• About

northierthanthou

northierthanthou

Tag Archives: Environmentalism

Climate Change and Cthulhu

27 Tuesday Jun 2017

Posted by danielwalldammit in Politics

≈ 56 Comments

Tags

Climate Change, Cthulhu, Donald Trump, Environmentalism, global warming, H.P. Lovecraft, Horror, Koch Brothers, Madness

What could be more evil than working to end all life as we know it? It’s a tough question for me, because I’m not in the habit of using the term ‘evil’ in direct reference to anything that happens in the real world. Mostly, I think of that reluctance as healthy restraint, but perhaps restraint isn’t always that healthy after all. Skepticism sometimes acts as the hand servant to kind of inertia. No need to think or do anything drastic. Let’s wait for the evidence! You can keep saying that until it’s too late. All of which brings me back to the notion of evil, because normal human cognitive bias is one thing and a focused political agenda is quite another. Uncertainty is one thing. When such an agenda imperils life as we know it, it would be a mistake to think of that as just another opinion. It would be a mistake to think of it as anything less than a threat, or to think of that threat in moderate terms.

Don’t get me wrong. Global warming is not the fault of denialists. We in the industrialized world are all contributing to global warming, but some folks are working damned hard to make sure we keep right on doing it, to keep questions about global warming and an effective response off the table, and toprevent all of us from addressing our collective responsibility as we ought to.

We are not supposed to demonize folks we disagree with, right? But there are times when the actual context of real world events finds its parallels in mythology and fiction. I can’t help thinking the issue of global warming has presented us one of those times.

Global warming sounds a lot like the Great Old One sleeping deep in the South Pacific. It’s hard to believe that such a threat could exist, hard to grasp the full significance of the prospect. It’s much more easy to dismiss it as yet another myth, a false god worshiped by fools and primitive peoples. If taken seriously, on the other hand, the thought is maddening. Like Cthulhu waiting in the deep, global warming threatens to devour everything we do and everything we care about. How does one grasp that and then go on about his life? How do you build a bridge knowing it will one day rest unused under a harsh sun? How do you write a book, conscious of the day there will be no-one left to read it? How does anyone look at a child knowing what’s coming without feeling a terrible urge to tears?

What to do about this threat? That’s a damned hard question. For myself, I couldn’t count the number of changes that must happen to combat the coming terror. I couldn’t even count the number of plastics in the room around me, starting with the computer keys I am tapping away at to write this blog post. I certainly couldn’t imagine my travels or my place of residence in the wake of the changes necessary to halt global warming. How would I eat? How would food find its way to me, let alone the millions living in the cities? It’s all way too much. The change is simply not possible!

If the world as we know it must change immediately (more like yesterday) in order to save the world as we know it… well that is a maddening thought indeed! It’s more than a little like saying the end of the world is a virtual certainty.

…and Cthulhu lies waiting beneath the waves.

As maddening as the prospect of doing something about climate change is for me, I think it must be all that much more difficult for those whose world view is entirely defined by the free market. Global warming is not merely a challenge to our future. It is a challenge to our present and repudiation of our past. Global warming refutes the cost/benefit analysis of every single transaction carried out since the fossil fuel revolution. (They all have externalities not yet settled.) It denies the value of progress. It turns the angels of manifest destiny into the harbingers of doom, a prospect once real only to those unfortunate enough to stand in the way of that destiny. Global warming changes everything. It transforms the meaning if history even as it demands a new social order. If we are to ever have a future, that future will not be reckoned as we have reckoned the past. For those deeply committed to a world as a function of supply and demand, it is not merely a daunting call for change; it’s a claim that their own world is an illusion. Faced with such a prospect, I can well understand why some people might think it better to deny the whole thing.

…but toward what end?

If Cthulhu is really sleeping there in the ocean, it won’t help much to pretend he is merely plankton. So what is the end game for climate change denial? You cannot build a better world on the present world order. You cannot even maintain this one. That is the terrible prospect which confronts us all. So, what will actually be accomplished by the billions of dollars poured into the effort to confound the issue and keep serious discussions of climate change off the table? What is to be gained by dismissing the whole thing as a Chinese conspiracy.

