As Naomi Klein says in a recent article:
“You don’t let yourself care about something that you have no idea how to fix. Because it’s just too terrifying. And it would derail your whole life”.
“I’d rather fight like hell than give these evil motherfuckers the power to extinguish the desire to create life.”
I like her turn of phrase. It caught my attention. I have spent so long training to be a neutral mediator that to characterize anyone as an “evil motherfucker” goes against the grain. I remember a story that Richard McGuigan told me about a mediator in a conflict in Uganda. On one side of the table set out in the jungle and surrounded by heavily armed troops from both sides was the Ugandan government, on the other a war lord well known for recruiting child soldiers by having them kill their families so they are brutalized and have nowhere to return to all in one action. He momentarily thought that he should just kill the war lord and die in a hail of bullets as his contribution to the solution. Being a good mediator however he moved his consciousness into empathy and realized that the war lord had himself originally been recruited this way. He was so damaged himself.
Returning to the “motherfuckers” that Naomi is referring to they are the CEOs and executives of the fossil fuel industry which she says have become rogue corporations bent on profit over the destruction of all life on earth. True. From where I sit she is correct. So if I bring some empathy to bear on the situation I imagine that these “motherfuckers” have some human characteristics. Children and grandchildren perhaps. Why then would they behave in a way that will destroy the future for these generations? This takes us back to the first of the quotations of Naomi from the Boston News article: “You don’t let yourself care about something that you have no idea how to fix. Because it’s just too terrifying. And it would derail your whole life”.
Climate change denialists come in several flavours from the looney tunes of ‘it’s a left wing conspiracy to take over the world government’ types to just plain disbelief that it could be possible coupled with a profound ignorance of science to the religious fanatics who think it is all end days unfolding as they should. Amongst the “motherfucker” group of fossil fuel CEOs there are surely also a fair number of sociopaths, even psychopaths who really do not care at all about future generations. Their only interest is greed and the bottom line as is dictated by their corporate status. What are appropriate actions in the face of this knowledge? Just ostrich like bury our heads in the sand and “please mummy make it go away”. Self sufficiency in food and energy. I’ll be all right Jack. Consciously reduce, reuse and recycle. Protest and political action. Join Greenpeace, 350.org, Occupy. Join the revolution. Start a guillotine manufacturing company. All of the above except the first and the last. In the article about Naomi it talks about her upping her game and commitment to fight as if she was not already going full tilt. Her connection with Bill McKibben and 350.org has further galvanized her to action. And as she already has an impressive history of going after the excesses of capitalism she has connected the dots and come to the realization that fighting climate change is the same fight and will mean the end of capitalism as it is currently being done. In America fighting against capitalism is still considered almost treasonous. A pollution of the purity of American bodily fluids (Dr Strangelove). Joining the commie bastards. These are dangerous times and as usual the guns and lawyers are with Goliath. To enter battle is to be prepared for individual loss against the ultimate triumph of good over evil. In mediation a major technique is to expand each parties frame of reference until they can see why the other acts the way they do. When we look at the fossil fuel industry we are looking at ourselves. The great wealth of the world has been made possible entirely by fossil fuels. “if not oil, then what?” is a valid question that industry asks us and in blinkered fashion truly does not see the answer. The answer is all around us and many countries have already replaced 20-50% of their fossil fuel energy with renewables. Naomi’s point about the industry that leads her to label them “motherfuckers” in her anger is the structure of corporations that causes them to act as greedy psychopaths with money and profit as the only objective, with no regard at all for the human community. I do however feel optimistic about the human spirit. Goodness is our natural default. The goodness drops away as you move down into the scale of sociopathy to the 1-2% psychopaths at the fringes. Living in Europe with less exposure to the truly lunatic fringes of American politics (and now Canadian too) I find that science and evidence based decision making hold more sway. It has brought very conservative organizations to a belief in in our situation previously only held by the radical environmentalists. The international Energy Agency, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, HSBC, Citi Bank, Price Waterhouse, have all issued reports sounding the alarm on climate change. Most significantly as the above article mentions is the fact that 80% of the fossil fuel reserves currently held ‘on the books’ by fossil fuel companies can never be used. The impact of this carbon bubble bursting will be a huge ‘recession’ in traditional economics. However traditional economics is not going to get us through this. We are looking at nothing less than a complete restructuring of the human social structure currently in use. Remember capitalism and corporate law are human inventions that can be changed. They will be changed and soon. This is the fight that Naomi has committed to. The sidelines will be very small. Martin Golder Skookum Zwingenberg Germany 26/05/2013
martingolder 