PermaKent Permaculture Ideas of J. Kent Hastings

Here’s a debate between Paul Ehrlich and George Carlin (even if they never met). But first, some background on why I embedded their respective YouTube videos.

My motivation for this blog about permaculture is “carbon neutral.” Do ignorant government politicians use pseudoscience to whip up bogus threats? All the time. But do corporations cover their ass by denying real hazards? Uh, yep.

Corporations are “creatures of the State” in the U.S. “controlled market” (thanks to Brad Linaweaver for that phrase), and at the same time also patrons of the State. So while some of my anarchist comrades beat up “capitalism,” beating up “the State” attacks the same enemies in my view. Then there are theories about “real free markets” to be argued another day.

I’m not qualified to judge which participants in the global warming debate (there is one) are damned liars or wrong, but neither is the average Republican Limbaugh listener or typical Greenpeace supporter. No offense, I went door to door myself for Citizens For A Better Environment in my youth. But if you think you have it all figured out, just try to decipher the charts at Climate Audit yourself if you’re not a statistician, if you dare.

Friends who are global warming skeptics, like J. Neil Schulman, keep sending me links. I had it coming since I began the exchange by noticing The Great Global Warming Swindle when it first came out and thought it was pretty convincing. Its producers are sticking to their guns.

Other friends, such as Michael Bernstein, pictured with me at a 2004 meeting of Las Vegas Python Hackers, send lots of material debunking the skeptics, like this RealClimate “Start Here” article, with plenty o’ links.

Whether the climate is warming or cooling, there are too many other hazards accelerating out of control to ignore. The question is how to adapt to whatever comes–be it droughts or floods, acid rain or toxic well water, an obesity epidemic or a silent tsunami of famine.

My plan is for everyone to live in off-grid homesteads, but connected to the internet free or cheap using something like WiMax in the near future. The Dervaes family living in the city is great, but rural property is about one tenth the price of their land. For those in a real tight economic bind, perhaps an intentional community ecovillage, where you might buy your way in with labor would work for you.

In my opinion, cities are a disaster and only something as radical as a Cradle To Cradle redesign could possibly save them.

The Earth, as Carlin himself put it in his televised rebuke against environmentalist scolds, shook him off like an infestation of fleas. He thought he was no “threat to the planet.” Perhaps we will share a similar fate together (passing away) in the near future. The planet will still be around. Both Carlin and Ehrlich list ways we may meet our doom. If so, at least the population will be under control.

Speaking of Paul Ehrlich, the entire talk he made to The Long Now Foundation, which I enjoyed recently while catching up on my podcast listening, was about his new book, The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment. His speech can be heard in mp3 format at the Long Now Blog. A video of the complete talk may be seen at Fora.tv.

Let the debate begin!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 at 5:42 am and is filed under Carbon Dioxide, Health, Pollution. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.