Time for a Reality Check?

 

A turkey vulture flying over Yatesville Lake in Kentucky

Recently, I have come across multiple studies and articles pointing to the ever-increasing number of "faster than expected" and "more than previously thought" issues that continue creeping upward as time moves forward. Now, we know this factually is the case stemming from the innovation breeding innovation that was pointed out in Peter Russell's new book that I reviewed here. But knowing something factually or intellectually and accepting it emotionally are two different things. Exponential change is something that appears to be catching many people off-guard, even those of us who know what the facts are and have accepted those facts intellectually. I'm still somewhat surprised that after almost three years since I unveiled this site, I still see such a lack of acceptance of the facts in an intellectual sense in the general public - I expect the lack of emotional acceptance, but thought by now more people (especially those who know what overshoot is) would have a more realistic outlook than some of the hilariously optimistic ideas I see bandied about.

I've been exceedingly busy this past summer and welcome an upcoming short vacation (for those wondering why I have only written one article in September combined with only one article in July). A 3-year project is finally coming to a close, and I will be taking a much needed break this month. Then I can get started on new projects which have been waiting for me to get working on them!

Anyway, I have spent a considerable amount of time over the past several years pointing out inconvenient truths to those who are busy bargaining to maintain civilization. Some of those people even think a "new" civilization is about to be born. They don't like my bringing the facts to them, as anyone in denial of reality can identify with. Perhaps it is my way of being "too" honest. I just see no purpose in attempting to sugar-coat things. Why water things down? It won't make things any better just because I throw in hopium or toxic optimism. I think that all that actually accomplishes is muddying up the water and confusing those who don't know any better (much of society today, unfortunately). Frankly, I'd rather be too honest than not honest enough. 

I did my duty in spreading a bit of hopium in my article about Dave Gardner...so now, let's get down to business with reality. A new article about the Maximum Power Principle brings a bit of this reality to the forefront. A new study about climate change and the role of the oceans and the surface microlayer (SML) and toxic pollutants point to an extremely serious implication that is concomitantly causing reduced fertility in most animal and insect species globally, as pointed out in the article by Richard Heinberg below.

Recently, I came across this meme, and I simply could not resist pointing out the reality that focusing on climate change or really ANY symptom predicament ignores the root predicament of ecological overshoot: 

My response was rather stark, quote: 

"I hate to say it, but the focus on climate change or degrowth won't stop the rains from washing pollutants out of the atmosphere nor wildfires and industry from putting those pollutants into the atmosphere in the first place. Permafrost thaw, glaciers melting, wildfires burning, rivers and streams flowing, and lakes and oceans evaporating will continue this sequence of air, water, and soil poisoning day and night for centuries to come just from the pollutants we've ALREADY released. Degrowth won't solve this, nor will emissions reductions, nor will geoengineering. It is a predicament with an outcome, not a problem with a solution and climate change is only one symptom predicament among a myriad of them. Pollution loading, another symptom predicament, is what I'm talking about (see this article by Richard Heinberg mentioned above) and it will take the ability to reproduce away from those kids, along with millions of other species."

In other words, there is rather little that anyone can actually do now to safeguard anyone's future. While I wrote an article about pollution loading a year and a half ago highlighting the pernicious and intractable qualities of this symptom predicament, that article by Richard Heinberg points out the sad reality, quote:

"A more recent paper by Levine et al., published in November 2022, confirmed these conclusions and expanded them to include Africa and South America. Among men from all continents, the authors concluded, “the mean [sperm count] declined by 51.6% between 1973 and 2018.” The study also found that the decline rate, currently about 2 percent per year, is increasing. The trend, if extrapolated, would result in near-universal male sterility by about 2060."

Near-universal male sterility...let that sink in for a moment. Sure, I have little doubt that billionaires or other financially well-off folks will have access to some sort of technological "fix" but with this phenomenon affecting all animal and insect species, even if some sort of solution exists to overcome the issue of reproduction (IVF perhaps? [or Google "Ectolife"), this still doesn't provide habitat for people. 

Now, to throw some gas on that fire, here is an article that highlights exactly where we are in this mass extinction. We are wiping out not just individual species here and there, we are wiping out entire genera, quote:

"Up to now, public and scientific interest has focused on extinctions of species. But in their new study, Gerardo Ceballos, senior researcher at the Institute of Ecology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and Paul Ehrlich, Bing Professor of Population Studies, Emeritus, in the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences, have found that entire genera (the plural of “genus”) are vanishing as well, in what they call a “mutilation of the tree of life."

The bottom line with regard to all this is that there is no fix, no solution, no mitigation that will allow civilization as we know it to continue. Period. To believe that there is remains nothing more than fantasy - magical thinking at its best. There also tends to be a considerable amount of romanticizing of past times, much of which is based on pure myths. When I bring these facts to light, I am consistently told that "nobody knows exactly how everything will turn out." While this may be true in a literal sense in terms of the word "exactly", what is the trajectory? Is there any evidence anywhere that we are suddenly going to change our behavior? In other words, while we may not be able to precisely predict what will happen and when, we still have a general idea of the outcomes and when those may happen. But even if we did change our behavior (which is actually inevitable as it will be forced upon us), there is this nasty little predicament called civilizational inertia, very similar to oceanic thermal inertia, in which both lead to what is known as the "lag effect" wherein there is a rather serious time delay for any potentially positive observable effects to actually take place (see this study by Tim Garrett and Climate Inertia). 

We actually lack agency in much of all of this collectively, which makes it easier to focus on your own individual efforts to pursue that which provides meaning and fulfillment to you. Live Now!