background preloader

Chomsky on the future of humanity

Facebook Twitter

Écologie, éthique et anarchie (entretien avec Noam Chomsky) – Le Partage. Traduction d’une interview publiée sur le site de TruthOut le 3 avril 2014.

Écologie, éthique et anarchie (entretien avec Noam Chomsky) – Le Partage

On ne peut mettre en doute ni la gravité ni le rôle central joué par la crise environnementale actuelle. Propulsée par les impératifs absurdes de la croissance à tout prix inhérente au capitalisme, la destruction de la biosphère par l’humanité a atteint, voire dépassé plusieurs seuils critiques, que ce soit en termes d’émissions de carbones, de perte de biodiversité, d’acidification des océans, d’épuisement des ressources en eau ou de pollution chimique. On a pu voir des catastrophes météorologiques s’abattre sur le globe, depuis les Philippines dévastées par le Typhon Haiyan en novembre 2013, jusqu’à la Californie qui souffre en ce moment de la pire sécheresse qu’on ait jamais connue depuis des siècles.

Javier SETHNESS pour TRUTHOUT : Professeur Chomsky, merci infiniment de prendre le temps de débattre avec moi des thèmes de l’écologie et de l’anarchisme. Et aussi, cet excellent discours: The End of History? The short, strange era of human civilization would appear to be drawing to a close.

The End of History?

The likely end of the era of civilization is foreshadowed in a new draft report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the generally conservative monitor of what is happening to the physical world. Can Civilization Survive "Really Existing Capitalism"? An Interview With Noam Chomsky. Noam Chomsky (Photo: Haymarket Books)More than four decades of Noam Chomsky's writings are available in a new anthology from Haymarket Books.

Can Civilization Survive "Really Existing Capitalism"? An Interview With Noam Chomsky

Get this collection from the master of opposing the hubris of US empire. Click here now. For decades now, Noam Chomsky has been widely regarded as the most important intellectual alive (linguist, philosopher, social and political critic) and the leading US dissident since the Vietnam War. Noam Chomsky on human extinction: The corporate elite are actively courting disaster. By Travis GettysWednesday, June 18, 2014 14:08 EDT Climate change poses an imminent threat to human life, said political philosopher Noam Chomsky – and humans are drawing their own doom ever closer.

Noam Chomsky on human extinction: The corporate elite are actively courting disaster

“This is the first time in human history that we have the capacity to destroy the conditions for decent survival, (and) it is already happening,” Chomsky told journalist Chris Hedges, writing for Truthdig. Hedges was accused last week by the New Republic of plagiarizing some of his work in Harper’s Magazine and other publications.

Chomsky said species destruction had reached the same level as 65 million years ago – when an asteroid hit the earth, ending the period of dinosaurs and wiping up many other species. “It is the same level today, and we are the asteroid,” he said. “Who is accelerating it?” “Mayr argued that the adaptive value of what is called ‘higher intelligence’ is very low,” Chomsky said. As Hiroshima Day dawns, why are we still tempting nuclear fate? If some extraterrestrial species were compiling a history of homo sapiens, they might well break their calendar into two eras: BNW (before nuclear weapons) and NWE (the nuclear weapons era).

As Hiroshima Day dawns, why are we still tempting nuclear fate?

The latter era, of course, opened on 6 August 1945, the first day of the countdown to what may be the inglorious end of this strange species, which attained the intelligence to discover the effective means to destroy itself, but – so the evidence suggests – not the moral and intellectual capacity to control its worst instincts. Day one of the NWE was marked by the “success” of Little Boy, a simple atomic bomb. On day four, Nagasaki experienced the technological triumph of Fat Man, a more sophisticated design. Five days later came what the official Air Force history calls the “grand finale,” a 1,000-plane raid – no mean logistical achievement – attacking Japan’s cities and killing many thousands of people, with leaflets falling among the bombs reading “Japan has surrendered”.

Noam Chomsky (2014) "Surviving the 21st Century" [FULL SPEECH] Noam Chomsky (2014) "The Future of Humanity" Noam Chomsky & Howard Zinn "Is There Hope in This Desperate Time?" Institutions vs. People: Will the Species Self-Destruct? - 04/10/2001.