I have not written anything in this blog since March. It's certainly not true that there's nothing to write about. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by all that's happening in our world. Today, I feel compelled to babble about the current situation at some length. It might be a bit rambling.
We live in a precarious juncture of history. We seem on the brink of (or in the middle of?) a scientific revolution, with many mysterious questions about to be answered, many seemingly intractable problems solved, and amazing technological changes on the way. On the other hand, the planet itself seems on the verge of disaster. There's the tension: the promise of a golden age threatened by increased danger to life on Earth.
I came across a tiny item of scientific discovery in the current issue of Harper's, on the "Findings" page: "Engineers developed a material made of protein nanowires that harvests electricity from humidity in the air." Whether this engineering feat will prove to matter in our lives is unknown, at least to me, but the sentence blew my mind. We seem to be making astonishing discoveries in several fields simultaneously. The recent advances in genetic engineering (I'm not afraid of GMOs in principle) promise to be the key to treatment of diseases once thought incurable. Genetic engineering can also improve the nutrition value of various foods faster than traditional breeding methods. Technological advances in physics and astronomy promise to answer questions about the origin of the universe, the building blocks of matter, and maybe the origin of life itself.
Of course, we have the minus side. Climate change has proved to be real, and to be happening much faster than predicted. One indicator of the danger life on Earth is in is the decrease in the numbers of insects and birds. We have all heard of the collapse of honeybee populations, but there are similar declines in other species that many people are unaware of because they're of no obvious use to humans. We are experiencing the loss of coral reefs, the melting of glaciers, the worsening of storms, and the lengthening of the fire season. All of these things, and others, are contributing to the misery of more and more people and animals. Sea level rise endangers coastal settlements. Stronger storms and bigger fires increasingly endanger life and property. Soaring high temperatures are causing suffering and, sometimes, death. And we've all seen that polar bears don't have enough ice to rest on and hunt from.
So, I come finally to my point. In this time that promises both an explosion of discovery and an approaching doom, we (or some of us) know that a great effort must be expended to slow the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere if we want to be around to make these other breakthroughs. We know how to decrease the burning of fossil fuels, and have already begun to make the necessary changes.
But there is resistance.
At this critical juncture in history, our political life is increasingly under the control of the wrong people. Government is being starved of the revenue necessary to protect life and health from the depredations of corporations. So corporations contribute to the campaigns of candidates who will continue to cut taxes that could be used for the good of the general population, as well as enforce the regulations that are meant to make the corporations better citizens.
And that's not the worst of it.
So many of the politicians finding their way into office these days are purely destructive. Right now, they are banning books that they say will cause discomfort to their lily white, heterosexual children. They seem to forget (or maybe they just don't care) about the gross discomfort suffered by slaves and their descendants, and by people who were born any way they don't consider normal. So their children grow up with false ideas about history.
The people I'm talking about mostly profess to be Christians, and say they feel discriminated against for their beliefs. What is truly discriminating against them is reality. As we learn more about the way the world and the universe work, science chips away at their worldview. They want that worldview protected and are determined to resist the forces that threaten it. Their method of resistance is to deny that things that have been proven are true, and to claim that beliefs that are increasingly untenable are actually the truth. They know that they cannot prove their case through rational argument, so they seek to strike down rational argument itself. They insist that our government be ruled by God, as their political views are. If reality is not to their liking, they deny reality; and they insist that everyone believe as they do.
So, here we are in a time when we need to be guided by serious minds, and we are increasingly met with resistance from fascists and religious fundamentalists.
I don't pretend to know which way we're headed. It looks bad at the moment but, as Rebecca Solnit tells us, we cannot know the future, and there could be pleasant surprises tomorrow.
