Can Natural Disasters can be GOOD for Society?
Lessons from the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake
What do 2022 Canada and 1755 Lisbon have in common? I believe that they are/were both sitting on the brink of disaster and do/did not know it. I just finished reading ‘The Last Day’ by Nicholas Shrady, an exploration of the impacts that the destruction of Lisbon by Earthquake/Tsunami/Fire had on the European Enlightenment. Although it took place almost 300 years ago many of his insights apply to us today. You may ask: “How can an Earthquake in 1 city apply to the worldwide environmental challenges we face today?”. Here’s how.
First, we are stuck. We cannot extract ourselves from fossil fuels and the high energy, high consumption life style this [until now] cheap form of energy created. According to the Portuguese Minister in charge of disaster recover in 1755 Lisbon natural disasters not only help us make changes that have long been avoided but are necessary to ‘unstick’ us from societal values and behaviours that are counterproductive. I will repeat his point another way: not only can disasters be turned into a nation’s advantage they are, in fact, necessary. Here is a section of his report about how he helped Lisbon recover from the Earthquake/Tsunami/Fire which levelled the city.
“Politics is not always the cause of revolutions of the State. Dreadful phenomena frequently change the face of Empires. One could say that these aberrations of nature are sometimes necessary because the can contribute more than anything to eradicating certain antiquated systems which are determined to invade the universal Empire…. We could say that it is necessary that across the land provinces are wasted and cities ruined in order to dispel the blindness of certain nations, to enlighten them with the knowledge of their true interests. Yes, I dare to say, in a certain sense natural disasters are necessary.”
In the case of the destruction of Lisbon Carvalho was right. The city rose like phoenix and would cast off some [but not all!] of the medieval cultural mindsets that had kept it from entering the Age of Enlightenment. Could it be that we are like the people of Lisbon? Are stuck in Medieval thinking when the world needs Enlightenment? What I mean by that is that our Industrial growth obsessed society appears to need deep, fundamental, structural changes in how political power is exercised, how & which technology is employed and needs to reduce our human footprint by “several Earths”. What has got to do with little Canada?
Now most Canadians think that we have little impact on humanity’s global impact. Wrong. We are the 10th largest economy, are the 8th largest user of total energy [electric + fossil fuels] per capita [note: on that list all the countries who use more energy are very small: eg. Singapore, Bahrain], we are the 9th largest country wrt GHG emissions, and the 3rd largest emitter per capita. The punchline? We matter! We have an impact on global emissions far out of line with our population. This graphic tells what we all know: BAU is killing us.
[avg CDN/American]
Why is it that we know this, and yet don’t act? We are stuck. Stuck by powerful status quo forces that are quite happy existing and making money and having fun in this moment, the future be damned. Now as you all know the world has done next to nothing in terms of a sincere effort to reduce GHGs, and Canada has led the charge wrt saying very nice things and doing next to nothing about it. Here is a graph from “green” BC that makes the point clear. Why are so unsuccessful at making a dent in reducing GHG emissions? I propose it is quite simple: all levels of government, most businesses and most people are stuck in BAU and afraid of change and suspect that it is simply another way to reduce their quality of life.
The problem is that the disasters around us keep on multiplying so it gets harder and harder every year to deny that the world around is changing and that we need to change, or suffer. Instead of admitting to the fact that “I have found the enemy and he is us” we retreat into petty culture wars, or make incremental changes to non-problems because the big issues are just too big to think about, much less deal with. We complain that other countries and other people and governments and oil companies are to blame for what is going on – rather than changing ourselves – which, although inconsequential, would, if many of us did so, eventually force our so called “leaders” [who are mostly followers of whatever trend will get them elected] to make the changes that will have impact and have a chance of avoiding disaster. Am I confident or even hopeful that this will happen? NO. There is no evidence, certainly not in Canada, that this is remotely possible. So what do we need? A push, a shove, a shock – a disaster to wrench us out of complacency. The problem is, we have already had several here in Canada – the heat wave in BC that killed hundreds and destroyed Litton by fire and severed all roads to the BC interior for weeks, we had the destruction of Slave Lake & Fort MacMurray in Alberta, we had costly in Alberta & Toronto in 2013 that cost billions, we had the recent derecho that destroyed large sections of the power grid in southern Ontario/Quebec… and our response? We still subsidize the oil companies! We still wring our hands, saying “somebody should do something” as we drive our SUVs to the gas pumps and complain that gasoline is $2/L. What is going on? We are stuck. We cannot change. We will not change – except doing window dressing changes like recycling and maybe buying a hybrid or electric car. So it looks like disasters are not helping us change. Or is it that they have not been big enough to do the job? Perhaps the social fabric which insulates and disconnects from the reality of the destruction of the Natural world must be shredded some more so that the messages from Nature can be heard above the music of Justin Beeber?