The thought that keeps creeping into my skull is this. We won’t experience climate change as a natural disaster. Hell, we aren’t experiencing it that way now. By ‘we’ I mean those of us in the developed world. Sure there are farmers whose crops no longer grow in certain places, and there are people whose homes are washing away, but these are lives lived on the margins of the modern global order, and for most of humanity these are stories about far away people and places. The narratives taking shape in modern media (even those reflecting a ‘liberal’ view on the subject) will reflect global warming in countless subtle forms. It will take the form of stories about rising prices, changes in consumer behavior, shifts in population, perhaps even a wave of refugees here and there. …and of course there will be political disputes over the consequences of all of this.

This is all broad sketches, I know, but my point is that most of us will experience climate change as social upheaval. There will always be a person or a policy between us and the natural phenomenon driving our new hardships. We will always be able to respond to climate change as though it were this or that bastard making our lives more difficult. We may never get a moment where Cthulhu shows his ugly face. It will always be possible to see his terror in the form of someone acting in a way we probably don’t like, maybe even one we are willing to fight about.

…all of which falls well short of dealing with the real issues.

So again, what is the end-game for denialists? I’m not talking about the every day Joe or Jane who isn’t convinced. I am talking about those financing the maze of think tanks and professional pundits, those who long ago transformed climate change from a scientific question to a partizan politics. I am talking about a President who won’t say whether or not he believes in global warming but tells us by his very actions that he does not. For these people, I suspect the payoff is very much what they get out of all their other political activities; it’s a chance to maintain their own status at the top of the current social order. In the context of climate change, this can mean little more than a chance to keep their privilege as long as possible while the rest of society unravels. There is no riding this disaster out of course, but the progeny of the wealthy may well feel its results long after others have died of it.

I keep writing this as though I am talking about future events, but of course the process has already begun. It will get worse, to be sure, hence the relevance of the future tense. But some are already feeling the effects even as others pretend there is no new disaster under the sun. In any event, I can’t help thinking the real benefit to the financiers of climate change denial will be little other than the hope that their children will be among the last to suffer the full effects of climate change.

This too is a Lovecraftian theme.

In effect, the financiers of climate change denial are hoping Cthulhu will eat them last.

GVXZTFi8

 

(P.S. Thanks to Milady DeBennet for producing the meme for me.)

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Print
  • Email

Like this:

Like Loading...

Tears of an Uncommon Indian

27 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by danielwalldammit in Native American Themes, Uncommonday, White Indians

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Authenticity, Commercials, Crying Indian, Environmentalism, Indian, Iron Eyes Cody, Mother Night, Pollution, White Indians

ironeyes_codyFew commercials have been as memorable as the ‘crying Indian’ from the seventies, and I reckon few commercials have had more impact on people’s behavior. The crying Indian left quite a mark on American popular culture.

I was a kid when I first saw that image, and I distinctly recall the sense of shame I felt upon watching it. It wasn’t just that I’d seen people littering like that, I’d done it myself. In fact, littering was pretty damned common back in those days, hence the commercial! I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest the image of that crying Indian moved a lot of people to rethink their behavior.

Some of it anyway.

So, I was pretty damned surprised to learn many years later that the crying Indian belonged to a rather unusual tribe. He was Italian. ‘Iron Eyes Cody’ was born Espera Oscar de Corti. He had been playing Indian parts in the movies ever since the 1930s. Cody claimed Cherokee and Cree ancestry during much of that time, but this appears to have been a fabrication.

It’s tempting to think of Cody as an outright fraud, but that doesn’t begin to cover the facts of the matter. By all accounts, he seems to have actually lived the life he proclaimed. Cody married a native woman and adopted native children. He assumed a Native American identity on and off-screen, supported native causes, and essentially became the role he played in real life. Just what the process might have been in his own mind is something of an open question at this point, albeit one that most of us will never have an answer to. He is a rather successful example of a white Indian, a non-Indian who went native, so to speak.

