Becker's discussion about the denial of death helps us understand climate change

Nearing the end of Ernest Becker’s 1974 non-fiction Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Denial of Death, it became clear that our bid for immortality has manifested itself in many human-driven disruptions to our world’s climate that we now understand as climate change.

The book, by the American-born son of Jewish immigrants is about psychology, philosophy and cultural anthropology, but helps us better understand the reasons for climate change, why so many doubt its existence and if they do accept the science, why they can’t admit it.

What follows does not address climate change directly, or Ernest Becker’s views for that matter, but quotes University of New South Wales lecturer, Dr Ted Trainer, makes references to Noam Chomsky and Herman Daly.

Sadly, we have almost ignored the advice of Chomsky and Daly and now Dr Trainer encourages us to pursue a simpler life through the authoritative voice of The Conversation.

This being the final day of 2014, I thank you for your wonderful support, wish you well for 2015 and join me to help more people understand that the implications and complications of climate change are not matters of a fringe concern, rather central to the wellbeing of humanity.

Robert McLean.

 

Optimists are urgently needed in the Goulburn Valley.

However, optimism alone is not enough for what we need are positive thinkers who understand the context of the world within which they seek their utopia.

Many careful thinkers around the world have declared this to be the decade in which we, and that is you and me, must make some fundamental and critical decisions about our behaviour and so how we use and apply earth’s limited resources.

Being half-way through this vital decade our options are becoming fewer and so this is the year we must decide.

Yes, we either waste it pondering the past or apply our intuition, inventiveness and imagination and go somewhere we have never been before, the future.

And so what will we do?

With a country lead by people with values rooted in Twentieth Century and seemingly afraid of addressing tomorrow, it is likely we will continue to look at life through the prism of what was.

It is misplaced optimism that has brought us to where we are now; optimism that has diverted our attention elevating the economy to God-like status, blinding us to other possibilities, other ways of living, of being a healthy compassionate and considerate community; a community that understands that infinite growth on a finite planet is not only problematic, but impossible.

Embarking on the second week of 2015 and surrounded by what are generally narcissistic New Year resolutions, it seems we need to lift our gaze and consider the views University of New South Wales lecturer, Dr Ted Trainer.

Dr Trainer, who writes about sustainability and justice, has said on The Conversation (a joint universities website): “It is also now clear that increasing the GDP in a rich country does not improve the quality of life!”

“This is what the ‘limits to growth’ literature has been telling us for decades, but most economists, politicians and ordinary people still fail to grasp the point,” he writes.

The late Ernest Becker.

Conscious of that we need to consider and act on what a senior economist in the Environment Department of the World Bank, Herman Daly, said in the early 70s about the need for a Steady State Economy.

Daly, like many others since, pointed to the weaknesses of our existing economic system, noting that it favoured only a few, marginalized most and left the bulk of humanity limping toward extinction.

Yes, we need optimists; people who can see beyond what exists, understand there is another way and stand up and holler in support of American linguist and  philosopher, Noam Chomsky, who has repeatedly argued that we should put people before profit.

Arguments that without profit we can do nought are fallacious – optimism and educative, innovative and ecologically responsible ideas are unstoppable.