Here is an extreme example of what I see. To repeat what I said previously. When reality becomes overwhelming in its complexity, when people are psychologically over whelmed because life it, they resort to escaping from reality. This is part of a larger society wide disconnect from reality that all of us are part of – people like the followers of the “Queen of Canada” are but the extreme fringe of that disconnection.
Didulo, our “Queen”, tells her followers of her supernatural abilities. She claims she can become invisible by “cloaking” herself. This power is not unusual for beings of her race, she says. She is not of this Earth. She is a member of a highly advanced, alien race — an Arcturian, an alien being with special celestial powers. She is not alone, is a part of The sovereign citizen movement is expanding rapidly, and can now be found in at least 26 countries. The movement is anti-government in nature, and its followers believe they’re immune from the laws of their government. They also have a proclivity for violence,
Are many Canadians followers of this Queen of Canada? No. But I would certainly say that a majority of CDNs want BAU to continue, to keep flying and eating meat and living in big houses and driving gas guzzling SUVs and enjoying the moment and damn the consequences. We are also losing trust in our institutions, perhaps not as badly as the Americans, but we all know that Canada tends to at least partly follow American cultural trends. Below is part of an article making the point that BAU, even if we wanted to save it, cannot be saved. You see, most Americans [Canada is probably a decade behind] have lost faith in their institutions. The power of any society is that its population believe in its way of life. That is gone – as it probably should be! From my perspective this ‘bad’ news is actually ‘good’ news – because the new world we need cannot be born until the old one dies.
We don’t believe in anything any more. While that may be a slight exaggeration, one of the realities that has come into clear focus over the past 10-20 years is that many of the institutions that once carried near-universal trust are now viewed skeptically by the American public Gallup conducts a poll testing support for these institutions annually. And its latest findings show that our faith in institutions is as low as it has ever been. Of the 16 major institutions Gallup tested, 11 of them saw significant declines in support over the past year alone. Not one of those 16 posted an increase in trust between 2021 and today. Trust in the presidency fell off of a cliff — from 38% in 2021 to 23% this year. Trust in the Supreme Court dropped 11 percentage points, and that was BEFORE the court issued its rulings overturning Roe v. Wade and loosening gun restrictions. Of the 14 institutions Gallup has been consistently polling on since 1973, the average of adults expressing a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in them is just 27%, the lowest it has ever been.
What is BAU? This graph summarizes its results – we consume more than the Earth produces every year. This is a dead end. We all know it, but we do nothing. We are like deer frozen in the headlights of a big truck…. Just before it gets run over and killed. It this kind of ending avoidable? Yes, it was in the past. But I, like many, think it is now too late. So now “hope” in the form of solar panels and wind turbines or even nuclear power saving our current form of high energy, high consumption civilization is not helpful, it is delusional. However, hope is still vital – but a hope that realizes that the world we live in now had to die so that a new and better world can be born.
Do you think I’m being too negative? Just consider the latest US Supreme Court ruling:
The court was asked to consider whether the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to issue broad, aggressive regulations on climate-warming pollution from power plants that would force many of those plants to close. In a 6-to-3 decision, the justices ruled that the agency has no such authority. The ruling, in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, not only limits the authority of the E.P.A., but potentially that of other agencies to enact a broad array of regulations to protect the environment and public health. It was the product of a coordinated, multiyear strategy by Republican attorneys general, conservative legal activists and their funders to use the judicial system to rewrite environmental law, weakening the executive branch’s ability to tackle global warming.
Now, world is not going to end. Life will go on, but not for everybody. Just like Lisbon in 1755 we all know things are not quite right, but our legal, economic and political systems are incapable of doing anything but try to maintain the status quo. So be ready for the equivalent of the Lisbon earthquake. In the meantime, in spite of all this, I’m enjoying myself at the family cottage. I’m going out to a nice restaurant tomorrow, Canada Day 2022. I’m human. Like every other human, I, too, am going to sleepwalk into the void.
When will the cost of remaining the same be obviously higher than the cost of change? The disaster has to be very, very bad AND repeated before most people can change because the change required today is a total change of worldview, a total change in values, a total change of who I am in relationship to society, other species and Gaia herself. The change Nature is demanding of us is not merely reducing GHG emissions and people, unconsciously, recognize this and see the change required as just too threatening. But there is a silver lining in all this – Art and creativity sometimes blossom where there is great change.
Often great art, great creativity comes from loss of self, loss of respect of society, the destruction of normal and art becomes the way to rebuild a new world for a new self. With art you can reinvent yourself – but it requires pain, suffering and destruction. Not always, but it is one of the possible paths. Here are some great books that I have read that came out of trauma. Was the trauma appreciated by these writers? No! Would they have rather led happy, peaceful lives? Yes! But, their gifts to humanity happened because of the traumas they experienced.
Dante’s The Divine Comedy
Writing this 3 part book, when formed the linguistic base for modern Italian, was his way to cope with exile from Florence and from his family living there – if he returned he would be burned alive at the stake. It was the one of the first books in Europe not written in Latin/Greek. It was the first book written where the writer is the main character.