One could well wish the ‘crying Indian’ had been a ‘real Indian’, and it’s hard not to feel a little betrayed to learn the truth of Cody’s ancestry, and yet he still remains a sympathetic figure. It’s tough to let him off the hook entirely for his self-presentation, but it’s also tough to be too hard on him for it. His story reminds me of an old line from Kurt Vonnegut’s book Mother Night; “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

By that standard I’d say Cody did pretty well in life.

***

The photo above was taken from Cody’s obituary in the Los Angeles Times. Cody has his own Snopes page of course, and the Wiki article on him isn’t bad. Findagrave also has a decent write-up.  It’s interesting to note that these sources provide different times and dates for Cody’s birth, with the L.A. Times piece coming in as the outlier with 1916 and Fort Gibson, Oklahoma. The others tell us Cody was born in Louisiana, and in 1904. Cody also features prominently in the documentary, Reel Injun, which is definitely worth a watch.

71.271549 -156.751450

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Print
  • Email

Like this:

Like Loading...

Point Hope (Photo Gallery)

08 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by danielwalldammit in Alaska, History

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

Alaska, Atomic Energy Commission, Environmentalism, History, Igloo, Nuclear Power, Point Hope, Social Justice

Old Sod House

Old Sod House

I spent a couple days at Point Hope in August of 2010, and I thought I’d share a few of the pics from out that way.

Point Hope is a community of a little over 700 people at the far end of the Lisburne Penninsula reaching out into the Chukchi Sea. It is commonly thought to be one of the more culturally conservative communities of the North Slope. At least that’s what folks say up here in the North Slope.

In his Autobiography, Charles Brower, Sr. relates a number of interesting stories about Point Hope and its residents before travelling up to settle in Barrow. It’s a great read anyhow, but I think Brower’s comments on Point Hope are particularly interesting.

(If you zoom out on the map one click at a time, it’s kinda cool.)

There are at least 2 interesting things about Point Hope.

First, according to some sources, Point Hope is the oldest documented settlement in the arctic. I’m a little wary of that particular claim, so we’ll just say it’s damned old. The initial Inupiat settlement at this spot was known Tikagagmiut (there are a few small variations on the name), and its people were somewhat of a force to be reckoned with in the region.

So, why did people settle here? After two days of wind and freezing rain, I was inclined to think it might have been the climate, but I guess that wasn’t it after all. Actually, it was the fact that the region is ideal for hunting both sea and land mammals***. Anyway, the archaeological digs here go back a thousand years or so. I didn’t see anything that old myself, or if I did, I may not have recognized it, but I did get to walk around an interesting collection of old homes and sod houses.

Before going out to look in the old houses, I asked a local if it was acceptable to approach them, and if it would be okay to take a camera. I didn’t want to do anything disrespectful. The advice I got was to call out at the door of any home I saw and if anyone answered, they said; “don’t go in!” …Good advice. One of my colleagues says she lived out here in the 70s. She lived out in the old abandoned houses as a child. Wish I had had her along as I was looking around. I was still new to the area, and had lots of questions.

You can see at least two different types of dwellings in the abandoned housing area which sits just on the other side of the tracks. There are basic wooden houses, many of which piled sod up outside for insulation. One also finds traditional Inupiat sod houses. Sorry folks, Inupiat in Alaska didn’t live in ice houses. They dug down a ways and then used driftwood and whale-bone to create a structure around the pit. Sod was then piled up around this to make the walls. This is a traditional home (or at least the Cliffnotes version thereof). The ice houses most people associate with Eskimos? Well you gotta go way East to find people that live in them.

Older remains can be found underneath the buildings in my pictures and some of the older remains have been washed out to sea (cause all these shorelines up here are receding).

