Definition of insanity - Las Vegas

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Posted on December 6, 2006
Filed Under Global warming/Climate change, Deep ecology, Ecological overshoot, Ecological hope, Consumer culture, Fossil fuel dependency, Environmental disasters, Earth spirituality

Fostering Ecological Hope

Today from Margaret Swedish:

The project I am starting, in collaboration with many others, is called Spirituality and Ecological Hope, sponsored by the Center for New Creation (click on “About Margaret Swedish” to read about the project).  Its intent is to examine the challenge of the ecological crisis to US society, and, wow, is there are a wealth of material out there to delineate that challenge.

But that also means a cultural critique, a clear-eyed look at the values that shape this culture, including those that support a culture of denial of realities like climate change, resource depletion, living beyond our means — way beyond the means of the planet.  We simply do not like limits.  We want to be god, in that sense, a culture that can ever-expand and ever-consume with no end in sight.

So I am always on the lookout for good examples of the cultural problem.  Here is a perfect one, a post from the blog ‘Climate Denial,’ which I have just discovered.  You could use this post as a perfect example of insane behavior — there you are running towards the cliff at full speed.  Red lights are going off, people are shouting at you, alarm bells are ringing.  So you put on the blinders and the headphones, and just keep on running…

I give you — Las Vegas, Nevada.

Kind of like rebuilding at or below sea level in coastal cities, sort of like, oh, say, New Orleans.  Or being upset because you can’t get insurance for a beach house.

Well, we can let corrupt politicians and developers and science deniers and economists and others run alongside us, cheering us on towards the cliff’s edge, their voices droning on inside those headphones, or we can take off the blinders and the headphones, come to a screeching halt –

…and restore our sanity.

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