they make possible and they enable

The marvels that we see — cars, planes, trains, phones, medicines, internet, etc., machines of all kinds — make possible a very difficult way of living.

So: there’s a paradigm . . . a social/institutional reality that’s hypertrophied and far-flung made possible by a complex and expensive infrastructure supported by the industrial state.

It works OK in affluent countries where it can be afforded. For most of those reading this it works OK, so we don’t question it. It doesn’t work so well in other places, yet it’s in the interest of the mega-corporations that make profits from the whole thing to put in place enough infrastructure in the Third World as to enable the extraction and commerce that they make money off of. That much infrastructure enables the local populations to thrive enough as to constitute a labor force. It also enables their populations to grow.

It’s a difficult way of living in many respects. It kind of sucks for most people but it’s really, really bad for the environment.

It’s not necessary. It seems necessary because of what we confront as our social/institutional reality. The way the latter is we could hardly live without our cars, phones, machines, medicines, etc. But a different paradigm of life would be better — simpler, more locally-oriented, happier, more stable, more peaceful, more sustainable.

The Deep Green ideology says let’s go in that direction.