Renewable Revolution

agelbert
We also need to convince the oligarchy that they need to stop believing their social Darwinist predatory capitalist PR or the biosphere and their descendants are toast.

WrenchMonkey agelbert
The plutocratic oligarchy cannot be "convinced" of anything. It is composed primarily of essential psychopaths who are devoid of conscience and compassion and immune to reason. They understand only force.
Just my opinion

agelbert WrenchMonkey
If they cannot be convinced that their survival is imperiled by their blindness, arrogance, greed and stupidity, then Homo SAP has had it.

Why?

Excerpt from the article on the 1%'s responsibility:
"The issue is not about gender or the criminal insanity endemic to psychopaths in the 1%; psychopaths are unfortunately represented at all income levels even if they are concentrated at the top.

Whether this super aggressive behavior destroying the biosphere is caused by microbes willing us to spread, testosterone in the male of the species or the inability of our big, but still brutish, brains to react to threats on a multigenerational time horizon, the fact remains that the main authors of the rampant biosphere damage are these humans in the 1%.

It's not the 99%'s biomass (e.g. ants have more than humans) that is destroying the biosphere; it's the 1%'s carbon footprint by a huge margin despite their tiny biomass. A detailed study of per capita footprint which includes resource ownership by wealth would conclusively prove that."

"The ones who hold the power are ALWAYS in the driver's seat. If they don't adequately react to a threat to the species, it's curtains. Power cannot be divorced from responsibility.
The 1% enjoy their RHIP which provide them many privileges but they cannot evade their responsibility.

That said, The 1% don't have to lose their "better to reign in hell than serve in heaven" attitude for mankind to survive; they just have stop believing their own PR.

If they bite the reality bullet and lead the way into sustainable living, we might make it."
The 1%'s Responsibility to Shoulder 80% of the COST of a 100% Renewable Energy World

WrenchMonkey agelbert
I'm sorry. I don't think you comprehend the nature of the psychopath. It's not that they won't change their ways, the can't.
http://ponerology.com/evil_1.h...

And by the way, 100% renewable energy will not end the destruction of the ecosystem. It still requires and industrial civilisation and industrial civilisation is not sustainable.
Just my opinion

agelbert WrenchMonkey
I understand psychopathy and ponerology quite well.

You labor under the assumption that 100% of the 1% are composed of psychopaths. I agree with you that psychopaths are incorrigible. I disagree with you that they dominate the 1%, despite the fact they are over-represented in that group.

I never said we would have paradise just because we had 100% renewable energy. I stated that our survival depends on it. It would give us time to bioremediate all the other environmental damage done.

But I realize where you stand on this and I will put it to you in black and white.

Your assumption that you can solve humanity's problems by offing the bad guys is as old as humanity and has never worked.

It's been the siren song of every would be tyrant wooing the masses until he seizes power and double crosses his followers who hoped for a more egalitarian world. It's a comfortable fantasy.
Just my opinion and that of the history of "civilization".

Renewable Revolution

WrenchMonkey agelbert
I labour under no such assumption and you're being presumptuous by making such a statement. I make a great deal of effort to assume nothing.

I'd suggest you reread the section in Political Ponerology entitled "Spellbinders" beginning on
page 155. Or, if you don't have the book, you can read the section titled PONEROLOGY on the website.
It's my conclusion that, at this point, the essential psychopath not only dominates the "1%" but, through the power and influence acquired, holds sway in nearly all the patriarchal hierarchies that control the economies and thus the governments of the world's "sovereign" nations and most of those that aren't so sovereign as well.

I'm afraid I must disagree with your conclusions regarding "renewable" energy. These techno-fixes are well meaning but misguided attempts at "saving" our "civilisation", which is the last thing we need to do. They all require the continued extraction and destruction of non-renewable resources in order to maintain the industrialism and market based economies that are destroying the ecosystem.

I'm sorry to contradict, but you actually do not realise where I stand. I neither said nor even implied that humanity's problems can be solved by "offing the bad guys". If that's what you think you've read in my comments, then you've misinterpreted them badly.

In order to actually better understand "where I stand", I suggest you read "Endgame", volumes 1 & 2, "A Language Older Than Words" and "Deep Green Resistance". If you are already familiar with these works and disagree with their premises then you and I will be better served by simply agreeing to disagree. It is incumbent upon neither of us to "convert" the other.

IMHO the solution to our dilemma lies more in prehistory than in the history of our civilisation.

Have a safe and happy holiday insofar as that's possible.

agelbert WrenchMonkey
 History, not PRE-history, will prove you wrong in the next decade. I hope you are humble enough to accept the truth.

Techno-fixes were never the issue. You didn't read my article, obviously.

The issue, for the last time, is that hierarchy is the natural state of affairs in millions of species on the planet and works quite well, thank you very much. Egalitarian concepts are pipe dreams.
You will never have a stable society without a pecking order. You can dream otherwise and believe this, that and the other but you will continue to be frustrated by an unworkable hypothesis.

Mankind is BENEATH the biosphere in the pecking order and will perish if he doesn't GET that. However, within our species, asymmetric power relationships are the ONLY way we can have a stable society. Laugh if you wish.

Have a nice day.

WrenchMonkey agelbert
This article ?: http://www.renewableenergyworl...

Yes, I read it. I've read a great many things with which I don't wholly agree. I would have commented but I don't want to "create a free account" to do so.

I even followed a few of the links. Your complete immersion in scientific minutia is a bit too clinical for me. It smacks of absolute certainty, which I find very disconcerting. It's a common mistake among the professional scientific community.

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Max Planck

While there's much you have to say, regarding the ruling class, the 1%, wall street, etc, with which I can agree, I think your ideological stance, manifested in your absolutism, makes any comprehensive agreement impossible.

It's saddening that I seem to detect a sense of sneering superiority in your comments here and your essays at Renewable Energy World and Renewable Revolution. I have no desire to provoke, offend or dominate you. I simply do not agree with your viewpoint, though I most certainly would defend your right to it.

As I said before, it is incumbent upon neither of us to "convert" the other.
Once more and finally, let us agree to disagree without rancour.

agelbert WrenchMonkey
 " it is incumbent upon neither of us to 'convert' the other."

I agree and without rancor! :>)

Thanks for reading the article.

The piece at Renewable Energy World was the third part. In the earlier parts I went to great pains to show "how it works" as to power relationships in nature. I may appear overly "sure" of myself because I have the backing of the stable behavior and perpetuation of millions of species on this planet. It's not about me or you; it's about those that control the future of our species (i.e. our leaders).

I just write about it hoping one them that is not a psychopath will read it and over rule the crazies.
Here at common dreams for at least a decade I have watched the purists, deep ecologists, zealous progressives, and other people I share many viewpoints on, harp on the quixotic view that the only way to solve this mess is to scrap the whole failed paradigm. At first I believed it. But when I looked deeper I realized this was just a form of escapism unrelated to real world solutions.

I was all fired up to "convert" people to the "right" way of thinking. But I was wrong.
The only ones that hold our future are not prone to progressive thinking. However, they have been rather "good", as in a fecal bolus floating to the surface of a toilet bowl, of surviving all sorts of calamities in history far better than most of the other Homo saps.

Common Dreamers have cows and kittens every time I tell them that the 1% are part of us, warts and all, and we solve this thing together or we perish. They want to off the Wall Street vermin. It's a fun thought but it won't happen.

Be well.

Renewable Revolution

Full Common Dreams Thread Here