The Sacred “C Words”

by ROB SEIMETZ

When one associates the phrase “the C word” they associate with either Christ or that vulgar name of a female body part.  I am not here to discuss those “C words”, I am here to discuss words that start with “Cs” that are even more sacred.  The first word being Capitalism.

Even though there were Climate Marches all over the country this weekend, I just couldn’t bring myself to attend the one in Tampa, FL.  I knew this Climate March would focus on one simple demand… clean energy, which to me is an oxymoron.

Clean energy extracts resources from the earth. What’s clean about that?  Clean energy production causes emissions of greenhouse gases, produces toxic waste, and uses up water and electricity.   There’s no way you can get around burning fossil fuels and depleting the living planet while producing and transporting these “clean energy” alternatives.

So how could I go and march in an event that demanded to just rearrange the table settings when I wanted to take a sludge hammer to the entire table?

I first want to take a sludge hammer to the one that occupies the head of this table which is Capitalism.  More and more I am reading apocalyptic articles predicting the demise of our species, yet I rarely see articles depicting the demise of Capitalism. It’s as if people can picture the demise of our own species before they can picture the demise of Capitalism.  This shows you just how sacred of a “C word” Capitalism is.

People are afraid to address the fact that you cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet.  If they find out you are against a Capitalistic society you will be called a commie, socialist, libterd, extremist, eco-terrorist, radical or any other trendy slogan developed by those that occupy the table with Capitalism serving as the head.

See I am not any of these things.  What I am is a believer in the concepts of science and math.  Science is telling me by an overwhelming amount of evidence that humans are the culprit in the heating of earth’s biosphere.  Math is telling me that if everyone on earth had the American lifestyle you would need 2.5 earths.

Many who are concerned about climate change just listen to what the capitalist outlets tell them are the solutions, they do not critically think about the issue.  If they did Capitalism would have been gone a long time ago.  They would have gotten to the root of why apocalyptic stories are soon going to be apocalyptic realities.

See one must confront the first sacred “C word” to confront the second sacred “C word” and that is Conception.

Humans reproduce as if we are able to have infinite growth on an infinite planet.  There are approximately 7.5 billion people on this planet as I write this.  There’s an average of 210,000 humans added per day on this planet (births minus deaths).  15,000 humans are born every hour.  It’s as if I am not allowed to talk about this, and if I do it means I want to go start exterminating humans.

I do not want to do this at all.  Want I want to do is acknowledge the problems we have on this planet.  I want to acknowledge that if we keep reproducing at this pace we will have almost 10 billion human beings on this planet by 2050.  Yet each year we pollute more air, more water, and heat up more soil which makes it harder for us to grow grains.  Even though we are relying on destroying more ecosystems to grow more grains and consume more resources for more people and we rely on these ecosystems for our survival.  Without ecosystems there are no humans, climate change or not.

So if you are a believer in the concept of mathematics you would start asking yourself how the hell are we going to feed all these people, and at some point isn’t the human population going to collapse?

And still I hear from people it’s my dream to have three or four kids. Well your dream is the living planet’s nightmare.  See while you want to blame our overpopulation problem on third world countries I have news for you.  One American child consumes as many resources as thirty two children from Kenya (it’s as much as 35 in India).  So really when you are thinking of having three or four children that would be the equivalent of having 105 or 140 children in some areas of the world from a resource standpoint.

While people are oblivious to those scientific and mathematical facts, they sure   will get up in arms if say I wanted to buy a cat or dog from a breeder.  They will tell me go rescue one there are plenty of good pets that are in shelters that need good homes.  Yet, I can’t say to someone who wants a million kids don’t go conceiving a bunch of kids there are plenty of good children in foster homes or children around that world that need good homes and need our help.  You know like children in the Middle East that are now refugees because we bombed  their homes and now we won’t welcome them to ours?  Why can’t I say this?  Why can’t we connect our concerns of fostering more creation of other species but not our own?

My thinking is people are failing to make connections (another “C word” though not sacred) with our crisis of Capitalism and Conception.  All our issues today are connected to these sacred “C words”.  Humans and the natural world must be exploited for the privileges and comforts of other humans.  This requires Capitalism and as the Conception of more humans multiplies, it means more humans are to be exploited since these privileges and comforts are alotted for the very few.

The longer we have Capitalism and the more we conceive, the more we are faced with crisis.

As we make these connections we must listen to those that tell us about these connections that possess another “C word”… Credibility.

We need to listen to those that aren’t afraid of telling the truth, that aren’t afraid of making people feel uncomfortable by telling the truth because they are consistent in their credibility.

Which brings me back to the Climate March in Tampa.  The march took place in Lykes Gaslight Square Park which a few months ago was the very place where people from an Organization that feeds the homeless called Food Not Bombs, were arrested for feeding the homeless without a permit.

One of the speakers at this event was a Hillborough County Commissioner (Tampa is in this county).  I researched to see if she had any comments on the arrests of individuals from Food Not Bombs for feeding the homeless at the very park she was set to speak at.  She didn’t not.  This tells me she’s not credible and she’s not consistent in any crediblity that she may have garnered.  Just who I want to take my Ps and Qs from… someone who can’t address the sacred “C words”.

So when considering conversing over the crisis of Capitalism and Conception, converse and convene with crowds that are consistently credible and can connect Capitalism and Conception with the our collapsing climate.

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http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/03/the-sacred-c-words/