Forget Sustainable...Let's Survive!
Humans don't handle crisis very well. We see the writing on the wall... we know its really about us, but we choose to avoid that uncomfortable thought as we struggle to describe how material and physical forms must change. We invent words like 'sustainable' to serve our delusions about immortality while we ignore that most of the forms we create will outlive us and the natural world will sustain quite nicely indeed, if we would just disappear and leave it alone. All this chatter about 'sustainability' is our confused egocentric outward focus on other forms, when the form most in danger is Human. Why not say it like it is...How can We survive if We can't even say the word?
'Sustainable', as it refers to the 'built environment', is seriously understated as a definition for what we must do. Our buildings produce almost half of the carbon emissions that are rapidly destroying the life forms that we Humans depend on for our existence...so we might best refer to our renaissance design/build efforts as 'Survivable Development'.
And while we're at it...also change our mindset and our language as we refer to 'Climate Crisis' and 'Planet in Peril'. Here again, our human habit of avoiding the nasty truth continues to work against us...'We are in Crisis'...'People are in Peril'... The planet Earth does not need us...it was here long before we arrived...it will be here long after we are gone...it will continue to freeze and thaw and shiver and shake as it spins and hurtles through space at warp speed...and the best we can do is hang on for dear life while we nurture all that it provides, ever mindful of our own fragile human existence.
'Sustainable', as it refers to the 'built environment', is seriously understated as a definition for what we must do. Our buildings produce almost half of the carbon emissions that are rapidly destroying the life forms that we Humans depend on for our existence...so we might best refer to our renaissance design/build efforts as 'Survivable Development'.
And while we're at it...also change our mindset and our language as we refer to 'Climate Crisis' and 'Planet in Peril'. Here again, our human habit of avoiding the nasty truth continues to work against us...'We are in Crisis'...'People are in Peril'... The planet Earth does not need us...it was here long before we arrived...it will be here long after we are gone...it will continue to freeze and thaw and shiver and shake as it spins and hurtles through space at warp speed...and the best we can do is hang on for dear life while we nurture all that it provides, ever mindful of our own fragile human existence.
Comment
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Comment by Joop Koning on July 12, 2009 at 6:03am -
Hi Michael,
Perhaps artist like my and you, are al little more pessimistic then most people, but looking at our human history, don`t makes me an optimist.
Perhaps Inigo is right, but to be an optimist could be also a lack of info.
Aslo we, the western society, can`t live by the rule the native Americans like to live by< take what you need, but no more, respect our earth an cherish this rule.
I know, we can`t go back, but we could learn and ajust our way of live.
I`m a dreamer, not of big blue skyes and fairytales, I think that dreaming is the very beginning of a new reality.
Our so beloved free market is a fairytale, a fairytale with a dark and grim future, we can`t give way to every opportinist, who seaks a chance for make money without being responsesable for his (polluting)actions.
This will be the and of future, like Fukyama allready said.
Anyway "ce cris" has a point, we need to laugh more.
By the way, Machael, in Holland I have a website where I`m wrighting about this grave subjects.
Over two decades, I `m painting a growing number of canvases with the name; .
Ignorance is the brother of intolerance, the mother of hate and the father of violence.
Let love be the drive of your live.
(Nice book to read is; The Infantile Consumer,must be available on the American market).
Joop Koning
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Comment by se_cris on July 7, 2009 at 2:49pm - l think we should LAUGH more.
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Comment by Iñigo Ortiz Monasterio on July 6, 2009 at 8:38pm - Dear Michael, I don't think you are a pessimist, I just think that pessimism is too late for anyone
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Comment by Michael McKenzie on July 6, 2009 at 5:35pm - Dearest Inigo..a pessimist wouldn't care, I'm a realist who cares enough to rattle the cages of apathy, assuredness, ignorance and...pessimism.
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Comment by Iñigo Ortiz Monasterio on July 6, 2009 at 12:45pm
- It's too late to be a pessimist, don't you think?
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