A Blog Named Sue

In the afterlife you could be headed for the serious strife

Walking in Times Square today, I encountered a group of traditionalist Catholics who were handing out fliers and waving signs that urged us all to reject the "heresies" of Vatican II. When I declined a flier, one of the missionaries happily chirped, "That's okay! Prepare for hell!"

His cheerful condemnation of my eternal soul reminded me of this bit of stupidity from Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, Australia, speaking on why he thinks the kids today are just mad for that crazy global warming stuff:

Perhaps they're looking for a cause that is almost a substitute for religion [...] Belief in a benign God who is master of the universe has a steadying psychological effect, although it is no guarantee of Utopia, no guarantee that the continuing climate and geographic changes will be benign. In the past pagans sacrificed animals and even humans in vain attempts to placate capricious and cruel gods. Today they demand a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

Belief in a benign God would, I guess, have a steadying psychological effect. Too bad there isn't a faith in the world that presents us with one. Offering a sacrifice to a capricious god is an act of fear - but so is slavish devotion to a dogma - making a sacrifice of your ability to reason - because you fear the eternal damnation of your soul. At their base, there really is no difference between the two actions. I fear the effects of global warming, but Cardinal Pell's followers fear the flames of hell. We're both scared. Why his fear is better than my fear is beyond me. (Curiously, Pell agrees with Nietzsche of all people when he states that the pagan religions arose from a need to understand and cope with the caprices of the natural world. Nietzsche, however, considered Christianity to be an extension of this tradition rather than a refutation of it.)

I've never understood how the major faiths of the world expect positive action to come from fear, the most negative of emotions. Christianity, at least in its current form, is supposed to be about forgiveness and peace (For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting (John 3:16)). But if you don't toe the line, you'll be spending that life everlasting with cackling demons who harvest your flesh on a daily basis for their little Ed Gein edition of Project Runway. It's a paradox inherent to the faith that I've never been able to work out, and Christianity is hardly alone in using fear as motivational tool - even Buddhism uses the fear of reincarnation to a lower state as an incentive to lead people to compassionate action.

I realize that I'm painting in pretty broad strokes here, and that there are mystical traditions in all faiths that work on a deeper level than the terror management theory I'm describing above, but I also realize that most adherents to any faith dedicate maybe an hour a week to the serious contemplation of that faith. That means the priest, mullah, lama or rabbi has to make the most of that hour and make their case in the most basic manner possible. And frankly, scaring the hell out of someone is an excellent way to get their attention. It's why the proselytizer in the street today made his case to me the way he did: he had to get my attention, and fast.

Long term, though, it doesn't work. Fear is the most selfish of emotions and there's no way sustained charitable action can come from it. My knowledge of psychology could fill a Ziploc bag, but I'm pretty sure this is why just about every faith on Earth has at some point been corrupted by extremism and mob rule. That someone as learned as Pell assumably is doesn't see this is astonishing to me. Or maybe he does. Maybe he's counting on it.

I think this is why I'm attracted to Taoism, since there is no reward or punishment inherent or implied in its teachings, and even if there were a true Taoist wouldn't be so presumptuous as to assume he could truly recognize a reward or a punishment. I'm even trying to banish fear from my concerns about global warming, trying to focus on presenting a livable world to my children rather than trying to stave off a disaster most Americans can't see coming. It doesn't help me sleep any better at night, but it keeps me from pouring sugar in the gas tank of the Hummer parked down the street from my apartment. ("I thought it was ethanol, officer - honest!") And, if nothing else, it helps me ignore reactionaries like Pell, since safeguarding the world for my children and grandchildren can hardly be considered a sign of spiritual emptiness.

Earth in the Balance (Sheet)

If pressed on the issue, if absolutely forced to make a statement one way or the other, I would have to say I’m kind of glad Newt Gingrich seems to have come over to the side of the angels when it comes to the environment. Maybe. I trust Newt Gingrich about as far as I could throw him without the aid of a medieval siege engine and I no more want to see him near the levers of power than I’d want to see him marry one of my daughters, but if he’s going to open his mouth, I guess he might as well say something useful. Although I would appreciate it if he would drop this grating “Republicans are FUN environmentalists” approach Arnold Schwarzenegger has also adopted. That spiel reminds me a bit too keenly of the GOP’s 2000 campaign pledge to “change the tone” in Washington; once again we’re supposed to gloss over their role in creating the problem while accepting them as a pain-free solution to it.

If he really wants to convince us he’s gone green, I suggest he take a cue from his past championing of Internet commerce.  Gingrich fought hard to keep e-commerce businesses exempt from most taxes, which helped create the massive, tantalizing profit potential that made them irresistible to investors. Why not fight for a similar exemption for businesses developing the technologies we need to wean ourselves from petroleum dependency and reduce greenhouse emissions? There’s a breathtaking amount of capital floating around out there, much of it being steered towards products designed for rapidly failing business models. Why not steer it to where it’s needed and can actually do some good for the future?  And unlike the high burn-rate startups of the dotcom boom, these businesses will have a measurable standard for success and failure: do their products actually work? (Fair warning: if you adopt a talking sock puppet as your company spokesperson, you will be taxed into oblivion just on general principle.)

This is something Gingrich and the new green conservatives can do that I’ll actually buy. I find their rhetoric about saving the world while letting you keep your muscle car disingenuous, and we know how they feel about government regulations. They do love cutting taxes though - why not cut the right taxes for a change?

These Green Thoughts

A particularly brilliant blogger named RMJ remarked last week in a comment thread over at the Crack Den that the penultimate step of every plan to combat global warming seems to be, “…and then a miracle occurs.”

