I wrote the following essay a year ago, but I never published it. The news is so grim, the goal seemingly so impossible, that I thought it was probably not helpful to talk about it because it would discourage people rather than motivate them. Certainly that is the effect it has had on me. I’ve been living with this for over a year now, and I have been sick and depressed. But I think we have to face the reality of our situation. The truth is our only hope even if at first we do not see any way forward. If we are not honest about the situation, we can not even begin to address it rightly and completely.
I think this helps explain my previous post on metanoia. Our situation is urgent, and we are not doing what we need to do, and we are not stopping all that we need to stop (e.g. burning fossil fuels). The whole system must change. For me, “the system” exists both as external social, economic and political circumstances; and as an internal mindset — beliefs and unconscious thought patterns that govern our behavior. The inner and the outer aspects of “the system” or what I sometimes call “the exploitation system” are intertwined, mutually reinforcing, and extremely difficult to unravel. For “the system” to change we have to be absolutely honest with ourselves about both the internal and the external aspects, or else it continues unabated. That’s what metanoia means to me: stepping aside absolutely from the exploitation system, both internally and externally. Stepping aside to where? That’s what is so hard to describe, because for most of us, what I am calling “the system” is simply “reality” or “life as we know it.” Stepping aside from that ends up sounding like moving into a fourth spatial dimension. Where the heck is it?
I’ll have more to say about this if I can find some clarity myself beyond what I have already described in this blog and in my essays. This is what I have been writing about for more than twenty-five years, and I still don’t think I have quite succeeded in explaining what metanoia means to me.
Everything Must Change
21 June 2011
An unusual meeting of ocean scientists (International Programme on the State of the Ocean) just released a summary report (note: the full report was released in 2013) concluding that unless there is a wholesale transformation of human society,
“… the world’s ocean is at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history.”
The oceans will undergo a major extinction event that will cause ecosystem reorganization never seen within human history, on a level with past major extinction events (which have occurred a few times over the past 600 million years). All the known problems are accelerating much faster than anyone predicted, and the reason is that the problems are interacting to amplify their effects. So, for instance, acidification is having a greater impact than expected because the oceans are already stressed by the presence of toxic chemicals. Because of the way science is done, the effect of all of these stressors on each other has not been studied.
The interlocking problems are climate change (warming, acidification and oxygen deficiency), pollution (heavy metals, plastics, nitrogen from agriculture, and a variety of toxic compounds from industry and agriculture), overfishing, and habitat loss (which they list separately but which is often a result of the others, although seafloor trawling, which is destroying habitat directly is a stressor in itself, not just a consequence of overfishing). They don’t mention sound pollution. That might fall under habitat loss, but I think it should have been listed as a factor in its own right (note: as was clearly demonstrated for the North Atlantic right whale in 2012).
It’s a very grim picture. The solutions these scientists offer amount to this: everything must change. The whole structure of human society must change. They don’t come out and say that directly, but they come close. For instance, one of their solutions is to
“avoid, reduce or at minimum, universally and stringently regulate oil, gas, aggregate and mineral extraction.”
Wow. That one alone requires a complete transformation of our politics, our economy and our way of life. And so do all the other solutions they offer.
They make it clear that this is not a hundred-year project. We are perilously close to not being able to stop this thing. We may have already crossed that line and made total collapse and mass extinction unavoidable. In the summary conclusion they state,
“Technical means to achieve the solutions to many of the problems the workshop identified already exist, but current societal values prevent humankind from addressing them effectively. Overcoming these barriers is core to the fundamental changes needed to achieve a sustainable and equitable future.”
That’s as close as they come to stating outright that everything must change. These changes are not adjustments within the system. They require a total transformation of the system. Current societal values must change. We must change. And fast. Not over several generations, which is the normal time frame for deep changes in societal values.
Everything must change. Now.