Humans Seem Hell Bent on Committing Mass Suicide -- But There's Still Hope

By Fred Branfman, AlterNet. Posted May 15, 2009.

Can’t Obama reverse the foolish policies of his predecessor?

Obama wisely opposed the Iraq war but has unwisely committed to winning in Afghanistan—an unachievable goal under present conditions. Neighboring Pakistan, a highly populated, nuclear-armed, failed state, is by far Obama’s biggest foreign-policy problem. The United States has pushed its enemies east from Afghanistan into Pakistan, where they are gaining power and territory, and destabilizing the government. He is likely to be sucked further and further into the quicksand of Mideast violence, wasting even more funds desperately needed to rebuild the U.S. economy.

There must be a deeper reason why human beings can so blindly continue marching toward their death and the death of their planet.

Existential psychology and evolutionary theory explain much of human behavior. Human beings are born with a drive to live but suffer great emotional pain when learning between the ages of 3 and 8 that they will one day die. They cope with this pain by denying it, and over time denial becomes a way of life. Today, individuals deny not only their individual deaths but the end of their species. Many evolutionary theorists believe that formerly adaptive evolutionary behaviors have become maladaptive so suddenly that humans may not be able to change in time to survive.

You’ve described the technological shifts needed to save the biosphere. What kind of political changes are needed?

President Obama needs, above all, to rally both Americans and the world for fair and shared sacrifice. Just as one cannot expect Americans as a whole to make needed investments by cutting consumption unless its elites lead the way, America cannot expect nations like China and India to reduce their carbon emissions unless it first cuts back on its own. Given the seriousness of the economic plight facing most people, America needs to move decisively and quickly to adopt European social-welfare policies.

Is there any chance this could actually occur?

There are some limited historical precedents for humans transforming their society when they felt their way of life was threatened. During World War II, for example, Americans accepted rationing, wage and price controls, and other measures that will clearly be needed to meet the biospheric crisis. The problem is that most societies until now have only been able to mobilize against a clearly defined enemy in times of war.

Today, there is no "enemy" to mobilize against, and no precedent whereby humans have mobilized to transform their own evolutionary drives.

So where does that leave them—and us?

Humanity is clearly at the most important turning point in its history. If this generation is able to create a renewable-energy economy, future humans will properly revere it and those now alive will live on in the grateful memories of their descendants.

If it cannot do so, its millions of years of evolution and the struggle of countless human generations for a better life will have ended in disaster. This generation will be cursed by its successors and, eventually, not be remembered at all.

Our mission, therefore, could not be more urgent. We may fail to save the human species. But at least we will not have failed to try. This is for us the noblest and highest duty we can undertake—as it is for human beings themselves.

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Fred Branfman is a writer, public policy activist, spiritual seeker and student of psychology. While directing Rebuild America in Washington, D.C., from 1987 to 1991, Branfman wrote “An Investment Economics for the Year 2000” and “Industry-led Strategy.” He wrote the “strategic investment initiative” for U.S. Sen. Gary Hart’s mid-1980s run for president. As a Cabinet-level aide for California’s then-Gov. Jerry Brown, he wrote the “Investment in High Technology” and “Investment in People” state-of-the-state initiatives. He also promoted renewable energy while directing Protecting Future Generations in the mid-1990s, and authored the state of California’s SolarCal strategy and “Jobs From the Sun” in 1979 while with the Campaign for Economic Democracy.

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