Machievelli’s The Prince
This was his attempt to get back into good graces of Count after losing his position in court – it did not work.
Henry Beston’s The Outermost House
He needed to get his sweetheart to marry him after she said: “Prove to me that you really are the great writer that you and others say you could be. Don’t talk about being a great writer, BE a great writer. He wrote. She married him. This book created the genre of literature now known as writer as naturalist. I strongly recommend you read this book to help you reconnect to where you live.
Boethius’ On the Consolation of Philosophy
by the last great Roman statesman was written in 523 AD, after the Fall of the Roman Empire. It has been described as the single most important and influential work in the West on Medieval and early Renaissance Christianity, as well as the last great Western work of the Classical Period. It was during a one-year imprisonment Boethius served while awaiting trial—and eventual execution—for the alleged crime of treason under the Ostrogothic King Theodoric the Great. Boethius was at the very heights of power in Rome, holding the prestigious office of magister officiorum, and was brought down by treachery. This experience inspired the text, which reflects on how evil can exist in a world governed by God (the problem of theodicy), and how happiness is still attainable amidst fickle fortune, while also considering the nature of happiness and God. It was described in 1891 as “by far the most interesting example of prison literature the world has ever seen.
So how does this help us face our world today? We know that out of collapse great art can thrive. We know that the human soul can learn and become more truly human. It allows us to read headlines like this one and realize that societies are continually collapsing… and then new ones are being reborn.
UN Warns of ‘Total Societal Collapse’ Due to Breaching of Planetary Boundaries
When the United Nations published its 2022 ‘Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction’ (GAR2022) in May, the world’s attention was on its grim verdict that the world was experiencing an accelerating trend of natural disasters and economic crises. But not a single media outlet picked up the biggest issue: the increasing probability of civilisational collapse. Buried in the report, which was endorsed by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, is the finding that escalating synergies between disasters, economic vulnerabilities and ecosystem failures are escalating the risk of a “global collapse” scenario. This stark conclusion appears to be the first time that the UN has issued a flagship global report finding that existing global policies are accelerating toward the collapse of human civilisation. Yet somehow this urgent warning has remained unreported until now. The report does not suggest that this outcome is inevitable or specify how close to this possibility we are. But it does confirm that, without radical change, that’s where the world is heading. the report makes reference to a separate ‘contributing paper’ published by the UN’s Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. That paper, ‘Pandemics, Climate Extremes, Tipping Points and the Global Catastrophic Risk – How these Impact Global Targets’, offers an in-depth scenario analysis of global collapse risks based on how human activities are transgressing planetary boundaries. The paper is authored by Thomas Cernev, a researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. It finds that the continuation of ‘business as usual’ and a failure to invoke drastic policy changes means that human civilisation is moving inexorably toward collapse.
Let’s hear the same point said slightly different by renowned climate scientist Michael Mann, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State , who said this in 2018:
We already know that projections historically have been too optimistic about the rates of ice sheet collapse and sea-level rise. Now it appears they are also underestimating the odds of extreme weather as well. The consequences of doing nothing grow by the day. The time to act is now.
And have we acted? No. If anything, we are trying ever more desperately to keep BAU going. We can use the excuse of Covid or the war in the Ukraine as a reason for our inaction, but the plain fact is that, like Lisbon in 1755, the forces that want to maintain the social forces of the status quo are more powerful – both at the individual psychological level and system/corporate level – than the social forces – like CACOR – that recognize that without fundamental and deep structural and value changes were doom our current civilization. This is not new information to most of you readers. What I think may be new to you is seeing our current civilization as doomed is not a bad thing. I still hope, I still believe in a better tomorrow, but my hope includes a time of trial and tribulation before we get there. Can I be wrong? I certainly hope so!
So what’s the punchline? First, any attempts to maintain BAU are doomed to fail. Second, our society is incapable of making the necessary constructive changes [there are lots of destructive changes] that would allow a smooth and peaceful transition to a better future. Third, that leaves us with the near certainty that only disasters will force us to change. Fourth, we must see these gut wrenching disasters in a slightly positive way – as A path forward [but NOT the only one, and not the preferred one] that seems, sadly, to be necessary at this time in human history. This point of view is important, because when we live in a state of fear and negativity and despair we cannot make logical long term decisions. When we only see disasters as “bad” we shut down to the opportunities they can create and the doors they open that had been closed.
From thee to Nothing!
Were we to press, inferior might on ours:
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scales destroyed:
From Nature’s chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And if each system in gradation roll,
Alike essential to the amazing whole;
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall.
- Pope, Essay on Man
References
https://thesocietypages.org/toolbox/ecological-footprints/
https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/energy-consumption-per-capita/
https://www.bccic.ca/bc-carbon-tax/
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/05/politics/decline-trust-american-institutions-poll/index.html
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