The end of the West as we know it?

Every political, social and economic system ever created has sooner or later encountered a challenge that its very nature has made it incapable of meeting. The Confucian ruling system of imperial China, which lasted for more than 2,000 years, has some claim still to be the most successful in history, but because it was founded on values of stability and continuity, rather than dynamism and inventiveness, it eventually proved unable to survive in the face of Western imperial capitalism. For market economies, and the Western model of democracy with which they have been associated, the existential challenge for the foreseeable future will be global warming. Other threats like terrorism may well be damaging, but no other conceivable threat or combination of threats can possibly destroy our entire system. As the recent British official commission chaired by Sir Nicholas Stern correctly stated, climate change "is the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen." The question now facing us is whether global capitalism and Western democracy can follow the Stern report's recommendations, and make the limited economic adjustments necessary to keep global warming within bounds that will allow us to preserve our system in a recognizable form; or whether our system is so dependent on unlimited consumption that it is by its nature incapable of demanding even small sacrifices from its present elites and populations. If the latter proves the case, and the world suffers radically destructive climate change, then we must recognize that everything that the West now stands for will be rejected by future generations. The entire democratic capitalist system will be seen to have failed utterly as a model for humanity and as a custodian of essential human interests. [...] If this comes to pass, what will our descendants make of a political and media culture that devotes little attention to this threat when compared with sports, consumer goods, leisure and a threat from terrorism that is puny by comparison? Will they remember us as great paragons of human progress and freedom? They are more likely to spit on our graves. Underlying Western free-market democracy, and its American form in particular, is the belief that this system is of permanent value to mankind: a "New Order of the Ages," as the motto on the U.S. Great Seal has it. It is not supposed to serve only the short- term and selfish interests of existing Western populations. If our system is indeed no more than that, then it will pass from history even more utterly than Confucian China — and will deserve to do so.

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  thanks to The Washington Note

Climate change: scientists warn it may be too late to save the ice caps

A critical meltdown of ice sheets and severe sea level rise could be inevitable because of global warming, the world's scientists are preparing to warn their governments. New studies of Greenland and Antarctica have forced a UN expert panel to conclude there is a 50% chance that widespread ice sheet loss "may no longer be avoided" because of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

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Tomgram: McKibben, The Real News about Global Warming

The world is, it seems, melting like an ice cream cone in the sun. Let me leave it at that. As all Tomdispatch readers know, I write the introductions to posts at this site. This post is undoubtedly the exception that proves the rule. The editors of The New York Review of Books have been kind enough to let me put out Bill McKibben's striking essay on the real news lurking in the latest major report on global warming. (His piece appears in the March 15 issue of the magazine, now on the newsstands.) McKibben whose new book, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, is about to be published (and eagerly awaited by me), has been involved in important recent organizing efforts re: climate change. So I decided to give him the first -- and last -- word today. Tom Bill McKibben: "This piece is an account of a scientific triumph -- the ongoing effort to understand and warn about climate change in a timely fashion -- and also, of course, of a political debacle -- the complete failure of our government over two decades to address the problem in any fashion whatsoever. But it ends with a paragraph about an effort now five weeks old and, so far, entirely confined to the Web. When we launched stepitup07.org in mid-January, we hoped we might be able to find a couple of hundred groups and individuals around the country who would agree to hold rallies on April 14. "That would have represented by far the largest demonstration against global warming in U.S. history. By this point, our wildest imaginings have been long since surpassed -- we're nearing 700 actions scheduled for April 14, and the sheer genius people have brought to designing some of them boggles the mind. There will be underwater demonstrations, rallies on top of mountains, and on and on. All of it makes me think of the example and the words of Rebecca Solnit on Tomdispatch.com in recent years: As far as I can tell, she's absolutely right in her confidence that people around the country and around the world can, joyfully and powerfully, rise to the challenges in front of us. People power is a lovely thing to behold!"

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