Order Out of Chaos

When I see all the daily insanity in the news I'm reminded that we'd all be better off if we understood who we really are. We are an assembly of atoms that's 13.8 billion years in the making. We are the product of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and social and biological entropy.

I started this blog in 2004 to explore the constant pushback I was getting as an environmental activist. I first began my writings and thinking in 1997 when I began participating in various online discussions groups. It only took me a year to realize the integral connection between environmental sustainability and social sustainability, so I began writing on that topic as well.

To sum up my blogging for the last three years I will say that at the moment of the Big Bang atoms began to interact with one another to create more complex matter, following the laws of physics, which, in turn, is defined by the properties of matter. The Universe has limitless time and sooner or later it was a given that atoms would arrange themselves into a high-functioning mammal. So, here we are.

While entropy is chaos, evolution is all about forming order out of the chaos. Social evolution is all about creating equity and harmony and enjoying the benefits of our technological evolution. Evolution and entropy, or disorder, can exist side-by-side because the Earth is not an isolated or closed system. Our evolution on Earth is completely powered by the heat of our Sun, which continually releases energy and becomes more disordered. We live and progress as the Sun dies.

There is no god, no reincarnation, no afterlife, and no nothing. All these ideas are the result of a human brain that got too large and had too much time to think. Nature does not care what we believe and our beliefs and ancient superstitions won't change reality one bit. As a child sitting in church on a Sunday morning, I often wondered how God could hear the prayers coming from thousands of churches all at once. So, to summarize my earlier blog posts, nothing can happen without technology, and technology cannot break the laws of physics. So, to attribute some fantastic feat to a god there must be technology, or else it's magic. And as I learned from watching many magic shows that magic is all about distraction, illusions, and tricks.

When my beloved cat Sassy was dying of feline leukemia she was purring on her last day of life. It gave me the false hope that she was getting better. I later learned that cats purr to comfort themselves in difficult times. Right now I see my entire country purring. We purr through delusions and believing things that comfort us, even though we suspect they are lies.

I cannot begin to comment on this horrible national disaster called Donald Trump. All I can say is that social evolution requires order, which, in turn requires civility and mutual respect. The current American politics are now all about entropy, chaos, and disorder. I can only hope that the madness we are now seeing will move us to a higher social order. If anything, Donald Trump is doing good by allowing the evil and vileness in the Republican Party to come out into the open. Maybe soon the conservative masses will learn that the GOP is all about short-term revenue extraction for the wealthy. Maybe the American middle class will learn that corporate greed and graft are a greater danger than the brown people coming over the border.

As for my own life I am getting old. When my end comes I simply want my ashes to be thrown away. I don't want any marker to show that I was part of a species that so wantonly and brutally destroyed the very environment that sustains them. As for our species' love for self-destruction, I wouldn't care less. But every day I grieve for the innocent wildlife that suffers because of us. As an enlightened and intelligent species we should be the caretakers of this planet, but instead we are the complete opposite.

Humans are a pathetic species that doesn't understand the consequences of its rapid population growth or continual drive to own more and nicer stuff. We are sick. But, again, I hope that order will one day come from our excesses. While few and far between every day I see beautiful people pushing the way forward for social and environmental sustainability and equilibrium. 

I've now been blogging for 15 years and I vowed that if I ever lost hope I would stop blogging. After all, there's no point in just spreading negative energy. I want to define a reason to live and I want to try to make the world a little better while I'm here, even if that just means putting a smile on someone's face.

When I see middle-aged conservative white men attacking Greta Thunberg or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez I am blind with anger. But then I am reminded that these pitiful males are just trying to preserve the status quo, even if it means blatant hypocrisy and self-destruction, I am reminded that conservatism is all about preserving the Old Order, while entropy provides the uncertainty and chaos to allow a new and better order to form. Greta and Alexandria are bold and courageous women who are standing up and saying things that need to be said. They are my greatest heroes.

If you think that global climate change is a myth or conspiracy, I would not care less what you think and neither does nature. When I left Christianity 22 years ago I found a new religion called Reality. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of all the other hundreds of mythical religions, but there is a certain beauty to accepting things the way they really are. Excuse me if I don't wear a red MAGA hat and repeat lies about how great the U.S. economy is. I am just trying to survive and I do a little volunteer work where I can to help nature and animals. To me, that's the meaning of life. To engage in wealth accumulation or phony spiritualism is only a diversion, distraction, and a part of a greater delusion.

