Sunday, November 23, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Archaic Attenborough
Current mood: vital
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities
Speak up, citizens of the world! Speak up, before it is too late!But not along the culpabilizing model of Attenborough and all his mental consorts. Humanity has shared since the beginning some principles that have been negated by the west in its capitalistic wild development of the market economy that had always been economical and clean before them, and more and more so with passing centuries. We have to learn how to go back to these principles and not with a cop behind us, not with more rules and more regulations and more of all kinds of oppressive bans. We have to move on logic, on reason, not fear or even fright.The first principle is that we have to produce as much value as possible with as little energy, raw materials and work as possible. Humanity has been following that line for millenia and the capitalistic conquest of market economy at the time of the industrial revolution has imposed the reverse principle and it has led us to the present crisis. It is high time we react, not with fear but with conviction.If President Obama follows the line provided by Attenborough and all those who do not want to see another model than that of carbon dioxyde, the problem will remain and no real solution will be found.
Principle one: use as little energy, raw materials and work as possible to produce as much added value as possible. ECONOMICAL ECONOMY.
Principle two: produce as little rejects and waste as possible. ECONOMICAL CLEANLINESS.
Principle three: leave as little rejects and waste as possible behind you untended. ECONOMICAL ENVIRONMENTAL FRIENDLINESS.
Principle four: use as much as possible resources that can renew themselves naturally and hence will never be exhausted. ECONOMICAL RESOURCE FRIENDLINESS.
Principle five: technology has to help us achieve these points even if we have to drop some age old preferences and tastes like frying, sweetening, salting, eating meat and meat and meat again and again and again. ECONOMICAL DE-CARBONIZATION OF OUR LIFE STYLE AND DIET.
Principle six: humanity in its survival struggle has always been and should always be based on the simple fact that one generation has to be better than the previous one and less god than the following one, otherwise history dies. ECONOMICAL PROGRESSIVE HISTORY.
Here is what I could say about Attenborrough's BBC program on the subject of climate change. He preaches as if he were Jesus Christ or some prophet. It will take a lot more than some preaching even by some Christian born again in Jesus and his father and the holy spirit to bring western capitalism back to the reason of market economy.
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH – THE TRUTH ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE
This film is crucial if we want to understand the present debate on climate change. The climate is changing as it has always done. But it seems to be changing more dramatically and warming up slightly though it is still a long way cooler than it was at the time of the dinosaurs. The position defended here by Attenborough is moralistic more than anything else. We are supposed to feel compassion for polar bears and to be afraid of the future. Such a fascination for apocalyptic predictions is quite typical of the Jewish or Christian tradition, with some roots in older Indo-European religious mythologies. This apocalyptic literature is often, and by far, the best and most inspiring inspiration in these traditions. But does it have any real foundation? According to Attenborough it is the truth, full stop, period, dead end, let's get ready for it. He follows the model of the now famous carbon dioxide and green house gases and global warming up theory. And exclusively this one. Then he considers the main cause is the production – or liberation – of carbon dioxide by human activities, particularly the use of fossil fuels. In other words he uses his pointer a little bit too much and of course ends up pointing at the Chinese and their becoming the first polluter in the world, ahead of the US, but he forgets to say they are at least four times more numerous for a level of development that is evaluated by the CIA to be around 80% of the US. When he is not pointing at people he is pointing at the only things we can do to reduce our production of carbon dioxide. And he does not see this totally negative approach cannot really work because people do not want to be made to feel guilty all the time, and then, in this perspective, we will have to set regulations and a cop behind every human activity. He forgets the basic human principle, and even vital principle for all that is alive at least on this planet, that has been totally negated by western development, by this short-sighted development at all costs, the fact that humanity has managed to emerge by using the basic living principle that all activities must produce more energy or value than it consumes and that the consumption of energy has to be as low as possible for the profit margin to be as high as possible. To be soundly economic life has to be economical. And our free and extremely wasteful consumption of energy – and everything else, including human life – is anti-economic because it is un-economical. That is the very first principle we must refer to: we must not use one gram of energy more than what we need. The second principle is also basic to all forms of life: a living being uses his environment to live – and/or survive – but it does not pollute it. And strangely enough humans seem to have been only interested in visible pollution. All that is not visible does not seem to bother them. That's the only positive aspect of the film: it reveals one invisible pollution, carbon dioxide. It also reveals that what is not immediately catchable by human senses does not seem to exist for human beings. I personally think here that it is better to mobilize the sense of cleanliness human life has always demonstrated – even if that sense has been increasing across centuries and will go on increasing – rather than the guilt we are supposed to feel when thinking of our grandchildren. This argument about our descendents is the reversal of another human principle. In all civilizations including ours till recently, the younger generation was there to take care of the older one when needed and not the reverse. The argument used by Attenborough means that we consider the younger generation is unable to assume their responsibilities. We are making them childish and dependent. We should expect them to be more reasonable than us and not the reverse, which does not excuse our own foolishness which is foolishness in itself and not as for the consequences on our descendents. This leads me to a final remark. Has the West been developing along a line that negates all human traditions and logic? I have like the impression that yes it has. We must then reverse that mistake but not with cops and regulations or guilt complexes but with economic and economical arguments. And that should not prevent us from studying other climatic models particularly the one based on water vapor, which Attenborough does not do at all. Note, as a final kick at the sandbag of blind if not biased ideology, that Attenborough does not even take into account that if we learned new cooking method based on microwave oven we could cut by half our consumption n of energy for all forms of cooking, and frying being a bad dietary habit, the light browning we can get with microwaves has to be healthier than all that carbonizing we produce in a frying pan.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
Enjoy the night
Jacques
Currently listening : Brahms: Works for Solo Piano
Release date: 1997-11-11
Archaic Attenborough
Current mood: vital
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities
Speak up, citizens of the world! Speak up, before it is too late!But not along the culpabilizing model of Attenborough and all his mental consorts. Humanity has shared since the beginning some principles that have been negated by the west in its capitalistic wild development of the market economy that had always been economical and clean before them, and more and more so with passing centuries. We have to learn how to go back to these principles and not with a cop behind us, not with more rules and more regulations and more of all kinds of oppressive bans. We have to move on logic, on reason, not fear or even fright.The first principle is that we have to produce as much value as possible with as little energy, raw materials and work as possible. Humanity has been following that line for millenia and the capitalistic conquest of market economy at the time of the industrial revolution has imposed the reverse principle and it has led us to the present crisis. It is high time we react, not with fear but with conviction.If President Obama follows the line provided by Attenborough and all those who do not want to see another model than that of carbon dioxyde, the problem will remain and no real solution will be found.
