High Hopes

Disregarding the 7.6bn deadline by which our Sun will enter the (killer) Red Giant stage, and the practical difficulties of reaching even our nearest like-system (4.6 years at light-speed travel, and solar radiation), will we survive long enough to even attempt these challenges? In the long term we will have to disperse into space, the real problem is can we survive long enough? With approximately 7,770 nuclear weapons active out of 22,600 stockpiled, and no international consensus or treaty, Stephen Hawkings, among others warns our nature my accelerate our own (and that of Earth’s species) extinction. 

The impending environmental crisis, food crisis, and unsustainable rate of resource depletion, are products not of overpopulation burdening the Earth exponentially, but of the economic paradigm that enforces massive inequality and concentration of wealth, in more than just monetary terms, and power, serving the hyper consumption of capitalist elites. As Ehrlich and Ehrlich say, “development on the old model is counterproductive”, if not downright dangerous. 

Nations can lead by example, and not wait for global consensus. Some have already, but this is not heralded in our media for their pioneering efforts in technological, social and economic shifts to become sustainable. Ideas such as “agriculture for sustainable development” and agro-ecological practises are changing views of social and ecological compatibility gradually and globally. There are technologies that can render emissions an obsolescence along with the old paradigm, and only require the necessary funding to implement at sufficient scale. Conventional environmentalism must dismiss Populationist and techno-optimist critiques, as these ideas of “going green” and “controlling populations” serve the market-hegemony and capitalist exploitation, and are insufficient and flawed (respectively) reasoning: “populationists (and other conventional environmentalist rationale) assume that the social and economic context won’t change; we insist that it must” (Angus and Butler). 

We don't have to give up on our planet when it is well within not only our technological capacity, but also our social-capacity to push through our views to push political-momentum for changing the current economic paradigm. And we may continue our wonder and exploration of space, without giving up our Goldilocks-Earth .

On a message of hope, I shall leave this peroration to a keynote speaker of conventional (though no less poignant a message) environmentalism, former Vice President, Al Gore;

“The Chinese expression for ‘crisis’ consists of two characters. The first is a symbol for danger, the second is a symbol for opportunity. And this is our opportunity to rise to meet this crisis successfully, to see the truth of our circumstances, and to chart our own course for a better world”