I encourage everyone to throw partisanship out the window, listen to other viewpoints, and educate yourself objectively. If your only source of information is Facebook memes,  then you will only be fed lies or manipulated facts. Take the time to educate yourself through multiple sources. I'm finding that real truth is completely elusive. Tomatoes used to be considered poisonous and coffee was once considered bad, and now we know that what we were fed as TRUTH was unTRUTH. So, while there may be no solid truth in the Universe, I at least try to form my thoughts by the "preponderance of the evidence," which works well in a court of law and is the best way I know for finding my reality in a world of distortions.

Source: LibreTexts

Photo: George Gvasalia

Birth, Death & Species Survival

Chemical reactions occur naturally in the Universe and when conditions are right a reaction can fit the definition of what scientists consider life. There is a blurry line between chemistry and biology, and you and I are actually a fantastically complex chemical reaction.

In the eighth grade my science teacher taught us the definition of life, which includes eating, growth, reproduction, and a few other things. But interacting chemicals do all these things on a more primitive level. Defining life is arbitrary.

For the longest time scientists were stymied by how DNA and RNA could occur naturally in the Universe. But research shows that nucleic acids, amino acids, and lipids can do the trick through simple reactions. Based on various studies it appears that the building blocks of life developed in space and were carried to Earth on meteorites. One study suggests that cyanide and carbon dioxide both played a role in creating enzymes, which provided food for early bacteria.

Given the right combination of chemicals and various conditions, molecules organize into cells and self-replicate. The simple reactions grow in complexity and eventually the modern cell is formed. Cells multiply and join together to create increasingly complex lifeforms that are more efficient at eating and self-defense. Fast forward a few billion years and you have the human being. The name of the game is to stay alive until reproducing, and in more complex species the parent must live long enough to get its young to reproduction age. There must also be an evolutionary role for old people like me. Perhaps in the days of early clans and villages we old folks provided wisdom about agriculture and warfare, which gave one group an edge over the groups that killed their elderly members.

No End

The jump between primordial goop and modern humans is a continuum. Perhaps electricity and spontaneous development played a role, and spontaneity comes natural in the Universe. There really wasn't a need for some Israelite god to create all this stuff because the chemicals already existed in the Universe, thanks to red giants and supernovas, which turned hydrogen into more complex elements, plus the help of gravity and electricity.

So, just as there is no leap from the inorganic to the organic, we as humans only die by a textbook definition, but we really live on for billions of years. Our cells may putter out after 70 or 80 years, but the chemical reactions continue. Our bodies are made up of 37.2 trillion cells making us one of the more complex critters in the Universe, and when they wear out they decompose and become food for other lifeforms. Eventually, part of you may end as a worm, which is eaten by a bird, which is shot and eaten by a hunter. So, cheer up — life is an abstract concept invented by scientists. You never really die.

Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins appear to have dealt religion its most mortal blows and some Christians hate these guys more than Anton LaVey, founder of the Satanic Church. But science has come a long way since Dawkins wrote The God Delusion in 2006, and some discoveries have either reinforced Dawkin's positions or have shown that they aren't necessary. Evidence points more and more to the fact that life occurs naturally in the Universe and I believe it will be very soon before Dr. Jack Szostak and other famous researchers create life in a laboratory using the same building blocks that create you and me.

Why Bring This Up?

It's time for us to throw our nationalities, religions, ethnicity, and political persuasions out the window and look at ourselves as a species. If necessary we could create the International Council of the Human Species. We need to get together as a group and ask ourselves two questions:

• Do we want to save planet Earth?
• Do we want to save ourselves?

These questions may seem like no-brainers, but, believe me, people will split hairs and debate these questions all day. We will have to hear all about supernatural deities and technology saving everything, when, in reality, that will never happen. People will argue endlessly about whether or not we are even in danger.

The Future

Eventually our DNA will wear out, the sun will supernova, and/or the Earth's atmosphere will change too much to support us. It amazes me when people argue about climate change with comments ranging from "it's bullshit" to "it's a natural warming trend." The fact is that for 500 years we've been putting a ton of carbon into the sky, which is accumulating in the upper atmosphere, and creating a greenhouse effect, and trapping heat in. Eventually, all the snow will melt and there will be no more skiing. Sea levels will rise, submerge land, and there will be even less room for our exploding population. The little parasites and bacteria love the warmer temperatures and our are fiercest competitors, and those little bastards that we can't even see will outcompete us for resources. If we can even grow crops at all the parasites will eat them faster than we can kill them.

I'm tired of people saying "don't be negative," as this is a denial technique. I'm not going to blog about fashion or cooking when our world is collapsing. I am going to keep writing and saying what's on my heart and if I hurt anyone's feelings, well, golly, I am sorry.

