Mother Nature versus Human Nature

Following any huge snowstorm, two things are predictable. One, the media will remind you not to go anywhere (like you could under a couple feet of snow.) Two, many people will seriously claim to have found startling new evidence that global warming doesn't exist. This new discovery called "ice" apparently eluded scientists for several centuries, but now that it's been found, well, just forget all that climate change talk.

Okay, that's enough mocking of climate change deniers. We should show compassion. Deniers aren't just drones suddenly claiming to be scientific geniuses because they worship a talking head funded by the invisible hand of industry. They're people, too. And they're hurting.

Just like a denier bringing scientific consensus to a halt with a single ice cube, I can prove it. Ever since the world-wide discussion on the problem of climate change began, the denial movement has transitioned exactly through the five stages of grief:

1. Denial (There's no climate change happening!)
2. Anger (Climate change is a liberal myth!)
3. Bargaining (Okay, maybe it's real, but we can't address it now.)
4. Depression (A global consensus of scientists say it's real? Crap, I might have to get off the couch.)
5. Acceptance (Okay, fine! Wait! If there's nothing we can do about it, why get off the couch?)

Notice how the Acceptance phase transitions seamlessly into rationalization: I'll accept climate change exists IF YOU PROMISE to tell me the situation is hopeless. This is a primal response at the core of human nature and the source of a climate change denier's pain. We all instinctively know that acknowledging a problem means there will probably be some kind of work involved afterwards.

Being humans, all sides of the debate see the it's-hopeless-so-do-nothing angle as a tempting offer, so our minds move in quickly to close the sale: Is climate change really that bad? If the roof is still standing and the house isn't on fire and American Idol is still on, can we honestly say there is a problem? Heck! Climate change might even work in our favor. If the earth heats up and the sea rises, that increases the chance that you'll own beachfront property. Why not roll the dice? Maybe during the scrambling of the earth's climate zones, the band of scorching temperatures at the equator will widen, and the Caribbean will come to you.

Surfing while on the couch! Literally!

The climate change denial dynamic reminds me of veteran home-owning couples. If you are one, this exchange will sound familiar: Look, there's a hole in the wall. It's not that bad. Fix it! No! If you don't fix it, I'm not going to your dumb movie. Aw, but it's a Saturday! All right, I'll fix it. Wait, why not think of it as a free window?

When discussing climate change, we're not just fighting knee-jerk contrarians and considering fair questions from independent thinkers, we're struggling against human nature itself. That's a double bummer because even if stopping the effects of global warming is impossible, just by trying to clean up the environment, we'd accomplish lots of good. Surely there are worse fates.

Human nature's work here is almost done. Having successfully rationalized us away from any effort, or acknowledgment of error, it's time to apply the finishing move that concludes all human activity: the spin. So here we go: When it comes to global warming, we're not fiddling while Rome burns, we're just not afraid of change!

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Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

The Flea Market Curse: Karma in Action

Karma knows no mercy.

Like any force of nature, there is no reasoning with it. Karma acts upon you and you can't fight it or make it let up any more than you can beg gravity to cut you a break when you're about to fall on your ass. 

Many times I've witnessed karmic punishment bearing down on people, and even though they fully deserve it, a tiny part of my soft heart feels sorry for them. I would make a horrible cop. "You say this is the first time you've ever done drugs? Well, okay then, but next time, I mean it, you're going to be in big trouble!"

I began this rambling meditation on karma while I was sitting at a flea market, failing to rid myself of my junk, wondering what I had done to deserve such mind-crushing boredom. I didn't care how much money I made, all I wanted was to move the stuff on to someone else and delay its ultimate destiny in a landfill, helping pollute our planet.

The whole flea market experience was painful. Preparing my wares for sale was a total drag. I had to pack everything up neatly, load it into the car then unload it onto the grass. Then I had to sit there and wait. And wait. I suppose I could have just left the junk there, but that would be irresponsible. I had created the demand, I wanted to complete the cycle and feed back into the supply.

After several hours of wasting a beautiful day, barely anything sold, and then it was time to pack up all the crap, stuff it in the car and unload it back into my house where it takes up room, doing nothing to this very moment.

Personified karma was laughing in my face! "You wanted this stuff, sucka! Here you go! Enjoy! Take more! Now you can't get rid of it! Mwaa ha ha!" Karma is apparently passive-aggressive and sounds vaguely like a gangsta rapper.

