Why Large Institutions Are Needed to Deal With Climate
Author: Douglass Carmichael Issue: 2024-07-03
Why Large Institutions Are Needed to Deal With Climate
by Douglass Carmichael
Certainly. Here's the revised version with those changes:
As the larger system we are part of finds itself failing, it is easy to see why people start looking for local strategies for survival. However, small local efforts, while short-term survival strategies, are unlikely to scale to the level of the global CO2 blanket. For several years, I have been clear that the normal group of organizations, corporations, and government agencies are also too small to affect the kind of change we need.
The first issue is the significant avoidance of fossil fuel burning. Any institution such as a government agency or corporation is too bound by law and contract to make proposals that make a difference. This is because one aspect of such proposals would be a direct attack on the originating institution.
Second is depowering financialization, which means crippling capitalist control and establishing new forms of work and reward distribution. A few months ago, I was exploring the idea that cultures, with their diffuse presence, are bigger than nation-states with their rigid borders. The borders prevent nations from acting outside their boundaries, and climate coping needs to operate more broadly than any nation-state, including the big three: China, India, and the US.
Reading Toynbee's Study of History suggests that cultures (civilizations) are the more powerful influences for serious change in law or philosophy. The spiritual orientations of leaders have a bigger influence than their ideas. This leads to the adoption of their views by the general population and success in the following history. Alternatively, where people avoid alignment with the weak spiritual orientation of the leaders, the societies collapse.
We have slight spiritual leaders in our time. Probably the last candidate that almost made it is John Kennedy, whose light has shrunk to that of a fizzling candle. People my age remember that his photograph was on the wall in the halls of the poor in all parts of the world. We need that kind of alignment with a spiritual feeling for the world. Otherwise, I am proposing, there is no possibility of humanity gaining a friendly grasp of the Earth we live on.
We need a seduction of the Earth by humanity. It will take modesty and a full use of our engagement to make this couple a success. In summary, it will take institutions as large as all of humanity, a reinvigoration of the best ideas and feelings spread throughout the religions of the world. This includes not just those that emerged with the big empires, but those of earlier people who lived on a few acres of land, fished and hunted, gathered and walked, sang songs and carved and painted, cared for each other, and the animals. The nation-state is, above all, an obstacle to such a return.
I want to raise a couple of very difficult questions. The Roman historian Polybius wrote that some issues are best dealt with by democratic governments and some others by authoritarian governments. Which is better, he argued, depends upon the issues being faced. When the issues are primarily national, democracy is best because it allows the issues to be expressed by various interest groups, setting the conditions for resolution. But if the problem is from outside, then a united government is best, with authoritarian control in order to have a united front.
The Romans actually voted some governments in and some governments out based on this contingency. His influence on the founding fathers of the US was not to focus on oscillation between appropriate types of government but on the principle of checks and balances creating harmony. This approach lost the critical edge that requires thinking. In trying to think this through, I concluded that climate change is in the category of transnational problems but noticed there was no obvious candidate to fulfill the authoritarian role.
Then along comes Trump. Could he seize on the climate issue to create a platform for his own quasi-authoritarian regime? (This is so unobvious. But remember the country and the world could fall into a highly chaotic state appearing even to Trump to be ungovernable). The hope is not that the authoritarian approach dominates all politics but that it has enough leverage to lead while the majority of the population works on local opportunities to increase local viability. They will do this anyway. The unknown is: can any kind of legitimated central government, transborder, emerge?
Related:
- Douglass Carmichael (author)
- 2024 (year)
- Topics: Climate and Environment, Wisdom Traditions and Ancient Knowledge