Written By: - Date published: 2:31 pm, December 11th, 2009 - 116 comments
Categories: climate change, Environment -
Tags: ccd, war
Strongly worded piece by Chris Trotter this morning:
In the war for nature, the deniers are traitors
… The question of why war, alone of all our endeavours, possesses the power to inspire such tremendous collective exertions and unstinting sacrifices by human communities is not a new one. Ninety-three years ago, the American scholar William James addressed precisely the same question in his famous essay: “The Moral Equivalent of War”.
Humanity, he argued, must find another way to mobilise all that is brave and noble in the human soul, or the warriors of our species will never want for either willing volunteers nor eager financiers. James’ solution, richly ironic in the context of the events unfolding in Copenhagen, was to enlist youth in a “War against Nature”.
…
James’ idea of conscripting the nation’s youth to wage the moral equivalent of war struck a deep chord in the American psyche. It informed the thinking behind president Franklin Roosevelt’s Conservation Corps, and president John F Kennedy’s Peace Corps.
…
Today, however, it is not a “War Against Nature” that our generation is called to fight, but a war in nature’s defence. And it is not merely the youth of the world who must be summoned to battle (though, as always, they will lead the charge) but whole populations. If the battle against climate change does not become the moral equivalent of war for all the peoples of the Earth, then not only the battle, but the Earth itself, as a planet hospitable to human civilisation, will be lost.
…
There will, of course, be people who whisper that the enemy isn’t really our enemy. That all of our individual and collective sacrifices are quite unnecessary. And that, if only we would stop listening to the “alarmists” and “extremists”, then this needless and terribly costly campaign could be brought to a happy conclusion. In 1940, England was full of such whisperers. The British ruling class, in particular, was riddled with defeatists, Nazi sympathisers and traitors. Back then people called them “Quislings” and “Fifth Columnists”.If, therefore, the battle against climate change has to become the moral equivalent of war, with all the sacrifice that war entails, then climate change denial must become the moral equivalent of treason.
Over the top? No. The stakes really are that high.
I don’t agree with a lot of the stuff that Chris writes these days. But I agree with him on this.
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If you question the events of 911 you are a traitor because we have to fight terrorists, you are disrespectful to the family members who lost loved ones and your disrespect the troops for sacrificing their lives for all of us in the honorable fight against them rag heads.
If you are cynical in the face of all these new taxes to be payed to the international bankster elite to be able to start emitting CO2 you are a traitor.
If you are critical of the NAZI regime you are unpatriotic and if you think that Stalin is not a nice man you are a bad communist.
I’ve heard them all before and a mainstream asshole in the mainstream media telling me that to be critical of the way our elite wants to solve our problems is deviant and treacherous is just more of the same.
I hate it when people tell me what I can and can not say and try to silence me with labels.
That is how the ruling elites have done it alway and the always will.
The moment discourse is silenced with labels such as that we have reached the end of liberty.
Purgatory for using the wrong words. Typical.
[lprent: Easier for us to control the trolls. Makes you have to use your imagination to find alternate ways of expressing something.
]
A general goodness - aren't we nice.
LOL. I hear ya.
deniers are traitors?
there some funny, and dangerous, shit on here sometimes.
back to the dark ages we go
Nope.
Chris Trotter and his ilk are the traitors by dint of his own reasoning. Maybe ( by his own reasoning) he should hang more than his head in shame?
see here http://www.thestandard.org.nz/deniers-are-traitors/#comment-178148
Bill, its all a lot of hot air, suggest you read the latest Archdruid report on why action wont work. Labelling people from both sides of the debate will not make an iota of difference. Because people cannot see the paradigm they live in clearly makes judging them today a waste of time, history can be the judge.
For my part the elephants in the room are real, but relying on other people to take any notice is a futile exercise. All that can be done is to lead by example and make your own arrangements in the hope that you might survive any mass die off.
But it’s fun calling Trotter on his hot air by following through with a wee bit of logic.
And sometimes people have a better (though never full) view of their paradigm than others. I guess it’s all down to a thing called awareness or doubt or whatever.
Anyway I agree with your basic trust….not that knowing something to be a waste of time will prevent me indulging…. Have already read the archdruid….good stuff.
All that can be done is to lead by example and make your own arrangements in the hope that you might survive any mass die off.
Have to take issue with that bit. Absolutely no point in making your own arrangements unless it involves making arrangements in cooperation with other people.
And from my experience, NZ is one of the most backward and difficult places for implementing any cooperative or collaborative course of action. There really is just bugger all development of institutions or ways of living that fall outside of or challenge the rather narrowly defined orthodoxies prevalent in NZ.
Which is a shame, ’cause the opportunities afforded by climate, geography, population etc are far greater than those afforded in other countries where unorthodox solutions and challenges abound. ( I use the word abound in relative terms)