NEAR JOURNEY'S END & HORNS OF THE DILEMMA!

My book NJE & The Horns of the Dilemma!

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© December 2005

Reference: an email to a concerned friend regarding the state of the planet with reference to my book, not yet published, Near Journey’s End: Can the Planet Earth Survive Self-indulgent Man?

Ned,

Last night the spokeswoman for the Inuit Eskimos was on Jim Lehrer. She was talking about how climate change at the polar cap is negatively impacting the whole lifestyle of the natives, as well as the animals. She was one of the delegates at the Montreal Conference on Global Warming. She also was quite gracious finding satisfaction that her people's situation managed to get on the agenda. But she expected little satisfaction beyond that. Sad.

Then I happened on a segment on the BBC concerning a small nation in the Himalayas called "Butan." People of this nation have suffered similar plight to that of New Orleans. When lakes formed by melting snow, snow that never before used to form such lakes, the security the communities below are put in jeopardy.

What happens is that the walls of these lakes overflow their weak natural barriers, and cascade down the mountainside. One city was nearly wiped away in the 1990s.

A statistic was thrown out that startled me. A diplomat from this country said that there are over 200,000 such lakes in these mountains, and the possibility exists that his entire country could one day be wiped out.

Mention was made also on this program that US accounts for one-quarter of the CO2 pollution of the planet. This was not new, and of course the US leads in leaderless leadership, and there is little sense that this will change. On the contrary, the US has become the Pied Piper to oblivion, as if everyone is marching to the end of the earth and falling off in merry cadence.

But what was most astounding of all was to see, while France and Germany are reducing their emissions in double digits, countries such as Portugal and Spain and Ireland are increasing theirs in double digits.

I experienced this directly when I was with Honeywell Europe in the 1980s as these countries were then on the initial phase of their late Industrial Revolutions. And then of course there is China, our imitative twin, which is the second greatest polluter on the face of the earth, and doing everything it took us a century to do in a score or so of years.

I had a modest agenda for my book, Near Journey's End: Can the Planet Earth Survive Self-indulgent Man?

I am neither a crusader nor even a well-informed scientist on global warming or pandemics for that matter.

What I am, at least I thought I was, was capable of framing a problem and how its nascent incipiency has developed into what it is today with my "cut & control" explanations over the past few thousand years.

My book was not meant to be a compact "WOW!!!" book nor was it meant to be, but an opportunity for the reader to see how religion, politics, government, culture, history, science and man's eternal solipsism measured his superiority in a gauge called "progress." The book is peopled with the heroes of our Western civilization, which might be the planet's greatest enemies.

As much as self-interest dominates man, I know that chances for him to wake up are not good. One pandemic won't be enough, but a series of pandemics and "natural disasters" -- disasters created naturally by man's artificial disruption of nature -- will have to hit him again and again and again.

When they do, and I have no doubt that they will, I would like for this book to be available so the reader can see where man has been, where he is now, and where he is going, and why.

I don't expect man to wise up and make the major sacrifices because I think it is going to take a series of major disasters to get his attention.

Just as Catholicism and the Inquisition kept man in the Dark Ages, science and its dogmatic hubris has put man into a Dream World.

President Bush is right. Had the US imposed the Kyoto Accords; tens of thousands of American jobs would be lost, threatening the American economy. I think it would be closer to millions of jobs and possibly throw the country into a major depression.

As one scientist said from this conference in Montreal, being somewhat empathic with the president, "Fossil fuels will have to be replaced by other sources such as solar energy and nonpolluting other means. Science and technology have to find the answer, and they will." I wish I were so confident.

Not only the US but also the world sits on the horns of the dilemma.

Be well and have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Jim