Every time I turn on the radio or open an online magazine, I often see articles on global warming or social justice. Articles that present ideas like using electric cars, ‘renewable’ energies, impact on agriculture and we have to stop eating meat to reduce or prevent further global warming. The French are upset about the upcoming globalism, the Haitian people fight against a growing State of illegitimacy, and Israeli farmers are loosing farmland trough attacks by bomb-tagged helium balloons in an agricultural war.
Either this is a strategic propaganda protocol by the left or we are just losing focus. While there are more issues, many seem to be drawn to issues such as global warming or social justice. Ted Kaczynski wrote an interesting essay, Ship of Fools, and it clearly depicts our current situation. Many seem focused on issues that, even though possibly important, are not the only important issues, and sometimes not important enough. After all, a lot of these issues are the inevitable consequences of industrial society.
Some of the issues we face today have little to do with global warming. Coral reefs, for example, were already in decline before global bleaching occurred. Global warming accelerates the decline, but it is not the only cause. Besides global ocean acidification, physical destruction from coastal development, dredging, quarrying and recreational misuse is destroying coral reefs. Sedimentation from coastal development, urban storm runoff, forestry and agriculture are very destructive to coral reefs. Pollution from toxic substances such as metals, organic chemicals and pesticides from industrial discharge are all major causes for the destruction of coral reefs, which is not contributed to global warming. Coral reefs are important because it forms a protection to marine life and reduces coastal erosion from incoming waves. Coral reefs are believed by many to have one of the highest biodiversity on the planet and is home to more than twenty-five percent of marine life.
Mountains in Norway are completely removed and dumped into valleys, for coal extraction, at the loss of ecosystems. Whether we make the transition to so called renewable energies or not. Wind turbine, for example, are made of plastics and steel, which are made from oil and chokes. Most of the ore needed for steel is extracted through opencast mines. Steel is essential for renewable energy technologies and is one of the most energy-consuming and toxic industries on the planet. Toxic air emissions with carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide. Sulphur dioxide causes acid rain and are highly toxic to plants and animals that live in water. The amount of wastewater produced by these industries is as well enormous and cannot always be reused. And I haven’t even started on the implications for the transportation and maintenance of renewable technologies.
Forests are removed for construction material or to make room for development. Road development for example destroys whole ecosystems. Toxic runoff, habitat fragmentation, invasive species and genetic deterioration, are one of the few results from the development of roads. It is well known that dams used for reservoir fisheries, generation of electricity, and industries, destroy nearby river ecosystems. Global warming is a cause, but not the only cause. And by fighting global warming, we will not stop environmental destruction. Harvard Scientists for example have plans for reducing global warming by blocking the sun.
Then we have this social justice wave that is apparent everywhere you look. By the time we are done fighting for social justice and overthrow governments, the land we live on will either be a desert that is empty and uninhabitable without wildlife, or a dead barren desert that is fully controlled by industrial society. Either way, we won’t have anything left. Social justice is nothing compared to what is going on in the world right now. It might be relevant to your current situation. It might be more necessary in the short run, but eventually, we have to face industrial society. Sooner rather than later.
My opinion is that we have waited and wasted our time for too long. In The insect Apocalypse, Brookie Jarvis writes “Entomologists also knew that climate change and the overall degradation of global habitat are bad news for biodiversity in general, and that insects are dealing with the particular challenges posed by herbicides and pesticides, along with the effects of losing meadows, forests and even weedy patches to the relentless expansion of human spaces.” Some places have recorded a loss of 80% of its insects! Not all accountable to global warming.
I sometimes hear people say “one problem at a time.” Maybe, but we do not have that time anymore. We do not have time for social justice, human rights or animal rights. We wasted all that time in the past few decades saying the exact same thing. Every time we (try to) solve problems with new technological innovations we produce two additional ones. It is now time to rewild and prepare for the dismantling of the root cause of all these modern problems –industrial society.
An interesting proposal for an anti-industrial rewilding strategy has been laid out by The Wild Will Project and is worth a read. Strategies like conservation and ecotage are all but necessary. We do not need a large financial capital to be able to rewild. Monkeywrenching, a term created by Earth First!, requires in some cases nothing more than a hammer and nails, and could be highly effective against logging. The removal of roads with simple tools such as a pickaxe or shovel can be efficient as well. There is a need for legal by-the-book conservation and there is a need for off-the-record monkeywrenching.
