HUMAN INTELLIGENCE and ENVIRONMENT

WHAT POLITICAL process is needed to loosen the control of corporations that

profit from the status quo and resist regulation and change?

THATS a question that goes way beyond climate change. It also has to do with a whole range of very
serious problems which are not as lethal as the environmental crisis but are nevertheless serious, like, for
example, the financial crisis, which is not just financial, its an economic crisis. There are millions of
people unemployed. They may never get jobs back. The fact of the matter is, the U.S. is not all that
different from other industrial societies, but its somewhat different.

Europe, for example, developed out of a feudal system. In feudal systems everybody had a place, maybe
a lousy place, but you had some kind of place. And the society guaranteed you that place. The U.S.
developed as a kind of a blank slate. The indigenous population was exterminated, a small fact that we
dont like to think about. Immigrants came. The country had huge economic advantages. The government
massively supported the development of the society. Contrary to whats claimed, we have always had
substantial state intervention in the economy. And what developed was a business-run society, to an
unusual extent. That shows up in all kinds of ways, like the fact that were about the only industrial society,
maybe the only one, that doesnt have some kind of semi-rational health care system, and that benefits in
general are pretty weak as compared with other industrial societies. Labor is weak. Thats just a fact.
There have been all kinds of developments, protests, and so on. There have been changes, a lot of
progress, often regression. But it remains a society that is very much under the control of the
concentrated corporate sector. It happens to have increased substantially in the last years. Its getting
increased right before our eyes, so, for example, the Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court is
another very severe blow to democracy, and it should be understood as that.

So what do we do about it? Whats been done in the past? These are not laws of nature. The New Deal
made a dent, a significant dent, but it didnt come just because Roosevelt was a nice guy. It came
because after several years of very serious suffering, much worse than now, five or six years after the
Depression hit, there was very substantial organizing and activism. The CIO was formed, sit-down strikes
were taking place. Sit-down strikes are terrifying to management, because theyre one step before what
ought to be donethe workers just taking over the factory and kicking out the management. If you look
back at the business press at that time, they were really terrified by what they called the hazard facing
industrialists and the growing power of the masses and so on.
One consequence was that the New Deal measures were instituted, which had an effect. Im old enough
to remember. Most of my family was unemployed working class. And it had a big effect, as I mentioned, a
lasting effect. Out of it came the biggest growth period in American history, probably world history,
extended growth and egalitarian growth. Then it started getting whittled away, as all of this began to
recede. Its now changed very radically. The 1960s was another case where substantial popular activism
was the motive force that led to Johnsons reforms, which were not trivial. They didnt change the social
and economic system to the limited extent that the New Deal did, but they had a big effect then and in the
years that followed: civil rights, womens rights, gay rights, all kinds of things. Thats the only way to
change. If anybody has another idea, it would be nice to hear it, but its been kept a secret for a couple of
thousand years.

ARE WE further along in global warming than it is politically possible for scientists
to say?

IN THE sciences, youre always going to find some people out at the fringes, maybe with good arguments
but kind of at the fringes. But the overwhelming majority of scientists are pretty much agreed on the basic
facts: that its a serious phenomenon thats going to grow even more serious, and we have to do
something about it. There are divisions. The major division is between the basic international scientific
consensus and those who say it doesnt go far enough, its nowhere near dire enough. So, for example,
this study that I mentioned, which is one of the major critical studies, saying its much too optimistic, they
point out that theyre not taking account of factors that could make it very much worse. For example, they
didnt factor into the models the effect of melting of permafrost, which is beginning to happen. And its
pretty well understood that its going to release a huge amount of methane, which is much more harmful
to the environment than carbon dioxide is, and that could set off a major change for the worse. A lot of the
processes that are studied are called nonlinear, meaning a small change can lead to a huge effect. And
almost all the indicators are in the wrong direction. So I think the answer is that scientists cant say
anything in detail, but they can say pretty convincingly that its bad news.

HOW CAN philosophers advance environmental responsibility?

PRETTY MUCH the same way algebraic topologists can. If youre a philosopher, you dont stop being a
human being. These are human problems. Philosophers, like anybody elsealgebraic topologists,
carpenters, otherscan contribute to them. People like us are privileged. We have a lot of privilege. If
youre an academic, youre paid way too much, you have a lot of options, you can do research, you have a
kind of a platform. You can use it. Its pretty straightforward. There are no real philosophical issues that I
can see. There is an ethical issue, but its one that is so obvious you dont need any complicated
philosophy.