But I meant no harm! Did I really deserve karma's wrath just because I went through a Pez-dispenser collection phase? Or thought a Fitness Flyer really was a deal too good to be true? Or was impressed with the many uses of the Snuggie? Those damn infomercial people seemed so happy, I had to join in. Yet the happiness wore off quickly and all I want now is to get rid of these things, but no one wants them! So they take up space and linger. Woe to me!

I wonder if there would be any environmental problems if we were all damned by The Flea Market Curse.

The good news is, we are. The bad news is we live like we aren't. Most people throw stuff in the trash and never question how it miraculously vanishes. Meanwhile, a landfill nearby is reaching capacity, polluting their drinking water, sending back karmic retribution in a chain of events so obscure no one could possibly trace them all. Then when our water and/or land is polluted we cry, "Why has god (or fate) done this to us?" We never dare to consider blaming ourselves, even in part. None dare call it karma.

The Flea Market Curse teaches us to think in reverse. Want to stop hazardous input? Prevent output. Want to make people buy less junk? Forbid them to throw out what they buy. Want people to use less water? Let their drainage run only once a week. Want people to use less gas? Reroute exhaust pipes into the car. Want them to stop eating so much? Sew their buttholes shut. And so on.

Too extreme? Maybe, but it's all food for thought. Better we brainstorm now rather than later, because no one escapes karma.


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Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

The Lifeboat-less Cruise Ship (a Climate Change fable)

Today, October 15, 2009 is Blog Action Day 2009. The topic is Climate Change. My entry follows.

Suppose you're on a luxury cruise ship (with no lifeboats) a thousand miles from anywhere.

While you're sipping your martini and sunbathing, an announcement blares over the loudspeaker. "This is your captain speaking. We've got a leak in the ship. We're all going to drown unless we get to the bottom deck and start hauling out the water as fast as it comes in. We need everyone's help!"

Being a sane, smart, non-suicidal person, you race to help, screaming for everyone else to do the same. On the way, you pass a batch of people still sunbathing. "Didn't you hear the captain?" you ask, liberally sprinkling your question with profanities too vile for this family-friendly blog.

They laugh at you. "That captain is full of crap. This ship isn't sinking."

What would you do? You could call them more vile profanities, but they are essential to your survival, so you'd want to use every manner of persuasion to get their help. You could kick them overboard so the ship had less to hold up, but that would waste time, which, according to the captain, is running out.

That's the challenge of Climate Change as allegory. Let's extract the meaning.

The captain represents the expert scientists who tell everyone there is a problem. You (starring as yourself) being sane, smart and non-suicidal, conclude the captain is an expert and knows what he's talking about. After all, you trust him to pilot the ship while you sleep, get drunk, watch bad dinner theater and marinate your privates in a hot tub alongside complete strangers and their privates. You're living every day with a trust that the skipper knows his stuff. It would be absurd to suddenly doubt his ability to judge the vessel's seaworthiness.

The arrogant deniers in the story represent, well, arrogant deniers.

I know, I know. We should respect others' opinions, but science isn't a question of preference or taste. Acknowledging Climate Change is a matter of everyone believing the experts that they rely on for everything else in their lives (scientists) from car safety to medicine to food production to whether or not a container labeled "microwave-safe" really is, on and on and on.

Can we please give scientists priority on matters of science?

Back in the day, I read science magazines a lot. I still do, though not as much. Back then (and now) all the science magazines spoke about global warming as a fact. The popular news didn't speak of it a peep. That changed when Al Gore hit the scene with An Inconvenient Truth and raised the alarm on Climate Change. Suddenly all the political (non-scientist) opponents of Mr. Gore, who have never ever discussed science in any depth, are speaking like Doctorates of Meteorology, claiming with absolute certainty that Climate Change is a hoax. I believe their dislike (or jealousy) of Al Gore has clouded their judgment.

This is what is so terrifying about Climate Change. We need everyone's participation to reverse, slow or mitigate its effects, but some people just can't stand the fact that Al Gore was the messenger. That's one psychological breakdown of Climate Change denial, but there are alternate explanations.

For example, the denial might be rooted in a disconnection with the earth and a lack of understanding of its connectedness. It's hard for short-sighted people who have never poked their heads beyond the confines of their own asses to worry about Climate Change. So what if an iceberg melts? They say. It doesn't affect my water supply. Who cares if honeybees die? I can always just go the store and get food.

Wouldn't it be great if someone wrote a book about this Earth-ignorant psychosis and titled it Where Did This Come From?

Whatever the reason for the denial, we need to overpower it. We all must appreciate the planet's fragility and act to protect it. Sadly, chucking deniers off the planet isn't possible, and we could use their help confronting global warming meaningfully.

