Kim Robinson - Sixty Days and Counting

So we’re doing a lot for them, and yes, they’re doing a lot for us, and everyone is benefiting. What are they doing for us? They’ve agreed to a cap on their carbon emissions that is impressively low, making them buyers in the carbon trading market, at least for a while longer. They will be challenging the rest of the Asia Pacific Six, which is us, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and India, to match their low cap, and are committed to helping achieve that reduction by investing in clean renewables in the other five countries in the group. As part of that effort they will be building a full set of their clean coal-burning plants for us in the United States, to be built on federal land and run by the Department of Energy. Quickly clean renewables will become part of the public trust.

The Chinese have also negotiated a successful compromise with the Dalai Lama, so that Tibet will take its rightful place as one of the semi-autonomous ethnic regions that are an important feature of both China and the United States, in the form of our Native American reservations. I think you could say that the Chinese leadership, in this part of the deal, has “embraced diversity.” The world rejoices at the Tibetan settlement, and I particularly appreciate the extension of civil liberties and personal security to the Falun Gong and all other Chinese religious groups, including Buddhist monks and nuns and their leaders, in Tibet and elsewhere. That’s all been very good accommodation of everyone’s interests.

I’ll add more on that later, but now Diane says it’s time for bed. Thanks to everyone for their best wishes, by the way!

Response to response 3,581,332:

I will definitely appreciate the big gains in the House and Senate that will be given to us in the midterm elections. I’ll take it to be a vote of confidence from the American people in the programs that we have been trying to enact together ever since the first sixty days. And I know people have been saying I have put my foot to the gas pedal on many of these matters ever since I got shot, and you know what? It’s true. So sue me! (But don’t.) I know people also say I’ve gotten to be like Paul Revere—you know, a little light in the belfry—but that is not true. I am more sane now than I have ever been.

So, thanks in advance. A major part of our work will continue to be aiming the amazing productivity of the American people and the global community toward stabilizing the Earth’s climate, as you know. That will remain true for many years to come. But now, well before the election, I want to repeat what I’ve been saying all along, so that no one can later claim to misunderstand:

A major part of sustainability is social justice, here and everywhere. Think of it this way: justice is a technology. It’s like a software program that we use to cope with the world and get along with each other, and one of the most effective we have ever invented, because we are all in this together. When you realize that acting with justice and generosity turns out to be the most effective technology for dealing with other people, that’s a good thing.

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What I do is mix soy sauce and a dry white wine about half and half, and then add a big dash of tarragon vinegar, and some heaping spoonfuls of brown sugar, and a tablespoon of olive oil, about a teaspoon each of ginger and mustard powder, and a dash of garlic powder. Mix that up and the longer you marinate things in it the better, but just dipping it in will do too. Best on veggies, chicken, and flank steak. Sear the meat and then cook at a lower heat.

56,938,222 responses. Cookbook to follow.

Response to response 34:

Why, you ask? Why? Because we were burning a quarter of the world’s burn of carbon when we were only five percent of the world’s population, that’s why! That was only possible because we were so rich and stupid. We were like the guy who uses Franklins to light cigars and blow smoke into everyone’s face. We only did it to show we could. Our imaginations had atrophied from disuse. Because power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and a little bit of power corrupts a little bit, and a lot of power corrupts a lot. So, we were pretty corrupt. Empires always are. And read some postcolonial studies if you want to know how long the damage lasts in the colonies after the empire is over! The historical record seems to indicate that the damage lasts for about a thousand years. Empires are one of the most evil and destructive of human systems. We could not become an empire and stay the America that had been up until that point one of the great achievements of history, in that we were the country made up of people from all the other countries, the country that had a new idea of justice and tried to live by it. It was so successful that we became an empire by accident. Then we had to stand down. We had to divest.

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Response to response 589:

Because in our system there’s no such thing! There is only capital accumulation. You know the drill: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. There is no word or phrase in the language to describe the opposite process. That’s part of the emptiness of our imagination. Once or twice I’ve seen the phrase capital decumulation, but that means a kind of accident or mistake, which isn’t what I have in mind. I’m talking about a deliberate act, a positive act. I’ve tried calling it capital dispersal—capital dissemination—capital disbursement—capital dispersion—you see the problem. Nothing sounds right even at the level of language. Profit redistribution; but see how all our words for it describe actions that come after the capital accumulation. Dispersing capital right at the moment of its creation—it almost seems to contradict reality, and in a sense that’s right; in our system there is no word or theory to explain dispersing capital without it being some kind of payment due.

Preemptive dividending? Usufruct? I leave it as an exercise to the responders to find the right words for this.

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I say it’s simple, at least at the level of fundamentals. Everyone’s part of the team and should have a part to play. Capital is created by everyone, and should be owned by everyone. People are owed the worth of what they do, and whatever they do adds to humanity somehow, and helps make our own lives possible, and is worth a living wage and more. And the Earth is owed our permanent care. And we have the capability to care for the Earth and create for every one of us a sufficiency of food, water, shelter, clothing, medical care, education, and human rights.

To the extent our economic system withholds or flatly opposes these values and goals, it is diseased. It has to be changed so that we can do these things that are well within our technological capabilities. We have imagined them, and they are possible. We can make them real.

Of course they can happen. You thought they couldn’t happen, but why? Because we aren’t good enough to do it? That was part of the delusion. Underneath the delusion, we were always doing it.

That’s what we’re doing in history; call it the invention of permaculture. By permaculture I mean a culture that can be sustained permanently. Not unchanging, that’s impossible, we have to stay dynamic, because conditions will change, and we will have to adapt to those new conditions, and continue to try to make things even better—so that I like to think the word permaculture implies also permutation. We will make adaptations, so change is inevitable.

Eventually I think what will happen is that we will build a culture in which no one is without a job, or shelter, or health care, or education, or the rights to their own life. Taking care of the Earth and its miraculous biological splendor will then become the long-term work of our species. We’ll share the world with all the other creatures. It will be an ongoing project that will never end. People worry about living life without purpose or meaning, and rightfully so, but really there is no need for concern: inventing a sustainable culture is the meaning, right there always before us. We haven’t even come close to doing it yet, so it will take a long time, indeed it will never come to an end while people still exist.