So, getting back to the point, we as humans don't compete well in the natural world but we evolved a big brain so that we could save ourselves from predators by using our wits. If a tiger jumps in front of our jungle path we know how to respond, but we seem incapable of responding to more gradual threats like global warming. Half the people in the U.S. appear to have hardwired brains and are stuck in a rigid belief system where their religious and political system is firm and unchangeable. This type of brain structure may have worked well in earlier hierarchal feudal societies, but in today's time this type of static, delusional thinking will only speed our doom.

Maybe we will find a way out of the current climate crises and all the other social and environmental challenges that face us. Or maybe it's time for our species to provide the organic matter for some other species. At this point I'm not sure.

Sources:
Researchers May Have Solved Origin-of-Life Conundrem, by Robert F. Service
The Origin of Life - Abiogenesis, Dr. Jack Szostak, Harvard Medical School
Compounds Discovered in Meteorites May Hold Clues to the Origin of Life, by Bill Steigerwald and Nancy Jones
Human Civilization Will Crumble by 2050 If We Don't Stop Cimate Change Now Brandon Specktor

Photo: Ian Dooley

Father Bolsonaro Joins Father Trump

The war on the environment got a huge boost last week with the swearing in of Brazil's new president, Jair Bolsonaro. When not bashing gays and indigenous people, Bolsonaro talks about his plans for lifting protections in the Amazon Rainforest. 

As I write this it's an early Sunday morning in January. I hear the birds chirping outside. I know that most Americans today will either be in church listening to lectures on tithing or at home, chugging beer and watching the NFL wildcard playoffs. Far away in the Middle East American drones are humming around, spreading the word of Jesus with their Sidewinder missiles. Back here at home, Jerry Falwell Jr. is rubbing Trump's head with anointing oil, and everything seems pretty normal. So, why am I sitting here, so upset about an ultra-right politician wanting to destroy the rainforest?

Climate Change Galore

I'm upset because the rainforest is our planet's lungs. With all the global warming going on we need the rainforest more than ever. 

Catch-22

Most Americans are so undereducated that they probably have never heard of Catch-22, but I read the book and saw the movie with my dad. It's a freakin' weird book. So, gather around my young friends, take off your red hats, and sit and listen. You see, the underlying cause of most of our environmental and social problems is the exploding world population. But no one likes to talk about it because natalism is so deeply embedded in our humanity. For too many centuries it was all we could do to get a baby through his or her first year of life, and now we're being told there's too many people? When you talk about overpopulation the political Left screams "genocide" and that whites are tying to wipe out people of color. The Right shouts "pro-life" and says that God knows how many people the Earth can hold. Most of the big U.S. environmental organizations have either ended or watered down their population programs. God forbid, in this era of political correctness, if anyone's feelings get hurt.

And to make matter's worse, the exploding world population has a growing taste for beef, which is a nasty and resource-intensive industry. Just the agriculture that is needed to feed the world's cattle is enormous, and farmers are pushing deeper into wilderness areas to plant more crops. This, I believe, is the real threat to the rainforest. Plus, you have to add all the methane that the cattle industry produces, the pasture lands required, and dealing with the waste as reasons why the industry is horrible. All of us could do a great service to the environment by greatly reducing red meat intake to zero or once a week.

So, getting back to the Catch-22, which is a paradox that no one can escape. See, the human population is exploding and so is the demand for meat and crops. All the human activity is releasing massive tons of carbon into the atmosphere, which is disrupting our climate. Forests can absorb some of the carbon, but we are destroying them for more farms and pastures. In the mean time, the millions of new people are desperate for jobs so the economic growth engine is favored over environmental protection.

Ultra-Right Conservatism

The election of Bolsonaro in Brazil is the final straw for me. I'm done with conservatism. While the conservative ideals of family, God, and country appear admirable, the reality is that conservatism is poisoned by human greed. And despite its support by evangelical Christians, modern conservatism is the exact opposite of the example and teachings of Jesus. 

I don't know why the world is shifting towards these right-wing extremist leaders, but I'm guessing it's a desire for order. Russia and Turkey are led by right-wing regimes that are near dictatorships, and we are now seeing the same trend in the Americas. Again, there is a Catch-22 because the chaos created by environmental ruin and massive human growth makes the masses elect leaders who promise order, old values, and stability. But their policies only exacerbate the world's problems and create more chaos.

I've always said that the swing to the Right is a response to the excesses of the Left, so I'd like to send a message to the Left: the next time you get in power, cool it, and try a little moderation. We can still muddle through our problems, but we need to somehow all do it together.

The Lesson of My Rambling Rant

The moral of my story today is to eat less meat, have smaller families, send money to rainforest protection groups, and get involved politically. Again, be careful when your side wins because these extreme political shifts are counterproductive in the long run. Let's save our Planet, and let's somehow do it by listening to the other side and not giving allegiance to any ideology.

photo credit: qinghill