Principle one: use as little energy, raw materials and work as possible to produce as much added value as possible. ECONOMICAL ECONOMY.
Principle two: produce as little rejects and waste as possible. ECONOMICAL CLEANLINESS.
Principle three: leave as little rejects and waste as possible behind you untended. ECONOMICAL ENVIRONMENTAL FRIENDLINESS.
Principle four: use as much as possible resources that can renew themselves naturally and hence will never be exhausted. ECONOMICAL RESOURCE FRIENDLINESS.
Principle five: technology has to help us achieve these points even if we have to drop some age old preferences and tastes like frying, sweetening, salting, eating meat and meat and meat again and again and again. ECONOMICAL DE-CARBONIZATION OF OUR LIFE STYLE AND DIET.
Principle six: humanity in its survival struggle has always been and should always be based on the simple fact that one generation has to be better than the previous one and less god than the following one, otherwise history dies. ECONOMICAL PROGRESSIVE HISTORY.
Here is what I could say about Attenborrough's BBC program on the subject of climate change. He preaches as if he were Jesus Christ or some prophet. It will take a lot more than some preaching even by some Christian born again in Jesus and his father and the holy spirit to bring western capitalism back to the reason of market economy.
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH – THE TRUTH ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE
This film is crucial if we want to understand the present debate on climate change. The climate is changing as it has always done. But it seems to be changing more dramatically and warming up slightly though it is still a long way cooler than it was at the time of the dinosaurs. The position defended here by Attenborough is moralistic more than anything else. We are supposed to feel compassion for polar bears and to be afraid of the future. Such a fascination for apocalyptic predictions is quite typical of the Jewish or Christian tradition, with some roots in older Indo-European religious mythologies. This apocalyptic literature is often, and by far, the best and most inspiring inspiration in these traditions. But does it have any real foundation? According to Attenborough it is the truth, full stop, period, dead end, let's get ready for it. He follows the model of the now famous carbon dioxide and green house gases and global warming up theory. And exclusively this one. Then he considers the main cause is the production – or liberation – of carbon dioxide by human activities, particularly the use of fossil fuels. In other words he uses his pointer a little bit too much and of course ends up pointing at the Chinese and their becoming the first polluter in the world, ahead of the US, but he forgets to say they are at least four times more numerous for a level of development that is evaluated by the CIA to be around 80% of the US. When he is not pointing at people he is pointing at the only things we can do to reduce our production of carbon dioxide. And he does not see this totally negative approach cannot really work because people do not want to be made to feel guilty all the time, and then, in this perspective, we will have to set regulations and a cop behind every human activity. He forgets the basic human principle, and even vital principle for all that is alive at least on this planet, that has been totally negated by western development, by this short-sighted development at all costs, the fact that humanity has managed to emerge by using the basic living principle that all activities must produce more energy or value than it consumes and that the consumption of energy has to be as low as possible for the profit margin to be as high as possible. To be soundly economic life has to be economical. And our free and extremely wasteful consumption of energy – and everything else, including human life – is anti-economic because it is un-economical. That is the very first principle we must refer to: we must not use one gram of energy more than what we need. The second principle is also basic to all forms of life: a living being uses his environment to live – and/or survive – but it does not pollute it. And strangely enough humans seem to have been only interested in visible pollution. All that is not visible does not seem to bother them. That's the only positive aspect of the film: it reveals one invisible pollution, carbon dioxide. It also reveals that what is not immediately catchable by human senses does not seem to exist for human beings. I personally think here that it is better to mobilize the sense of cleanliness human life has always demonstrated – even if that sense has been increasing across centuries and will go on increasing – rather than the guilt we are supposed to feel when thinking of our grandchildren. This argument about our descendents is the reversal of another human principle. In all civilizations including ours till recently, the younger generation was there to take care of the older one when needed and not the reverse. The argument used by Attenborough means that we consider the younger generation is unable to assume their responsibilities. We are making them childish and dependent. We should expect them to be more reasonable than us and not the reverse, which does not excuse our own foolishness which is foolishness in itself and not as for the consequences on our descendents. This leads me to a final remark. Has the West been developing along a line that negates all human traditions and logic? I have like the impression that yes it has. We must then reverse that mistake but not with cops and regulations or guilt complexes but with economic and economical arguments. And that should not prevent us from studying other climatic models particularly the one based on water vapor, which Attenborough does not do at all. Note, as a final kick at the sandbag of blind if not biased ideology, that Attenborough does not even take into account that if we learned new cooking method based on microwave oven we could cut by half our consumption n of energy for all forms of cooking, and frying being a bad dietary habit, the light browning we can get with microwaves has to be healthier than all that carbonizing we produce in a frying pan.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
Enjoy the night
Jacques
Currently listening : Brahms: Works for Solo Piano
Release date: 1997-11-11
Labels: Plead on Guilty please
# posted by Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU @ 7:52 AM 