Can’t argue with him on that one. That’s why I’m so excited about this idea,  nicknamed “skyfarming” or “vertical farming,” which proposes using environmentally self-sufficient skyscrapers as urban farming centers. The concept’s main proponent, a Columbia University professor of environmental science and microbiology named Dickson Despommier, claims that one hundred fifty of these buildings clustered on a piece of land such as Governor’s Island could make New York City – the largest urban center in the United States – completely agriculturally self-sufficient.  Given the environmental impact of shipping foodstuffs over long distances (and the quality control problems that creates, as demonstrated by the recent pet food catastrophe), it’s a tempting vision. Despommier’s grand scheme is to have major metropolitan areas all over the United States adopt his model, and let much of the country’s existing farmland be reclaimed by forests which will help cleanse the air of CO2. The kicker? The technology to make it happen exists right now. There isn’t a single element of the skyfarm that needs to be invented. We know the farm will work. No miracle required. (More on vertical farms here, here, here, and over here.)

While we know the vertical farm will work, its potential impact is uncertain. The big conglomerates like ADM and ConAgra could probably make the switch to vertical farming from traditional methods, but it's not farfetched to imagine opponents of the idea claiming it will devastate the local economies of America’s farm belt. However, given the economic fragility of many agricultural areas and the threat already posed to them by global warming, drastic change there is most likely inevitable. By planning ahead, we may be able to surmount that problem. (Sounds suspiciously like one of RMJ’s miracles, doesn’t it?) Also, much of our farmland produces food for export to regions that have come to rely on our exports – another problem that someone, at some point, would have to address. But it seems to me that it will be a hell of lot easier to deal with problems created by existing technology as opposed to technology no one's thought of yet.

The recent, record-breaking success of France's Train Gran Vitesse ("Fast Train") thrills me for the same reason. It’s not likely the train will run at that speed all the time – although riding on a train doing 350 mph sounds like a blast – it will operate at a significant portion of the speed most commercial airliners travel.  And it will do so while carrying over one thousand passengers.  Compare that to the 100 – 200 passengers a Boeing MD-80 or Airbus A320 can carry, and all of a sudden the fast train is looking like a serious alternative to our overstressed and exhausted air-travel infrastructure. Japan’s maglev train can carry a similar number of passengers and operate at that extreme speed for an extended period of time.  Again, some problems immediately present themselves – there have been protests against the train in France over noise pollution and other issues – but we have always managed to navigate around these difficulties when it comes to airplanes, so I don’t see why we couldn’t do the same with a fast train.  Most importantly, the technology exists right now. It's "build it and go." No miracle required.

I lamented in this post that billions of dollars are being invested in developing products for a business model that’s rapidly disintegrating.  It’s insane, especially when there are existing technologies that could make a real difference just sitting there waiting to be exploited. Many of us on the less-insane side of the blogosphere wistfully long for some billionaire like George Soros to throw a ton of money at creating a left-wing version of the Richard Mellon Scaife-funded right-wing noise machine. But me? I wish he’d build a sky farm.

Nowhere Plans for Nobody

Supersonic Aerospace International, a company founded by the son of the founder of the Gulfstream aircraft company, has entered into an agreement with Lockheed Martin’s famed Skunk Works division (makers of the Stealth bomber, the Stealth fighter, the Stealth-oh-you-get-the-idea) to produce a commercially viable supersonic aircraft for private citizens.  The projected development cost of the project, according to Wired magazine, is around $2.6 billion. Aerion, a competing aerospace company, is developing their own private supersonic aircraft, and it is believed they’ll drop another cool $2 billion on their plane. Both planes are expected to reach market within the next six or seven years.  Both companies believe they can avoid the commercial pitfalls that doomed the Concorde by targeting their aircraft exclusively towards the richest of the rich. You know, as opposed to the rabble they let on the Concorde.

Who the hell are they kidding? I have no doubt that the wealthiest of the wealthy will want to own and fly on such an aircraft, but in ten, maybe twelve years do they really think these birds will be viable even to their target audience?

Let me put it like this: jet fuel isn’t going to get any cheaper. Heck, fuel of any kind isn’t going to get any cheaper. Even oil company executives are pretty much convinced we are at or near peak production. Technology might make it easier to squeeze a few extra drops out of the planet, but it won’t teleport those drops to countries that don’t have an unfortunate tendency to blow up. And, we’re assuming that the market for and laws governing commercial and civil aviation will remain the same for the foreseeable future. They most likely won’t, given that it’s pretty much decided that human activity is causing global warming and political pressure to radically alter the way we live is only going to grow more intense. All of this promises to have a huge impact on the aviation industry. Maybe most billionaires won’t give a damn, but I’m fairly certain that a fair number of them will consider it bad P.R. to flit about at supersonic speeds while the rest of us fight over the scraps of the airline industry.  Couldn’t they have found something else to drop $4 billion on?

I’m naïve. I admit it. I am also easily awed by people who are smarter than me. (Why, yes, I do spend a lot of time awed. Ha ha.) But it’s true. I want to carry these folks’ books home from school every day for, like, ever. That’s why I can’t figure out how pretty damn smart guys – and if you can design a supersonic aircraft, you are a smart guy – don’t see all these potential pitfalls. Aircraft designers as a matter of course must be able to see how systems fit together and influence each other; that’s a skill that should translate into how they see the world and events that shape it. Maybe they’re in the denialist camp on global warming, but seeing as those folks are pretty much down to blaming the sun, I doubt it.

Or maybe I’m just wishing they would throw that $4 billion and all that brainpower at a way to restructure air travel, one of the great boons of human history, technology that has shrunk the world like no other, into something economically and environmentally viable, rather than at developing toys for people who already have too many.

I told you I was naïve.