HOW CAN human beings and food production be reformed to promote ecological
stability? Is agriculture inherently destructive to our planet?
IF AGRICULTURE is inherently destructive, we might as well say good-bye to each other, because
whatever we eat, its coming from agriculture, whether its meat or anything else, milk, whatever it is.
There is no particular reason to believe that its inherently destructive. We do happen to have destructive
forms of agriculture: high-energy inputs, high fertilizer inputs. Things look cheap, but if you take in all the
costs that go into them, theyre not cheap. And if you count in environmental destruction, which is a cost,
then theyre not cheap at all. So are there other ways of developing agricultural systems which will be
basically sustainable? Its kind of like energy. Theres no known inherent reason why thats impossible.
There are plenty of proposals how it could be done. But, again, it involves dismantling a whole array of
economic, social, cultural, and other structures, which is not an easy matter. The same problems with
green technology.

I should say another word about the green technology issue, which is, again, basically ideological. If you
look at the literature on this, when people make the point, as they do, that the green technology is being
developed in China but not here, a standard reason thats given is, well, China is a totalitarian society, so
that government controls the mechanisms of production. It has what we call an industrial policy:
government intervenes in the market to determine whats produced and how its produced and to set the
conditions for it and to fix conditions of technology transfer. And they do that without consulting the public,
so therefore they can set the conditions which will make investors invest there and not here. Were
democratic and free and we dont do that kind of thing. We believe in markets and democracy.

Its all totally bogus. The United States has a very significant industrial policy and its highly undemocratic.
Its just that we dont call it that. So, for example, if you use a computer or you use the Internet or you fly in
an airplane or you buy something at Wal-Mart, which is based on trade, which is based on containers,
developed by the U.S. Navy, every step of the way youre benefiting from a massive form of industrial
policy, state-initiated programs. Its kind of like driving on the interstate highway system. State-initiated
programs where almost all the research and development and the procurement, which is a big factor in
subsidizing corporations, all of this was done for decades before anything could go on to the market.

Take, say, computers. The first computers were around 1952, but they were practically the size of this
room, with vacuum tubes blowing up and paper all over the place, I was at MIT when this was going on.
You couldnt do anything with them. It was all funded by the government, mostly by the Pentagon, in fact,
almost entirely by the Pentagon. Through the 1950s, it was possible to reduce the size and you could get
it to look like a big bunch of filing cabinets. Some of the lead engineers in Lincoln Labs, an MIT lab which
was one of the main centers for development, pulled out and formed the first private computer company,
DEC, which for a long time kind of was the main one. Meanwhile, IBM was in there learning how to shift
from punch cards to electronic computers on taxpayer funding, and they were able to produce a big
computer, the worlds fastest computer, in the early 1960s. But nobody could buy these computers. They
were way too expensive. So the government bought them, meaning you bought them. Procurement is one
of the major techniques of corporate subsidy. In fact, I think the first computer that actually went on the
market was probably around 1978. Thats about twenty-five years after they were developed. The Internet
is about the same. And then Bill Gates gets rich. But the basic work was done with government support
under Pentagon cover. The same with most of these thingsvirtually the entire IT revolution. The Internet
was in public hands for, I think, about thirty years before it was privatized.

So thats industrial policy. We dont call it that. Was it democratic? No more democratic than China.
People in the 1950s werent asked, Do you want your taxes to go to the development of computers so
maybe your grandson can have an iPod, or do you want your taxes to go into health, education, and
decent communities? Nobody was told that. What they were told was, The Russians are coming, so we
have to have a huge military budget. So therefore we have to put the money into this. And maybe your
grandchild will have an iPod. Its as undemocratic as the Chinese system is, and it goes way back. We
just dont give it that name. It doesnt have to be done undemocratically, but to do it democratically
requires cultural changes, understanding. On the computers, maybe it was the wrong decision. Maybe
they should have done other things, make a more decent life. Maybe it was the right decision. But on
things like green technology and sustainable energy, I dont think theres much question whats the right
decision, if you get people to understand it and accept it. And that has great barriers, like the kind I
mentioned.