We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Energy & The Financial System: What Can I Do?

Click here to access article by Roger Boyd from Humanity's Test.

Boyd, who has had a long career in the financial industry, is one of the exceptional actors in the capitalist system who refuses to stick his head in the sand. He sees what lies ahead as humans come up against the finite limits of this planet. Unfortunately, his views are severely constrained by his experience and education in institutions which have been thoroughly infused with capitalist ideology. 

It's unclear whether he is unaware that the problems we are facing today are system based, or if he believes that there is no alternative. We will never know because there is no mention of an economic system in this article. Thus, he offers no solution other than giving some advice to individual "investors" about how best to protect themselves. And, he seems completely unaware of the other threat--climate destabilization. There is no safe passage between the Scylla of disappearing cheap energy and the Charybdis of climate destabilization that we are facing today. If one doesn't destroy us through nuclear wars, the other will through catastrophic climate destabilization. 

This is the sort of dreadful thinking that will lead humanity over the cliff to its extinction if the rest of us in the Ninety-Nine Percent refuse for whatever reason to take control and create a sustainable system.