Well...the world is heating up, some US right winger is beating the hell out of the UN, Dubya won't take any notice of Kyoto any time soon and New Orleans has just been given a drowning...
IT LOOKS LIKE WE HAVE TO SAVE THE WORLD(OK, how?)
Over the past few weeks New Orleans has gotten whumped by Hurricane Katrina, at least 400 have died and as many as 10000 may have died, the latest victims of Mother Nature when she's in a nasty mood. How much of an effect idiotic officialdom had on this at various levels is arguable.
Another thing that's getting suggested is that global warming has contributed to New Orleans's plight. I suppose that's a fair enough question, given that the Arctic ice caps are supposed to be falling to bits as we speak. So what are we supposed to do about this?
Now, I do not consider myself to be an environmentalist. I have no urges to bond with nature, wouldn't last very long if I did try and rely solely on nature and in fact consider myself reliant on technology at various levels. However I do know this much. We are running out of oil for use in our vehicles, the world is warming up and potentially threatening all human life as a result and we are against the clock to solve these problems. How badly against the clock we are depends on who you ask and some say that it's already too late but let's stay positive for a while.
Now officially, we have a solution to these problems, it is called the Kyoto agreement and the last time I checked it's the best idea anyone has come up with so far. It provides pollution limits which should in theory encourage governments to set up ways for their people to conserve energy and use renewable energy more often. Slight problem, George W Bush does not believe in global warming. Nuff said.
George W Bush does not seem to trust the rest of the world, he particularly does not like the UN. As a result he's sent a guy called John Bolton to the UN to try and smash most of that organization's long term goals to bits, pretty much to toast the UN. Cue a lot of perfect worldists going berserk. The UN is an icon to these people, the last best hope for world peace. "Why oh why" do they scream "does the US want to destroy it?".
Reality check people. The UN is pretty much useless. It's supposed to be the place to go to settle disputes between nations, it's supposed to be the guarantee of world peace. It's supposed to be an embryonic world government. However it couldn't stop the massacres in Rwanda and Sebrenica during the 90s on one end of the scale, and on the other end of the scale it couldn't stop Bush from going into Iraq. It works pretty well as a glorified aid agency but that's about it. If it's world government you're looking for, start with a fresh sheet of paper. Whether any one nation should be trying to toast it single handedly, particularly one run by Dubya...well the perfect worldists have a point here at least. And so the question remains, why is Bush even trying to toast the UN? The answer to this question is found if you take a closer look at America.
A guy called John Sperling has come up with the idea that there currently is no 'real' America. There is instead, two different Americas, 'metro' and 'retro' America. Metro America is the America that reaches out, is self confident, tolerant and fearless. In short, the America I've always connected with in some form since the mid 90s. Retro America is the America that's paranoid, traditionalist and would be completely isolationist if it wasn't too scared to be so. Back in the 90s, I never took retro America that seriously.
That turned out to be a mistake on my part, because George W Bush is first and foremost a representative of retro America. As a result, retro America has come out of the woodwork recently and turned up in the most unlikely of places. It not only doesn't believe that the UN has no reason to exist, it considers the very existence of the UN a violation of US sovereignty and will never accept any kind of world government for the same reasons.
Retro America needs a reality check. The fact is that in the year 2005 we live in a very interconnected world. People from different countries talk to each other online, people move from one country to another and put down roots, people holiday all over the place, eat food combining from anywhere from China to Mexico...I think you get the picture. Bottom line, in this reality, a world government of some kind is an inevitability, probably touch and go in my lifetime but it will happen if we're to secure the connections made between countries for all time.
The biggest issue concerning a future world government is how will it be run, will it be democratic, or run by a psycho dictator, include freedom of enterprise, or be completely dominated by the state USSR style, have freedom of religion or dominated by a warped version of any major religion you care to name. The only way that America can help have any influence on the destiny of this future world government to it's favours is by getting itself involved in the world as a whole, working with it rather than against it because if it tries working against the rest of the world as a whole there would be more of a chance of the US getting ripped to shreds by an international body that have nothing in common with it whatsoever. And if the likes of Victor Chavez has his way, the UN as things stand will look all sweetness and light to the US.
So, what can the rest of the world do about retro America? Well, the standard anti-globalist + hard-core environmentalist idea seems to involve creating what can best be described as a retro-world. These groups propose the following combined list. No air travel(pollutes), no personal transport(pollutes), a boycotting of George W Bush's US(pollutes), resulting in a general reliance by everyone on they're local geographical community. Other than a few business suits, no one's going to lose with that deal, right? The world will be saved by doing this, right?
Wrong. So where do we start?
