A new dichotomy is emerging in the current debate: the contrast between the view of the world as composed of nation-states in relentless competition with one another and the “one planet” movement, which emphasizes human solidarity. These two trends are on a collision course. Up to now, the "one planet" approach seemed to be the only chance to set up an effective strategy against the degradation of the planetary ecosystem. But now, it seems that we'll have to adapt to the new vision that's emerging: for good or for bad, the world is back in the hands of nation-states, with all their limits and their idiosyncrasies, including their large-scale homicidal tendencies. Can we find survival strategies with at least a fighting chance to succeed? Daniele Conversi, researcher at the University of the Basque Country, has been among the first to pose the question in his recent book "Cambiamenti Climatici" (UB)
By Daniele Conversi (University of the Basque Country)
The climate crisis is one of the nine "planetary boundaries" identified in the Earth Sciences since 2009. The critical threshold for climate change (350 ppm) has only recently been passed. Other boundaries, such as biodiversity loss, have been overrun — and we are reaching other critical thresholds as well. The global environmental crisis signals the likely entrance into the most turbulent period in human history, requiring unprecedented creativity, force and adaptive skills to act quickly and radically in order to curb the global crisis. But which are the main obstacles arising in front of us?
Historians of science and investigative journalists plus some social and political scientists have studied in detail the way the fossil fuel lobbies hampered governmental action via disinformation, misinformation, and the "denial industry". However, these studies do not generally consider in detail the institutional scenario where lobbyists act, namely the nation-state.
My research explores a different set of variables originating in the current division of the world into nation-states powered by their own ideology, nationalism. In an age in which boundaries cannot halt climate change, nationalism fully engages in erecting ever higher boundaries.
Thus, we need to ask: if nationalism is the core ideological framework around which contemporary political relations are articulated, is it possible to involve it in the fight against climate change? I explore this answer via a few case studies arising within both stateless nations and nation-states. Riding the wave of nationalism, however, makes only senses if, at the same time, non-national solutions are also simultaneously considered, as condensed in the concept of "survival cosmopolitanism": Effective results can only be achieved when considering the plurality of possible solutions and avoiding fideistic responses such as 'techno-fixes' centred on the magic-irrational faith in technological innovation as the ultimate Holy Grail, which can easily be appropriated by nationalists. Salvation may come, not as much from technology, as from the abandonment of an economic system ruthlessly based on environmental destruction and the expansion of mass consumption.
The belief seems widespread that every imaginable problem can be solved by making the related human organizations bigger and bigger, and imposing a single template on all of humanity. This can be seen today in the globalist push being made by groups like the World Economic Forum, and seems inherent to the sociopathic class that now has its hands on many of the levers of power. I feel that the world these people want us to envision would be a dystopia.
There is no human process or organization I can think of that is infinitely scalable. Every process or entity eventually reaches its optimum point of benefit to society, beyond which its continued growth is a net detriment to everyone but itself.
As I read somewhere recently, even democracy itself scales poorly. In general, once it reaches the point where you can no longer speak directly to your leader and expect a personal response, you no longer have a functioning democracy. This is pretty easy to see in the US. Studies have actually shown that the actions of legislators are largely uncorrelated to the expressed wishes of the general electorate.
I would like to propose an alternative. In a nutshell: "Smaller, not larger."
Consider that many of the things destroying the planet and warping human existence are only made possible by the coordinated labors of tens or even hundreds of thousands of people working to a single end. How far would oil have gotten if human activity in its pursuit was limited to the scattered local efforts of a few dozen people? How many big industrial concerns would never have come into being? How many mass exterminations would never have happened if the power of a large government or political organization had not been behind them?
Contrary to what The Hierarchy is telling us, we need to move in the opposite direction of globalism, inward below even nationalism. We need to get back to a point where the core organization of human existence is as it once was at the community level. So much of what is wrong right now is an outgrowth of bigness, and yet we continue to look there for all our answers.
The truth will be shown to the entire world at once. Let’s pray they listen.