be the Achille heel that will eventually lead to our demise, the demise of our planet, and the demise of the major obstacle to save our planet now, our unchallenged burden, Neoliberalism itself.

Dave Lucas has an excellent post as well as a round-up of the blogosphere who celebrated Al Gore on this Blog Action Day for the environment.

The Two Wolves has a superb post on climate change and the copntroversy surrounding the data presented in Gore's Inconvenient Truth, with eclectic links and an interesting take on the subject.

Knutmania

The Berlin Zoo is a fantastic Zoo. They have the highest birth rate in the world for captive animals . Knut is a polar bear born on December 5th 2006. His mother refused to care for him, his twin died from this treatment. Finally with the help of the carers at the zoo Knut survived and now he is an international star visited by Politicians. He made his first appearance to the public with Germany's environment minister by his side. When I visited the zoo last year, I witnessed a play between an Orang-Utan mother and her baby. It was really moving. And a zoo with infants animals is definitely less depressing than regular zoos.

I think that our sense of imminent loss at the reduction of biodiversity, the problem of endangered species, and climate changes, are no strangers to the phenomenal success of Knut. Too much to bear for a little bear...

Troubled times in Europe

My first week of vacation was spent among my In Laws who live in Belgium. My husband left Belgium to finish his medical studies in France where he became an expatriate acquiring the citizenship and moving later to Canada.
Although a visit to his parents does not leave us time to tour the country, he always likes to check what has changed in his native country since he left. Therefore, the picture of the cooked snails sold on the street in Bruxelles. This was just next to the most famous tourist attraction in Bruxelles: Mannekenpis.
During our stay and outside family conversations, two subjects of concern emerged: climate change and immigration, most specifically Muslim immigration but also Polish seasonal immigration to Belgium. One British blogger had a recent post on the subject. Reading his blog from Canada, these subjects seemed far to me. However they are palpable among ordinary people.
I have never known Belgium before under a constant sun in the summer during seven consecutive days with no rain and 30 degrees Celsius.
My husband's family used to shy away from immigration talk in my presence and I knew that this was an implicit understanding between us. I had arrived this time to Belgium with the magazine 'The Economist' bought at the airport with its cover on EuroIslam and when I left Bruxelles, their first national french newspaper was publishing on a remote page Tariq Ramadan's manifesto for a new Islam in Europe. Opinions diverged in my husband's family about Islam. His cousin and his wife expressed their fear while his brother who lives in the European quartier in Bruxelles told me that the problem with the talk about Islam in Europe was that ordinary people were hearing from the media more loudly about extremists than about moderates.

There was also a discussion between me and my mother in law on the subject of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I explained to her my point of view (which every regular reader f this blog knows well by now) and she explained to me hers which is representative of the seventies (my mother in law is 73) point of view of European leftists on Israel and Palestine: 'We are responsible to what happened to jews during the second world war and therefore Israel has the right to exist', typical zionist propaganda. After a 30 minutes conversation we agreed mtually to stop the discussion.

My husband's family is a typical socialist family, half Flemish on his father's side and half Francophone on his mother's side with a grand'mother, now deceased, who was among the rare people who had their Belgian communist party membership during the second WW and after. She was taken prisoner to Ravensbrück by Nazis for 4 years.
I liked the grand'mother. She was quite a character and probably the person in the family to whom I was most close. She died in 1995, after having seen the fall of the Soviet Union and the total demise of the ideals she and others fought, suffered and died for.

There was another problem I noticed in Belgium, the rise of the Facist racist Flemmish party, Vlaams Block, the second largest party in Flandres. In a trip to Bruges, we were greated on the road by a large picture of a smiling blonde on her bicycle. My husband explained to me that she was a Vlaams representative. The Vlaams party people are not only racists but also nationalists and separatists. There is talk in Belgium that if the Vlaams becomes the first party, they may vote separation from the rest of the country, like the people of Montenegro.
And so Nationalism is another problem on the rise in Europe.

This picture is taken from the Bruges beffroi and shows the Cathedral of Saint Sauveur. Another Bruges church hosts what is believed to be the blood of the Christ taken by Beligan crusaders from Jerusalem. I reminded my husband that this was a time when European christianity was even more belligerant than Islam. I remember, when we met, the first thing my husband told me jokingly was that one of his ancestors, Godefroy de Bouillon, had occupied my piece of country, northern Lebanon, and built a fortress that we can still visit to this day in Tripoli. Of course, this is a far away past, but a past that Europe still rely on and a past that is hindering, in my opinion, the understanding of Islam in Europe.
I know that these problems, climate change, immigration, racism, nationalism and Islam are not only specific to Belgium but exist also in other European countries. My feeling is that these are troubled times for Europe. I am writing this while listening to BBC world and the commemoration of the London bombing. My sympathies to the victims and to all random victims of terror. These are not only troubled times for states but also for citizens and ordinary people taken in the spirale of fanatisms and cynical politics.

P.S: I apologize if I will not be able to answer the comments soon but my access to an internet connection is limited.