For starters, let's see what would happen if you limited the world of 2005 to public transport and no air travel. OK, I'll admit that given the existence of the Eurostar, I'm surprised that any airlines are still operating any flights between London and Northern France and Belgium. Given the amount of time you usually spend hanging around in airports, routes like those should be ditched straight away. However, without flying, how would you get from London to say, Amsterdam? Well relying on train and boat we're talking about a train to Liverpool Street station to Harwich, a ferry from Harwich to Hook of Holland and a train from there to Amsterdam. That takes over 8 hours. A straight flight from Heathrow Airport to Amsterdam takes just over two hours, even if you add three hours to that for check in time you'd be better off flying there if you were against the clock. Similar with Glasgow to Paris. And nine hours beats two weeks for London-New York hands down, and on the other end of the scale the less said about trains from London to even northern England the better. In short, we're talking about a very closed off world.
"Cool", reply the anti-globalists, "then everyone can spend more time bonding with their local communities". Except the idea of 'local communities, as even the anti-globalists will admit, doesn't work as well in 2005 as it should do in theory. Other than the suits, globalism does have it's beneficiaries.
If I had a shot at reliving the last ten years over again, then I'd have the opportunity to undo various screwups I've made in my life, however one thing I do not regret is the friends I've made with people online, particularly in Gaterdom and largely with Americans. Why isn't this paragraph on my personal page rather than here?
The reason is because globalism and the Internet in particular has strengthened what are technically called "communities of practice" aka communities that are bound by a common interest rather than geographical proximity. Football clubs and TV shows to name two. Gaterdom is a example of a community of practice. "Oh no" yell the anti-globalists "the evil Americans are weakening local communities with their light entertainment".
To which my response is, "OK, what are you going to do about it? What can you do about it?". The fact is that if Gaterdom is a half-decent example, a lot of people use entertainment as a way to fill in a gap in their lives and the communities surrounding whatever form of entertainment as an extension of that. The fact that people are having to do this suggests that there is a significant flaw in the traditional idea of 'local communities'. Let's say every single part of globalism got officially shut down. Add the car enthusiast and motor sport scene to the scrap heap for a minute. A lot of people would have an extra gap in their lives(possibly back in their lives)...and the anti-globalists seem to be taking it for granted that without entertainment-based communities of practice all these people will naturally(with the help of "re-education")evolve into productive servants of the local community and never look back.
History says otherwise. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries tried to raise the drawbridge up against Western culture and secure the loyalty of people to the state. If it had worked we'd certainly have known about it. What wound up happening was people in Eastern Europe during the 60s-80s trying to get their hands on Western music and media any which way they could if not outright escape to the West. These activities weakened the communist governments' hold on it's people and the rest is best left to the history books.
The anti-globalists cannot afford history to repeat itself, they're against the clock to save the planet remember and whatever restrictions an anti-globalist government make in terms of blocking foreign products and motorism, people will get round them and the more time spent in dealing with such people, the more time wasted from the anti-globalist saviour's perspective.
Long story short, the anti-globalist idea of saving the world is not worth trying. OK, so I try to avoid eating at McDonalds and I've never liked Coke that much so those two brands could die out and I wouldn't take much notice. However shutting down the force of globalism as a whole will not save the world.
Another idea that I'll quickly go through is population control. The less people on the planet = less resources consumed = resources lasting longer. That's the theory. The supporters of this idea would have a laugh making it work though. If you go down the Chinese road of one child per couple and forced abortions that you'll simply get people having second kids on the sly. Nuff said. The only other idea I've heard in this department involves someone judging whether a baby can be properly cared for without placing too great a strain on it's parents and if it cannot...kill it. Which brings me to wonder what such people would have made of me as a new born, check my personal page for details on that. Any other ways to make population control work? Anyone?
So, what is a realistic way to save the world from Mother Nature's worst mood yet? The basic philosophy should be..."if you build it, they will come". Create personal transport with equal all round performance to a petrol driven car or motorbike...and then they'll be no resistance to the phasing out of the internal combustion engine. Create high-speed versions of these vehicles for racing. Set up railways round the world so that they have guaranteed reliability and the speed to go from London to Istanbul(or an equivalent distance) in 10 hours...and then people won't look twice when air travel within Europe is minimized. I think you get the picture. Along with the straightforward stuff in the short term like remembering to turn off lights at night and not wasting paper etc.
And while globalism as a whole arguably needs to be refined, if no one tries to outright block it then the people of more nations will be able to bond with each other...and that'll be a solid foundation for the safety of the world from humanity itself will be secure for all time.
Comments, flames, whatever go here
Check out my earlier 'State of Play' rambling here
