211
At the same time, a 16-year-old, Greta Thunberg, stood before a meeting of the
Davos Economic Forum and told everyone they must “panic…the house is on fire.”
The audience stood and applauded
15
. To cheer when informed that the house is on
fire is something new, if not a little insane. And in New Zealand, the bird with the
least privacy and most intensively manhandled existence on the planet, the Kakapo
(Strigops habroptila)
16
, in one breeding season went from a population under 150 to
over 200 due to the climate change-related strength of the indigenous rimu tree
fruiting mast, the Kakapo’s favorite food
17
. The numbers would soon sink to below
150, however. Elsewhere, Japanese farmers have collectively brought back over 160
White Oriental Storks (Ciconia boyciana) to their country (out of a global population of approximately 2500 individuals). Fluctuations send a clear signal that human
cultures suffer their own internal eco-dynamics, in sync with those they inflict.
These challenges to our ethical sense of stability are not without precedent,
regionally. Germany in World War II made that clear. But at the global scale, the
local resident, the citizen, has suddenly become the tourist, the nomad, the wayfarer,
the invading marauder. Mathematically, attempts to remind locals of the planetary
nature of human cumulative destruction fail to leave much of an impression, like
oblique asymptotes with no resolution at an ideal point of convergence. In other
words, two story lines that are forever incapable of merging into one. This asymptotic paradox is as tactile in the number of random and nonrandom points on a curve
intersecting a line as it is psychological: there are no rational proxies for grasping
self-destruction at the level of the entire biosphere, no matter how many actual
points, sequences, and events of destruction we recognize. And like the Sorites
Paradox, we have all but lost the capacity for extrapolating from the one to
the many
18
.
15 See “The Year of the Vegan,” by John Parker, The Economist, “The World in 2019,” https://
worldin2019.economist.com/theyearofthevegan, Accessed April 17, 2019; See also, “The Coming
Obsolescence of Animal Meat -Companies are racing to develop real chicken, fish, and beef that
don’t require killing animals. Here’s what’s standing in their way,” by Alga Khazan, The Atlantic,
April 16, 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/04/just-finless-foods-lab-grownmeat/587227/, Accessed April 17, 2019.
16 See “I want you to panic,’ Swedish teen raises climate alarm at Davos,” by Nina Larson, The
Local, Sweden News in English, January 26, 2019, https://www.thelocal.se/20190126/i-want-you-topanic-swedish-teen-raises-climate-alarm-at-davos, Accessed April 17, 2019.
17 https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22685245/129751169, Accessed April 17, 2019; See also,
the New Zealand section of “Hotspots,” www.hotspots-thefilm.com.
18 See “Rare kakapo parrots have best breeding season on record,” BBC News, April 17, 2019,
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-47960764, April 17, 2019.
22.2 The Philosophy and Computational Ecology of a Single Road
At the same time, a 16-year-old, Greta Thunberg, stood before a meeting of the
Davos Economic Forum and told everyone they must “panic…the house is on fire.”
The audience stood and applauded
15
. To cheer when informed that the house is on
fire is something new, if not a little insane. And in New Zealand, the bird with the
least privacy and most intensively manhandled existence on the planet, the Kakapo
(Strigops habroptila)
16
, in one breeding season went from a population under 150 to
over 200 due to the climate change-related strength of the indigenous rimu tree
fruiting mast, the Kakapo’s favorite food
17
. The numbers would soon sink to below
150, however. Elsewhere, Japanese farmers have collectively brought back over 160
White Oriental Storks (Ciconia boyciana) to their country (out of a global population of approximately 2500 individuals). Fluctuations send a clear signal that human
cultures suffer their own internal eco-dynamics, in sync with those they inflict.
These challenges to our ethical sense of stability are not without precedent,
regionally. Germany in World War II made that clear. But at the global scale, the
local resident, the citizen, has suddenly become the tourist, the nomad, the wayfarer,
the invading marauder. Mathematically, attempts to remind locals of the planetary
nature of human cumulative destruction fail to leave much of an impression, like
oblique asymptotes with no resolution at an ideal point of convergence. In other
words, two story lines that are forever incapable of merging into one. This asymptotic paradox is as tactile in the number of random and nonrandom points on a curve
intersecting a line as it is psychological: there are no rational proxies for grasping
self-destruction at the level of the entire biosphere, no matter how many actual
points, sequences, and events of destruction we recognize. And like the Sorites
Paradox, we have all but lost the capacity for extrapolating from the one to
the many
18
.
15 See “The Year of the Vegan,” by John Parker, The Economist, “The World in 2019,” https://
worldin2019.economist.com/theyearofthevegan, Accessed April 17, 2019; See also, “The Coming
Obsolescence of Animal Meat -Companies are racing to develop real chicken, fish, and beef that
don’t require killing animals. Here’s what’s standing in their way,” by Alga Khazan, The Atlantic,
April 16, 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/04/just-finless-foods-lab-grownmeat/587227/, Accessed April 17, 2019.
16 See “I want you to panic,’ Swedish teen raises climate alarm at Davos,” by Nina Larson, The
Local, Sweden News in English, January 26, 2019, https://www.thelocal.se/20190126/i-want-you-topanic-swedish-teen-raises-climate-alarm-at-davos, Accessed April 17, 2019.
17 https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22685245/129751169, Accessed April 17, 2019; See also,
the New Zealand section of “Hotspots,” www.hotspots-thefilm.com.
18 See “Rare kakapo parrots have best breeding season on record,” BBC News, April 17, 2019,
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-47960764, April 17, 2019.
22.2 The Philosophy and Computational Ecology of a Single Road