Deniers, if Climate Change doesn't (at least to your perception) directly affect you now, it will. Look at it this way: if the planet floods and the atmosphere cooks, you won't be able to claim the moon landing was a hoax, or that Obama was born in Kenya, or that putting profit above health is a splendid idea, or hate liberal tree-huggers like me. You won't be able to do jack, because we'll all be dead. So can't we agree on this ONE thing, please? You can still hate me, just PLEASE stop denying Climate Change and work toward eliminating it with what you eat, what you drive and who you vote for.

That might go down in history as the most bizarre sales pitch ever, but in keeping with our nautical theme, I say "any port in a storm" because we need "all hands on deck."

A cruise ship without lifeboats may seem strange or contrived for the point of the fable, but I disagree. It's a perfect description for our one and only planet.

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Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

Rock beats Scissors beats Paper beats Rock Update: Screen beats Paper beats Screen.

Paper has been getting it's ass kicked lately. The conventional wisdom is that video screens are the death of paper. If you have an electronic device, you just download the info and you're done, there's (supposedly) no need to harm any trees.

As usual here in the offices of LarryNocella.com, I'd like to take a step back and review the "conventional wisdom" from an unusual angle. I find the screen vs. paper debate comparable to the Christmas tree debate.

I'm not referring to the perennial news stories about people spazzing because a Christmas tree isn't allowed on public property, causing them to lament the intolerant, especially at this time of year, since everyone is a Christian. I'm also not referring to the laughably manufactured War On Christmas™.

The Christmas tree debate that I think will shed some funky disco lights on the paper vs. screens discussion is about what kind of Christmas tree is better: a real one or a fake one made of plastic and metal.

Where I live, following Christmastime, you can count on finding defrocked Christmas trees tossed on the side of the road. It's annoying. What a waste to cut down a perfectly healthy tree for a short amount of time and then just chuck on the street where it withers away. Why didn't the person dispose of it properly, or even toss it into the woods?

This led me to be fully in favor of the fake (plastic and metal) Christmas tree. You can reuse it and you don't need to cut down any trees.

My view was changed after reading a letter to the editor in a newspaper. Was paper calling to me? The letter (I can't remember the newspaper or I would note it) rocked my world. It made this point: "Real trees are better than fake ones. Eventually the fake one is going to a landfill. Real trees can be used for firewood or composted."

Now I know why Rush Limpballs is so angry all the time! It hurts to be wrong.

Real trees are better, environmentally-speaking. A real tree can be returned to the earth. Ultimately some amount or all of a fake tree goes to a landfill. With minimal effort, a real tree can return to the earth to feed more trees.

Now let's look at paper vs. screens.

At first glance, cell phones and eBook readers like the Amazon Kindle seem like environment-savers: you never have to cut down a single tree to make paper for books, magazines or newspapers ever again. What a blessing! Well, it would be if a combination of plastic, metal and assorted hazardous materials simply appeared out of the air and vanished once obsolete.

In theory you buy one electronic gadget and you're done for life. But that never happens. Microsoft or some other jerk organization that claims they don't have a monopoly but really does makes some upgrades and soon your device is so obsolete it simply won't work. You need to buy a new one. The old one may take a circuitous route through eBay, but ultimately it's landfill stuffing.

The takeaway: don't write paper off just yet. When assessing how good something is for the environment, we have to consider not only what it takes from the earth but how easily it can return. Real trees beat fake trees, paper beats screens easily, super-convenient cell phones are upset by their whipping boys, the phonebook.

So now that I've presented a case for paper, we can all acknowledge there is a lot of paper waste going on. It has been noted that electronic spam isn't just a nuisance, it's wasteful of energy that could go to powering millions of homes. I have to think paper spam is even more destructive. Every week I get a packet of flyers from the same old stores I don't go to.

Spam (paper or electronic) needs to be outlawed, but it will likely never be, because that would put people out of work. Maybe screens and paper should stop fighting and acknowledge they both can be part of the solution. Waste needs to stop all around.

The whole media delivery and receipt world needs to be re-thought. The idea of an electronic device is cool, but not if (as seems to happen) the device goes obsolete every five seconds. The cost of something should figure in how it's going to get back into the earth. You should be able to completely opt-out of spam paper mail, too.

Like that annoying true proverb, it sounds like a lot of challenges, but it's a lot of opportunity to treat our home right.

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Larry Nocella's novel Where Did This Come From? is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers. For more info, visit LarryNocella.com.