societal collapse, violent crime, lead poisoning, baby boomers
i am at odd fellows cafe, my preferred coffee and breakfast spot on block island... i have finished reviewing my journal writings for the week... notable is the feeling that life goes on normally at ground level and has done for the most part since 47 was sworn in... my life has been and is what i expected it to be, except for the angst layered over it by the national political situation, which is abysmal... 47 was at the UN the week before we left for bi... i was embarrassed for my country... how did we elect such a narcissistic basket case?... enough of us wanted it... but why?... what sort of collective delusion leads to such blindness to the threat?... but then, some of us want the racism and white nationalist christianity...
years ago i understood that the white dominated patriarchy was being threatened... mostly by a demographic shift... also by shifts in social attitudes... no group ever gives up privilege without a struggle... this situation was anticipated a long time ago by the whit patriarchal power structure... they have worked tirelessly to head it off...
a number of years ago i read Jarred Diamond's book Collapse... he asks the question, what causes viable, even thriving, societies to collapse?... his contention... environmental degradation brought on by an unwillingness to adapt to changing circumstances often because the entrenched and powerful ruling elite are unwilling to change... adaptive change creates losses and gains for different segments of the population... fear of loss provokes resistance... eventually violence... defense of the status quo...
while at the un, 47 claimed that renewable energy was a hoax and that the future belonged to countries centered on fossil fuels... the emperor's new clothes... the leader of the wealthiest and most consumptive country in the world is telling the world we need ever more fossil fuel production, not less... this is a society that is unwilling to change... unable to change... because of entrenched elites, especially those with fossil fuel wealth...
last week, after scifi reading group finished we joined members of the group for beers and conversation at a local bar... during a conversation with one member, who had split his time between japan and the united states, i asked why there was a world wide rise in authoritarian governments... he he said it was a reaction to mass migration being caused by climate change...
most of the migration i have been aware of is from south america and seems more related to societies that struggle to provide opportunity and the rule of law... not climate change...
migration is happening all over the world... i accept that it will increasingly be about leaving habitats unable to support their populations...
in collapse, diamond described old societies that had collapsed... they were geographically isolated... their collapse likely had knock on effects, but nothing like what may be happening right now around the globe... a simple, but interesting example was the failure of norse colonization of greenland... they brought cattle with them intending to continue the european food economy they were used to... cattle didn't work in greenland... the norse weren't interested in fishing... they eventually died out due to failure of their food economy... the greenland inuits have done well on fish...
that the united states is doubling down on fossil fuels is the same kind of stuck in our ways blindness that doomed the greenland norse...
while i was in seattle a few months ago i was reading murderland... the book made the case for an environmental toxins correlation with the far larger number of serial killers during the 60's, 70's and 80's... especially in the pacific northwest... lead poisoning seemed to be the main culprit... it affects the brain in both men and women, though differently for each sex... it is correlated with increased aggression in men... a main source was from auto emissions... lead was an additive to gasoline used to prevent engine knocking... it was also added to paint... the phasing out of lead began in the mid 70's and was not completed until 1996... elevated levels of lead were found in the tissue of most americans tested...
the baby boomer generation came of age during the peak of this exposure... within that generation there were others who were not only exposed to lead through auto emissions, but also through exposure to lead in the smokestack output of heavy industry... smelting plants in particular...
i have been wondering if there is a correlation between exposure to lead and other pollutants and the craziness we have been experiencing, particularly in politics, but also in the gun violence we have seen... is there a correlation between the falling levels of violent crime and the removal of lead from gasoline, coupled with other environmental protection regulations that reduced industrial emissions?...
i look it up on the internet and i find a graph that correlates with the rise in serial killing and the maximal exposure to lead... hmmm...
could another factor in whatever collapse we might be experiencing of american society be the poisoning of the environment and ourselves?... could there be some truth in the idea that the baby boomer generation screwed everything up?... not that all generations aren't guilty of some screwing up, but how many generations have been as widely exposed to lead poisoning in their formative years?...
gloomy thoughts on a gloomy day...