271-8. (Fragments - Adaptation)

271. (Fragments) In German romanticism -circa 1830- and later in avant garde modernism -circa 1925- and later still in modern music -circa 1950- and in many other spots and places inclusive even of hip-hop, rap, and all sorts of late 20th century media and performance art, the fragment form released us from pretense so that we could get a grip. On our limits. The fragment form proceeds from a relinquished pretense. You can't master, or even comprehend, "all that" (whatever the pretense is). "You can't claim the wholeness of history." "You can't be as complete as you felt in the womb." "You can't know the answer to all your why's". And now: "We can't live in globalization's fantasy of endless up-scaled, economic growth." And the fragment's quite real here, the cracks showing: climate change is bringing down the fragile glass room where we thought we could be angels. The hot, dusty, humid, pouring, freezing, billowing sky is pouring in. Chunks on the floor by your feet. Your children have already decided on the basement.

272. It seems strange to focus on personal health as anything more than an instrumental goal, keeping us alive and kicking to deal with heady things of a global nature. But personal health can be seen as intrinsically good, in so far as being in it just is good, that is, just is a facet of eudaimonia, which is not beyond it but is expressed by it. There is another way it is "in-itself", too. It is a microcosm, analogically related to the wider order. When I am healthy, I am in my own ecosystem well, fitting my limits, not overdoing it. I am not running myself down. Energy is a surplus, not a deficit. I don't take in more than I use. I am weathered into myself in a vital way. If only this could be said for our civilization, even our cities, even our restaurants and homes.

273. As Roger Saillant points out, the environmental crisis we now face is not one we can avert in our lifetimes; it is one we can start to turn around for future generations. The atmosphere's cooked for a thousand years. But we can see humanity through the eye of the needle -la porte e'troite- by getting our system more, and more sustainable. I mean, ecologically. What also we can do is to reduce how horrendous our affects are. The more we slow down climate change, mass extinction, and other environmental wantonness, the better it'll be for folks a hundred years from now. We can avert an even worse fate than the bad one we -and mostly those who came before us- have caused. So, we're talking long range dedication, and not self-interest. The kind of thing you get when you put your ego aside and realize you'll be dead one day. And how has your life chalked up? (Or that you get when you realize how lovely the world is, and what have you done to protect that?)

274. At the precise historical moment when we need to expand our sense of ecology to include the planet, we are also driven to focus our sense of ecology down to the scale of genetics, there in the inside of cells. Is this more doable? Less? Distracting? Complementary? It seems an extra stretch that is challenging.

275. Pornography and environmentalism. Not a common match. There are those who use the term "nature porn", where what they mean is artificially idealized shots of nature evoking a fantasy. It's a stretch. Because the exploitation's left out. I see nothing wrong with erotica, but pornography typically conveys a strong message degrading women. (There are other subjects of pornography, of course.) And this is not to investigate the conditions under which porn's made, which are often very exploitative. I'm talking instead just about the message. Is the domination of women ideologically related to the domination of nature? Eco-feminists say so, and sometimes rightly. When someone uses rape imagery to describe technological power over nature (as, apparently, can be found in Bacon's early empirical science).... But I think the link is more subtle for the most part. Porn reduces intimacy to juice. It converts relational reality to mechanical potency with hedonistic intent. So with our consumption of nature at large. Our entire society's based off of recurring reductions of the relational reality of nature, of our possible closeness with it and of its ability to coax us to self-understanding. We tolerate reducing nature to a resource for our largely hedonistic aims, hide it, and then make a big deal of our romance for nature in specific, contained places -the parks and poems. We're like spouses with our action on the side. But come on! Women are special: they give birth to all of us. Nature does, too, in a figurative sense. There is a very real way in which the woman being exploited in the porn image is some (potential) child's (potential) mother. And how would the child feel about that? Is this how we treat our mothers? Could we take this response analogically to nature? Why don't we? (Consider, by contrast, if instead of porn there were some beautiful form of erotica, art that deepens our understanding of intimacy or of bodily closeness. Would even the child be embarrassed once adult? Perhaps a sailboat is the erotica; mining, the porn.)

276. I like to glide when I ride. And that means this: slowing up hills, quickening down them. The gas-users of America act as if we have no topography!!

277. With our government failing to recreate the Kyoto Protocol, which it never really supported, and with no substitute climate treatise being made (isn't that unbelievable at this critical juncture in history?), what on Earth should we demand of it? To stop subsidizing the big energy conglomerates, the mass utilities? To provide incentives for the development of a viable solar or wind market? To teach energy conservation on national media and to give incentives for doing it? Why not fund a corp of mechanic-teachers who give free efficiency classes in each community, teaching people how to retrofit their homes to save money, and teaching other ideas -related to transportation and purchasing- at the same time? Is it true that U.S. citizens could save up to 40% energy use merely through efficiency? But the problem is everywhere the same: lobbyists have captured my government, both the legislative and executive branches. And so, the first action item should be the bill -sometimes discussed- that bans lobbyists from Federal politics, or at least reduces their contributions to those normal citizens could make. It is to reform the election system in kind, making campaigning outlays accessible to a well-organized everyday mensch; it's to let democracy work.

278. It's time for universities to fund research and programming on adaptation to climate change. The old image of sustainability as an ever overturning way of life is false, because the changing climate will change what is possible in life -all the way through our social and political systems, too. To square up with the values of sustainability and future realities concerning them, we need to focus on adaptation. "New planets need new habits." New political forms, too.