View Video By Clicking Here -> Nassim Nicholas Taleb talks about The Black Swan

Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Unpredictability, 9/11

A friend alerted me to a documentary that played this evening titled God is Green. Mark Dowd, a Catholic, goes around interviewing various religious representatives (some leaders, some mere spokespeople for environmental consciousness within their own religious contexts) about the relevance of preserving the balance of the Earth to combat global warming in their religion.

While various viewpoints were presented, the documentary is wanting on many levels. It thoroughly misses out on a lot of elements and dimensions to the whole ecological movement thing. Perhaps it is due to a lack of funding (it seemed a small one-man project to me), but Mark, although being pragmatic and realistic, focuses only on the abstinence aspect of the struggle for a more life-friendly Earth - the abstinence from actions that cause large carbon footprints (like flying, taking gas-guzzling vehicles, electricity consumption, etc) - while he ignores the equally pragmatic approach of finding alternatives to present necessary activities that do not produce as much if not no carbon dioxide at all.

Although he devotes a couple of minutes to solar panels, the thrust of his message seemed to be more abstinence.

I believe a more holistic approach is required to effectively cause ’significant damage’ upon the carbon dioxide surplus. This approach should be holistic yet practical, significantly effective yet economical and ideally, bridges gaps and dissolves tensions between various human-divisive groups.

I am not a frequent traveller myself, but eventually I do want to travel as frequently as I want to and perhaps perform the Hajj pilgrimage. When Mark goes on to the Muslim segment of the documentary, the only practical solution that was presented was by this Muslim Londoner who suggested Muslims should limit the number of times they go on the Hajj because the amount of carbon dioxide produced by plane travel every year during the Hajj season is utterly staggering.

Of course, being a Muslim I shall have a certain bias in this regard and say that the documentary’s focus on the Muslim segment is grossly oversimplifying. First of all, Muslims have gone on the Hajj for thousands of years even before the invention of the aeroplane. Many have gone on foot, on ships, on beasts of burden, on vehicles, etc, and there should be nothing to stop people from travelling anywhere they please while they can.

We should not sacrifice one freedom for the sake of another. The solution would be to find alternative means of travel or alternative plane fuels that do not emit significant levels of carbons.

Secondly, the problems facing the Islamic world (most of them caused by the Muslims themselves ourselves) are far too complex to ‘distract’ us from the pressing issue at hand - Palestine, terrorism, sectarian squabbles, extremism, fundamentalism, reformism, anti-semitism, Zionism, Arab supremacism, greed, corruption, ad nauseam.

But of course, that should not be an excuse for complacency. Muslims desperately do not need another decade let alone another century or millennium of complacency, self-imposed oppression via ignorance and general wanton self-absorption.

Thirdly, the Islamic solutions for a greener life on Earth goes far beyond limiting the number of times Muslims should go for the Hajj. Numerous Prophetic traditions hail such practical deeds as planting trees, keeping your surroundings clean and treating plants and animals as gifts from God - hence the responsibility side of the coin also plays a crucial role here. I have even personally seen statutes in Islamic books of law and jurisprudence concerning limits to the cutting down of trees - deforestation control in Islam!

Another notion that is put forward in this documentary that I disagree with is that the key to the solving of these problems is leadership. Hundreds of years of attempting to impose, revolutionise or evolutionise social changes have shown the impotence of ‘leadership’ and vertically-labyrinthine hierarchical structures in doing anything significant (except for imposing some form of fascistic change usually via violence).

We can pay, bribe, beg, vote or coerce people in power to be ambassadors for change, spokespeople for the environment who walk the walk and not just talk the talk and feature them in the media, etc, but that would only create more a culture of hero worship rather than hero emulation. The focus would be on what brand of hybrid car Mr So-and-So drives rather than genuine concern for the Earth that should motivate such eco-friendly actions.

Again, we go back to the Fullerian vision for reality change - to create a new, practical, economical, vastly superior model that makes the old ones obsolete. If we can find a cleaner, greener way of air travel, if we can find alternative clean fuels that is perfect and more energy efficient than the current ones we are consuming, and if we can implement all this in a structure that allows for greater social and economic equity that bridges gaps and dissolves tensions, then we have hope.

In fact, we have always had hope.

God is Green, global warming

Watch this guy explain the 4 possibilities surrounding the whole global warming argument in a simple to understand matrix.

My only point of contention is that if Quadrant A-False (i.e. “Yes” to Action and global warming turned out to be False) is what the future turns out to be, it might be possible that a worldwide economic depression would not happen or at least would be something that is manageable or solvable.

Think about it - money, time and energy spent towards preventing a global environmental catastrophe would perhaps create more jobs, enterprises, businesses and positive socially unifying endeavours. Even if global warming turned out to be a false alarm, at least we would have taken the preventive measures and set up the necessary structures to prevent an ecological-environmental disaster in the future, or at least raised the level of awareness that high enough in our children and our children’s children to take better care of the Earth.

global warming

Here is why it is wrong to think we should - or could - “save the environment”.

save the environment

Only time (and massive human action on a global scale) will tell…

The 11th Hour

I used to be one of those Titanic-and-Leonardo-Dicaprio-haters, but ever since The Departed, Blood Diamond and now this, I find him a really cool guy.

Anyway, while features such as this hosted by popular celebrities may be good for raising-awareness purposes, what we need more of is no longer a call to massive voluntary action, but a demand (a supremely compelling one) for compulsory action, that leaves no choice for second-guessing, pondering and denial but that which simply and utterly produces results.

Perhaps ecologically-biased totalitarianism is too extreme a notion, but actions that are performed on a massive global scale as if the entire world were living under such a regime are our only hope. Perhaps totalitarian politics should be done away with, but totalistic actions to solve this problem are now absolutely required.