Technophilia to our Detriment

23 Nov 2021 — 1 min read.

It is absurd how determined our leaders are to find technological solutions to climate change, yet forget that the our planet’s nature and its ecosystems survived for billions of years without us. Ecosystems have changed and evolved from the unrecognizable to ours of today of course. Extinctions are also not uncommon through the arc of history. What differs this time, if you agree, is that we may have created the first extinction that could destroy every and all life on earth.

Why is it that our houses and new large land developments are mostly squared off buildings keeping nature suffocating amidst tall walls and concrete deserts? Oslo was recently declared Europe’s greenest city, but our newest additions to the cityscape, the Munch museum is a looming tower leaning over a cleansed of life marble opera house and library. Behind these waterfront monstrosities is an iron curtain of wannabe skyscrapers hiding the very nature Oslo is praised for. Our new national art museum is a colossal grey cube reminiscent of a prison- building. Is this the legacy our generation is leaving behind? This new wave of modern buildings leave no space for greenery except for the occasional token tree. When we occationaly invite nature on to our properties, it’s in the form of mowed lawns and a carefully assorted arrangement of colourful flowers. In what way is this truly living nature? A mowed lawn is a scientifically proven ecological dessert. Every gras straw cut to our will, every dissident plant removed from their roots, creates a pleasant but in fact dead garden.

In the age of sprawling concrete jungles and decline in organic ones, I fear we will plant trees of steel to “fix” our earth, rather than planting living breathing ones. These giant steel intake engines desperatly gasping for air trying to pump carbon out of our athmosphere might be powered by renewables, but at our current state we struggle to even meet a fraction of our current energy needs with renewables. In reality these machines will only line the pockets of investors and drain tax money from the common wealth, as we try to empty the ocean with teaspoons. Especially when current power dynamics of our society favours the unloving and unliving large multinational conglomerates.

Too many of us would rather be swayed to live life through a lense of fiction and propaganda, as recent events prove too well. A comfortable distortion of the truth is better than accepting the fault in our convictions. We are drowned in propaganda spewed out by those serving the interests of the rich and powerful, whose servants’ only lust is to one day be as filthy rich as their masters. Yet we fail to grasp that we will not be as rich as the masters, because they want allow it. The global stage is still very much a feudal society, rulers are among the global elite, and their turf are multinational companies. Only dethroning of one king will allow a new one to rise.

I don’t believe that one single conspiracy rules them all. Rather the current of interests flow in the direction of those with power, be it political or economical, but mostly with those who controls both. I could argue the current flows to strongly in the wrong direction, but I neither have the power or money to change it alone. We cannot blame money alone for our ailments.

The hunger for money is in us all, even natural. We seek to be rewarded for our hardship and work. Since the dawn of humanity reward was synonymous with survival. Money is simply a transaction, our actions are not only corrupted when money is scarce, and in control of those whose values contradicts our own. The following is a dogma of my own, anyone holding an apple could corrupt even the most noble man if he is starving. Many of us see no other path than serving those who do not care if we all live or die. We have our needs, and the harm we cause to fulfil our needs are obfuscated. We get our ham without ever seeing the slaughterhouse.

So how can we possibly fix these power structures? Money lets us communicate our needs and wants. At its best, money also reflects our values. Greenwashing has become a rampant phenomenon where products and services cater are presented as less harmful to the environment. These products or services may be as harmful to nature and polluting as ever, but for the consumer obfuscated reality becomes a green path to redemption from their polluting sins. Much like the Indulgences of the Catholic Church did little to rid the world from crimes and cruelty, greenwashed products do little good to save our environment.

Our purchases ripples through the economy, and no matter how misinformed they were, purchases calibrates the economic machinery to produce more. Information and knowledge therefor holds immense power. Where money moves us into action like an invisible puppeteer pulling our strings. Just like his puppets unable to fathom their bondage to his strings and unable to influence the movements of the puppet master, we too rarely reflect how money has it grips on us. But with information and knowledge the strings slowly comes to sight, money suddenly works in our favour.

Activism and politics are humans deliberate attempt to send ripples back through the economy. Where money blindly flows, activism creates dikes to hinder our human values from being drowned. I don’t know if these are bad examples, but slaves got their freedom, yet slavery was as lucrative as ever. Women secured their right to vote, yet money was flowing to dresses, beauty pageants and corcets. Activism, the sharing of knowledge, got us where money alone couldn’t. Reading was long considered to powerful for the commoner to be thought. Knowledge was beholden to a «responsible» elite. The masses needed to be told what to believe, anything else would be straight out dangerous. Voting faced the same conversation. Only a responsible minority should be allowed to vote, anything else would be straight out dangerous.

We all know how those stories went. We consider basic education and voting to be a human right in the developed world today, but not money. Money in itself didn’t get workers’ rights or create the concept of universal healthcare, people bonding together forming economic alliances to combat the inequality did create change with money. With climate change we face a social issue bigger than ever faced before! Maybe money can be a solution to climate change. Stay with me on this.

Those who suffer the most, the poorest on our earth can’t strike or gather with pitchforks at the king’s gate, because there are too many to hold accountable. We in the developed world are the aristocrats. Even the poorest in Norway for example, are in the top 10% richest people on earth. That fact alone leaves an awful bitter-sweet taste in any Norwegian if properly reflected upon. If we don’t stand up against the abuse our economies are causing around the world, it will be us, this eras’ aristocrats, against the masses of the world.

So I leave this text with one question. If we still allow massive wealth inequalities, but had the ability to see how our actions effected the world for better or worse, the knowledge to withstand lies and uphold truth, a political system were our vote truly reflected our values, and money a human right untethered from the burden of work, would this be enough to save our nature and climate? Or is wealth inequality the very root problem that hinders all the latter? If we have the power to decimate entire countries in just the flash of a second, we can make deserts grow green again.

Adels Jarlen Curiosity Killed the Cat

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Technophilia to our Detriment