The second thing that is interesting about Point Hope is an event that didn’t happen after all, …thankfully. Around 1958-62, the Atomic Energy Commission decided to create a deep water harbor about 30 miles south of Point Hope.

They were going to do it in a jiffy, so to speak.

Spokesmen for the AEC held a gathering at Point Hope and assured its residents that there were no lasting effects from radiation in Japan, and that any harms experienced by those in the Pacific were due to their own negligence. You may think they neglected a few facts in saying this. One additional fact they neglected to note was that the Inupiat were taping the meeting.

**** I am grateful to Barbara and Jack Donachy of Cutterlight.com for correcting my initial presentation here. If you scroll down a bit, you’ll see that they left a very informative comment on the topic. Y’all might also want to check out their own blog, because they live in Point Hope right now. ****

All of these were taken on an old Blackberry. I don’t seem to have taken too many pictures in town, so most of these are of the old houses and such. Sadly, I missed one of the most interesting features of th community, it’s huge graveyard. I saw it from above, and my Blackberry went wacko as I was trying to take the picture. Very disappointing!

If you click on a picture it will embiggen.

I’ve flown in smaller.
I think this was my first view of the tundra.
More Tundra.

Point Hope from the Air
Post Office
Hotel

As I recall, this room cost about 200 a night.
Yes, the fuselage is built into the home.
Fuselage Manner from the alley.

Surf
Whale Bones
Old House

Old House II)
Old House III
Traditional Skin boat (Umiaq) frame and sled frames.

Frame
Note the sod piled up around the walls.
Just what it looks like.

Old Sod House
Doorway
Looking down into the house.

71.271549 -156.751450

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Print
  • Email

Like this:

Like Loading...

Top Posts & Pages

  • An American Flag as a Weapon, Redux.
    An American Flag as a Weapon, Redux.
  • An Uncommon Security Guard: Dave Eshelman, AKA 'John Wayne'
    An Uncommon Security Guard: Dave Eshelman, AKA 'John Wayne'
  • Hey Geezer, What Rhymes With Masses?
    Hey Geezer, What Rhymes With Masses?
  • About
    About
  • The Politics of Personification
    The Politics of Personification
  • Uncommonday Number 2: A Bit of Juxtaposition
    Uncommonday Number 2: A Bit of Juxtaposition
  • Two Green Manalishis (Each With a Two Pronged Crown)
    Two Green Manalishis (Each With a Two Pronged Crown)
  • The Dumpsters of Atqasuk
    The Dumpsters of Atqasuk
  • Decalogic Schmecalogic!
    Decalogic Schmecalogic!
  • Race Card Recursion: A Game of Social (In-)Justice
    Race Card Recursion: A Game of Social (In-)Justice

Topics

  • Alaska
  • Animals
  • Anthropology
  • atheism
  • Bad Photography
  • Books
  • Childhood
  • Education
  • Gaming
  • General
  • History
  • Irritation Meditation
  • Justice
  • Las Vegas
  • Minis
  • Movie Villainy
  • Movies
  • Museums
  • Music
  • Narrative VIolence
  • Native American Themes
  • Philosophy
  • Politics
  • Public History
  • Re-Creations
  • Religion
  • Street Art
  • The Bullet Point Mind
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized
  • Uncommonday
  • White Indians
  • Write Drunk, Edit Stoned

Blogroll

  • Bob's Blog
  • Disaster Film Blogspot
  • Dr. Gerald Stein
  • Hinterlogics
  • Ignorance WIthout Arrogance
  • Im-Nort
  • Insta-North
  • Just a Girl from Homer
  • Multo (Ghost)
  • Norbert Haupt
  • Northy Pins
  • Northy-Tok
  • Nunawhaa
  • Padre Steve's World
  • Stop and Smell the Lichen
  • The History Blog
  • The Mudflats
  • What Do I Know?

Archives

  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011

My Twitter Feed

Follow @Brimshack

RSS Feed

  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 8,016 other followers

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
%d bloggers like this: