Marxist filosophy won't save the planet

[helene_t]

Since I couldn't find anything better to do Thursday night I decided to save the World for a change. Conveniently, a friend of mine called and asked if I wanted to go to the cinema to watch "manufactured landscapes".

 

We were 6 minutes early so I thought we just had time for drinks. The bargirl asked if we were going to bring the drinks into the cinema. In that case she would have to serve it in a plastic glass. Oh ***** maybe we won't succeed in saving the planet tonight.....

 

In the foyer we were greeted by someone who had some posters on display and asked us if we wanted to learn about sustainability. I got the impression that he was very proud that he could pronounce that word but maybe I am biased .....

 

Before the movie itself we first got a short introduction by two guys who were exited to host us for a display of the "Best environmentalist film they ever saw", by the same director who also made "An inconvenient truth". And then on to the usual commercials for sexy cars and and ditto skin tonic, beer etc....

 

The film was not bad. An epic mosaic of pictures from modern china, including some superficial addressing of some social and environmental problems (drinking water quality, air pollution). Not much new info although I must admit I didn't know that 50% of the World's trashed computers get recycled in China. I could have lived without the DIY philosophy of human impact on landscapes at the abstract level but to be fair most of the film was down-to-Earth.

 

Then on to the panel discussion. One of the two "experts" (lol) was an associate professor in history who just wrote a book about the cultural impact of the Apollo missions pictures of Earth seen from the Moon. So this brilliant academic discovered the amazing fact that seeing pictures of the whole World suddenly made people realize the Earth is a single entity of limited size etc. Most of what he said was gibberish, the few discernible phrases were of the kind of "Maybe it's not so bad if global warming exterminates humanity, since we know from the history of the planet that it has a natural self-stabilizing cycle and has been able to recover from disasters before. Maybe future civilizations will learn from our mistakes". (Quote on the basis of my loose memory).

 

The other "expert" was an associate professor in philosophy who taught environmental awareness. I wondered why anyone would teach such a subject to college students when young children are so much easier to brainwash. What amazed me was that she thought the movie told a story of the link between globalization and CO2 emission. Excuse me. The environmental problems addressed were local (it may or may not be interesting to discuss their relation to China's international trade) and they had nothing to do with CO2. I wonder if I could teach a parrot to say "CO2 emission" and "globalization" and then get it appointed as an associate professor in philosophy.

 

My diagnosis is that since sponsors are crazy about global warming, everyone has to write "global warming" on their fund applications, even if they have no clue about what global warming is, let alone why it has nothing to do with their research interests, whether it be "towards an anti-capitalist semantic synthesis" or something else. I have seen it before with other hypes. There was a time when all fund applications contained the word "information technology" or "SDI". Some alternative contemporary ones are "interdisciplinary" and "genomics". Usually it does little harm since those who get funds for research on <insert random hype> will soon forget their obligation towards the sponsor and just do whatever they want, and/or stay in their ivory tower. Thursday night was one of those occasions where they felt compelled to show the social relevance of their work, thereby embarrassing the non-fake experts on the subject, and wasting the time of the audience.

 

To be fair, the same theater presented a so-called stand-up comedian (or was more like a presenter on a popular science conference but that doesn't matter) Saturday night who got top marks from me and everyone else I have discussed it with. He really managed to get some of the more difficult-to-accept aspects of the consumer's impact on CO2 emissions through in a way that was tough enough to have impact but humorous enough not to paralyze or depress. He was also very well informed, gave adequate answers to all the questions asked, some if which were quite technical. Google on "carbon detox" for details.

 

PS: So what has this to do with Marxism, you ask? Well I don't know if those two Assoc.Profs were marxists, they may be too young for that. But the same week one of the mailing lists related to this week's sustainability festival distributed a very angry message about the evil capitalist system that now has destroyed our economy. I couldn't help make a few comments to it and distribute to the same list, for example:

Quote: "Comrade Lenin may have been wrong about a few things, but ....."

Comment: "How dare you question the holly Vladimir's infallibility?"

[y66]

Those Marxist professors must be pretty old.

 

re: consumers' impact on CO2 emissions, Jeffrey Ball reported on this topic in a WSJ story recently:

 

It's easy to mock little efforts to save the environment: reusing grocery bags, buying a Prius, putting an energy-efficient refrigerator in an energy-eating mansion. The big gains to curb greenhouse emissions, the argument goes, will come from controlling big industrial companies that spew millions of tons of heat-trapping gases every year.

 

But consumers -- especially American consumers -- have more influence over climate change than they might think.

 

U.S. consumers have direct or indirect control over 65% of the country's greenhouse-gas emissions, according to new statistics tallied by consultant McKinsey & Co. The figure for consumers in the rest of the world is just 43%. Americans, largely because of how they drive and how they build and use their homes and offices, lead some of the most energy-intensive lives in the world.

Thought Al Gore did a good job of communicating the problem in An Inconvenient Truth, but maybe the only really inconvenient truth is the one that affects individuals' standards of living as seems to be finally happening in the U.S., as reported by Clifford Krauss in the NY Times a few months ago.

 

This is the year American drivers appear to be finally succumbing to price shock at the pump, according to a new report by Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm affiliated with IHS Inc. It says the slowdown in the economy and soaring gasoline prices have finally persuaded Americans to drive fewer miles in fewer gas-guzzling vehicles.

 

“U.S. gasoline demand will likely decline in 2008 for the first time in more than 17 years,” says the report to be released Thursday. “For the first time since the 1970s and early 1980s the number of miles driven by Americans has clearly begun trending downward.”

 

The Transportation Department reported on Wednesday that Americans drove 1.8 percent fewer miles on public roads in April 2008 compared with the same month last year, the sixth consecutive month of driving mileage declines.

 

The Cambridge Energy report cites some fundamental shifts in consumer behavior that suggest the beginning of an enduring trend. The report noted that in California, where gasoline prices have historically led the rest of the country, gasoline consumption has declined for two consecutive years and hybrid vehicle sales are rising.

 

Now the rest of the country seems to be following. Sales of pickup trucks, minivans and sport utility vehicles have fallen below 50 percent of new passenger vehicle sales this year for the first time since 2001, the report says, as consumers turned to smaller vehicles in favor of fuel economy.

 

“It’s kind of stunning,” said Aaron F. Brady, a co-author of the report. “It was over 50 percent as late as February and by May it fell under 44 percent. It’s like falling off a cliff.”

 

Drivers, meanwhile, are becoming more prudent in their driving habits, either by using public transportation, carpooling or just cutting down on unnecessary trips, the two authors said in an interview. “Public transit ridership is surging all over the country,” said Samantha Gross, the other author.

 

While total vehicle miles Americans traveled grew by nearly 3 percent a year from 1984 to 2004, the rate of growth slowed suddenly in 2005 and 2006 and has declined since then.

By the way, I trust you recycled your plastic bar glass. :)

[kenberg]

Om the subject of professors and Marxism and capitalism: When my older daughter was in graduate school she took an economics course from a Marxist in which he kept speaking of "organic capitalism". She finally decided she had to ask "What is organic capitalism??" I probably would have asked him if it was carbon based. Anyway, as she tells it, first he got a big chuckle out of the fact that she was unfamiliar with the phrase, after which he was totally unable to explain what it meant.

 

As to philosophy courses, perhaps you know the story from "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman". I don't have it handy but if you don't hold to precise details I can tell it:

 

Feynman was studying physics at Princeton and at that time students were encouraged to visit courses in other disciplines. He attended a philosophy class and they were discussing "essential objects". The professor knew Feynman was studying physics and so he asked Feynman's opinion as to whether an electron was an essential object. Not knowing what the phrase meant Feynman thought he could get a general idea of the term by asking if a chair was an essential object. As the hour came to an end they were still discussing features of chairs that may or may not make them essential objects. They never got back to electrons.

[blackshoe]

"The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reason. Those others merely require scholarship." -- Robert A. Heinlein

[helene_t]

He attended a philosophy class and they were discussing "essential objects".

I started pursuing a BA in philosophy but dropped out. Your story reminds me of a lecture about a dispute between two Greek philosophers, one claiming "l'etant est" and the other claiming "l'etant n'est pas". (Since it's gibberish I will not attempt to translate the French translation into English. It is possible that the Greek texts were more meaningful).

[Al_U_Card]

"The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reason. Those others merely require scholarship." -- Robert A. Heinlein

Science requires knowledge.

 

The fuzzy subjects require understanding.

 

:)

[blackshoe]

Scientists generally have little difficulty distinguishing between knowledge and opinion. Scholars, on the other hand... :blink:

[Rossoneri]

Reminds me of the complaints I hear from my friends who are reading Philosophy, Politics and Economics. No prizes for guessing which part of their course they are complaining about...

[kenberg]

He attended a philosophy class and they were discussing "essential objects".

I started pursuing a BA in philosophy but dropped out. Your story reminds me of a lecture about a dispute between two Greek philosophers, one claiming "l'etant est" and the other claiming "l'etant n'est pas". (Since it's gibberish I will not attempt to translate the French translation into English. It is possible that the Greek texts were more meaningful).

Maybe this translates roughly as:

 

Sartre: To be is to do

Camus: To do is to be

Sinatra: Doo bee doo bee doo

[Gerben42]

Maybe this translates roughly as:

 

Sartre: To be is to do

Camus: To do is to be

Sinatra: Doo bee doo bee doo

 

I love that one ('08 B))

 

By the way, why does "the planet" need saving? It's going to be here. Now we might discuss saving wildlife, or the human race, or whatever. But the planet will be just fine for the next 4 billion years...