In case anyone missed it, Whisky Prajer sent me this link the other day to save me from my depression in a previous post.
Things seem pretty dire, it's true. And it doesn't help if you are at all tapped into social media (and who among us is not?). But I appreciated an hour with this guy's POV -- he doesn't stint on the outrage, but also doesn't seem particularly discouraged by any of it either. And his Churchill quote was spot-on.
I've listened to the whole thing, and I can confirm it's worth checking out. I'm not sure I agree with everything, but I did find it very entertaining and informative.
Actually for the full experience, watch his lecture first, and then listen to the radio interview as a follow-up.
Mark Blyth - Global Trumpism and the Future of the Global Economy
There's a lot in here, but among other things, there's also a glimmer of hope on climate change. He believes that long term, systems will always end up doing what is in their best economic interests. And addressing climate change is in our best economic interests, so sooner or later, we'll do the right thing. "We'll get through this. It's what we need."
...I sure hope so. It's comforting to see he's so confident about it.
Although, he is also saying that we're going to have to hit a few disasters before people wake up. (He's predicting that losing Miami is what is going to change public opinion.) So even under his optimistic view, it won't be an entirely painless transition.
And, if you listen closely to him, he is still leaving open the option that we might all die from climate change. But he doesn't seem to be overly concerned about it. "Either this works, or we all die, so there's nothing to be concerned about." (I'm paraphrasing, but only slightly.)
At any rate, a very informative and entertaining couple of hours. Recommend you give it a listen. (Put it on in the background while you're puttering around the apartment in the morning.)
2 comments:
Glad you dug it, Joel -- and thanks for posting the full lecture. One of the elements that bothered me about the CBC profile was their censoring of his cussin'. What he said still managed to be colourful, but it's so much better with a little Scottish blue.
Agreed. In addition to the language issue, one of the things that bugged me about that interview is I felt like I was just getting into the lecture, they would cut out and go back to the interview. I got much more out of it by just listening to the whole lecture first, and then the radio interview second.
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