Chris Packham: Is it time to break the law?

Chris Packham: Is it time to break the law? (first broadcast on Channel 4, 20th September 2023)

Perhaps (imo) the most important statement from the whole program was the declaration from Lord Deben (John Gummer) - that we (this country) should be on a war footing when we are now faced with escalating climate, and ecological, breakdown. 

There is no question that in order to save as much of life on earth, and the current civilisation we find ourselves in, we have to discard some of the restraints that we place on ourselves. The Law, as it stands, was written by humans, for humans. Some of those laws favour the protection of fossil fuels and other activities that actively harm the biosphere. 

Anthropocentric Laws, versus Natural Laws.

Natural Law will win, and kill most of humanity, if we don't stop fulfilling the vision shown in The Age of Stupid*. Natural Law, mainly in the form of thermodynamics, is pushing the temperature of Earth's atmosphere to levels that will be unsurvivable for much life on this world. Mass extinction will unfold, and humans have already done so much to lop species from the tree of life. 

Anthropentric laws, with some exceptions like Polly Higgins, who proposed legislation to prevent/proscute acts of ecocide, are going to kill us. If we are going to be murdered, and we know who the murderers are...

There is a question about the nature of evil, I think. I concluded, years ago, that evil, true evil, is anti-life. This is not to disregard what goes on in nature (which can look horrific to us), but death is part and parcel of the web of life. Get used to it, you will not live forever and the matter that makes you, you, will be recycled. 

For evil to win, all that needs to happen is for good people to do nothing. 

The quote is not 100% accurate in its wording, but its the version I have in my head.

We live in a society that, according to Niall Ferguson, lives in the thrall of Negative Freedom. We can do what we want, just so long as we follow the playbook of neo-liberal capitalism. What we persue, in the developed world, is a form of banality. Most of us just don't care, or maybe believe we can't do anything despite what's going on. Hannah Arendt asked, can one do evil without being evil? 

https://aeon.co/ideas/what-did-hannah-arendt-really-mean-by-the-banality-of-evil

I think a large part of what is happening now has much in common with Arendt's work, but the context is humanity ranged against the rest of life on Earth. 

From an early episode of Futurama: A mad scientist switches on an infernal machine, and orders it to make him the most evil and despicable creature in the history of the universe. In a glass vat of glowing green light, a creature** materialises, and says: "Turns out it's Man". 

*The Age of Stupid - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Stupid
(Can be seen on YouTube but not for free. Can be watched on Amazon's Freevee app for free)

**If you're hard of thinking, that creature is obviously a human. And if you know the Futurama cartoon, you'll know their humans all look kinda goofy and dumpy. That's us, right there - the banal archetype. 

October 3rd, 2023