The whole world, in our hands

There is something amiss about creating a political identity around a common enemy.  No matter who or what the enemy is, the problem is that a singular entity which represents or personifies "the problem" enables unrealistic expectations that some thing surmises our existential situation aptly.   If our challenges could be so aptly reduced to a singular point, which they cannot, this would lead some to a belief that there may be some absolute answer.  By focusing political attention on something simple and symbolic, we favor a salient over long-term political solutions. For example, consider the debate on global warming. 

A common threat to humanity would be significant climatic change. Presently fossil fuels have shaped the debate. The argument goes that if we invent clean, renewable energy the problem is solved.  First of all, the debate over global warming oversimplifies the problem because global warming does not necessarily cover other issues like the impact of the global population boom on the environment. Are fossil fuels really the problem? 

Another concern is the role of utopianism intruding into the science of this debate:  If we discover clean, renewable energy has technology saved us?  Technology cannot simply "mop up" facts that are consequences of our behavior.  Technology does not resolve our existential dance with chance. But we want to believe it can.  We want to believe it will.  This desire appears to be compelling enough that it is almost like a quasi-religion that does not recognize the possibility of contingent outcomes very well:  A "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it" philosophical perspective.

The question is how aptly or gracefully can our political culture adapt to growing complexity?  Growing complexity means more ambiguity about causes and effects.  For example, E-85 became a trendy political solution to answer the "carbon question."  This sparked speculation on corn futures, leading more and more farms to remove other produce from their crop rotation in favor of pesticide heavy corn farming.  It became a boom for the bread basket and big business in Washington.  Side-effects of this political solution were food shortages and a hunger crisis in the third word despite the fact there was really no shortage of food. 

The debate over ecological integrity and stability is over simplified if the trend is to single out culprits and villains.  This detracts us from examining our personal responsibility, and in the theater of politics encourages a ritual of scape goating.  There is also the possibility that environmental politics will be pigeon-holed in the mainstream and a more replete discussion of sustainability will become a missed opportunity: what about the ecology of waste or population?  The idea technology will save us is especially disappointing:  this omits the role of human behavior, creates unrealistic confidence and expectations in lieu of this, and facilitates a politics of salient solutions over long term ones.