SPREADING DOOM AND GLEE

If the exponential growth in the number of cars, kids, cattle, capital, and carnage, is allowed to continue there is not the slightest doubt there will be a global ecological disaster. It is still possible to prevent this calamity but the likelihood that the global community will take the drastic actions to avoid such an outcome are minimal if not negligible. Consumers will not listen to reason until they have triggered off a few ecological disasters but, by then, the momentum of ecological devastation may have built up to such an extent it might be too late to avert further disasters and, ultimately, the collapse of the Planet's life sustaining processes. If the ooman race - doomans - is rushing headlong into eco-catastrophe then why bother wasting time trying to stop the inevitable? Why not go out and have 'a good time'? The answer is that it is not possible to prove this hypothesis. So, if only by default, the struggle to protect the Planet and its Wildlife has to continue, "Some people within the environmental movement possess a firm grasp of the impossibility of their task, yet they perservere." Nevertheless, it would be grossly unrealistic to ignore these doubts and continue acting solely on the assumption that over-privileged northern consumers will eventually create an ecologically viable way of life.

This doom-mongering will be condemned for causing demoralization and apathy. That this is far from being the case, however, was confirmed by personal experience during a local campaign to save an inner city greenfield site from development. When the local council announced it had received a planning application to build on a beautifully overgrown, so-called 'derelict' site, local residents decided to fight the plans and allowed a local conservationist to assume leadership of the group. This person belonged to the 'sweet talk and gentle persuasion' wing of environmentalism. He oozed so much confidence about the productiveness of his discussions with councillors and developers that he made it seem as if the councillors, all of whom were inveterate 'demented cementers', were perpetually on the verge of rejecting the application. There were even times when this green magician created the illusion that the property developers didn't want to proceed with the development either!! His optimism had the effect of dissuading the group from talking about, let alone implementing, campaigns to pressurize councillors into rejecting the development. For the first few months of the group's existence nothing was done in case it jeopardized these delicate and careful negotiations. As a consequence, the group nearly disintegrated before it was realized he was deliberately using optimism to maintain his leadership and to keep the group from doing anything which might upset his cosy personal relationships with councillors.

This experience confirmed that it is optimism which causes inaction. After all, why do people need to do anything where, 'everything is the best in the best of all possible worlds'? It is optimism which creates apathy not pessimism. Those in the upper echelons of the green movement believe they must, at all costs, be positive about the prospects for creating a green world. This is especially true in the green party - indeed one of the main criticisms of a former editor of 'econews' was that he was demoralizing party members because of his commitment to the truth! It is almost impossible for prospective green politicians to be anything less than totally optimistic about the possibilities of winning elections, getting into government, and creating a sustainable society. They reiterate ad nauseum, 'Don't talk about disasters or you'll depress the voters'; 'Don't talk about extreme policies because you'll frighten the voters'; "Don't say anything which sounds pessimistic'; 'If people lose hope we'll never persuade them to change', etc.. etc..

The result of these attitudes is that no matter how vital it might be to ban a major threat to the Planet's life sustaining processes, e.g. the car, many greens insist the world 'ban' should be ... er .. banned ... from green party publications or policy statements merely because it creates a negative public relations' image. It has to be asked how long can these car-owning, green professionals go on spinning their optimism yarn? It might have been thought that even fwends of the Earth would have changed their tactics because after 20 years - REPEAT; TWENTY YEARS - of gentle lobbying, they still haven't managed to persuade any government to implement something as piddlingly insignificant as glass recycling. .

A lot of those new to the green movement seem to believe that green issues have only just become a matter of concern and, as a result, are wary of 'green extremism' because people need time to change. What they don't seem to appreciate is that the first global summit on the environment took place THIRTY YEARS AGO (in 1972) and yet even now, when the ecological deterioration is far, far worse, the world's political leaders e.g.george bush sr/jr, still can't be bothered to do a good public relations job about how they're saving the Planet by signing meaningless bits of paper to reduce Carbon emissions and protect Biodiversity.

Green optimism is intellectually crippling and politically inane. It doesn't show the slightest degree of politcal acumen, "Ironically, the less hopeful we assume human prospects to be, the more likely we are to act in ways that will minimize the hardships ahead for our species." With the collapse of the Planet's life support system becoming more and more evident, it is vital to break out of the straightjacket of perpetual optimism. It is necessary confront consumers with the harsh and unpleasant truth about the scale of the damage they are inflicting on the Planet; the scale of the social, economic, and political, changes which they will have to make to avert an ecological calamity; and the increasingly strong possibility that the ooman race might not make it. Why should green truthtellers stifle the truth in order to avoid offending consumers who don't understand ecological realities and who go out of their way to avoid having to learn about such realities?

Pandering to these revolting, over-paid, Earth-rapist cretins is torture. Enough of such masochism! It's time for some fun. The truth should be used to scandalize the Earth-wreckers because this is the only way of forcing them to face up to what they are doing and the desperateness of the situation. What is needed now is more doom, doom, doom, and doom, urgency, fear, and panic and, on the other hand, less optimism, obsequiousness, complacency, smug middle class respectability, and being reasonable with the unreasonable. This attitude isn't so much 'doom and gloom' as 'doom and glee'.