What Are The Most Popular Forms of Hopium?

 

Artwork by Ken Avidor

Recently, I asked a question to get some new insights on ideas about reducing ecological overshoot that are widely known to be what we call hopium. I was looking for something new that I hadn't heard of before but nothing new (to me) was brought to the forefront. I have mentioned electrification and associated offshoots (non-renewable "renewable" energy, EVs, batteries, supercapacitors, hydrogen, and nuclear [fission and fusion] energy - all items based on the imaginary "energy transition") many times before, so I won't bother going into those, seeing how I've pointed out how the entire electrical grid is unsustainable. I have gone into a detailed explanation of why hydrogen will never amount to much.  

Explaining why energy efficiency is dead in the water as a way to deal with overshoot and collapse has also been important to me. Many people claim that increasing energy efficiency and building sustainable technology is part of the plan to reduce overshoot. This is a logical fallacy, being that technology use is CAUSING ecological overshoot in the first place. Building more of it won't reduce overshoot, no matter how efficient it is. It's important to realize that if overshoot isn't reduced, all of its symptom predicaments cannot be reduced either. 

I have published various articles containing material regarding artificial intelligence (AI), why it really isn't "intelligent," and how much energy it requires. But before going any further into why AI won't save us, let's recap the key point of the last paragraph: building more technology and/or technological devices will not reduce overshoot.

A very common idea now heard around the world is "net zero emissions." The situation here is that carbon emissions are being blamed for climate change, so the idea is based upon reducing emissions and capturing carbon already in the atmosphere or preventing it from being released in the first place. The trouble comes in to focus when one realizes that ecological overshoot is the predicament causing both climate change and emissions, which signifies that until and unless overshoot is reduced, neither climate change nor emissions will be reduced. Once again, technology use in the form of different versions of the above "energy transition" combined with some form of carbon capture figure into the plans, none of which will actually help because of what I have already outlined in the above three paragraphs.

Many different ideas discuss reversing or stopping climate change (or overshoot in more advanced discussions). Recapping what we already know from all of the above, none of those ideas will reverse or stop overshoot, so they will likewise not reverse or stop climate change. Symptom predicaments of overshoot like climate change are intimately connected to overshoot and cannot be reduced separately, period. Also, the idea of reversing or stopping any symptom predicament of overshoot can be safely ruled out until overshoot is reversed and stopped. Our behavior of using technology is what is causing overshoot, so any claims of using technology to reduce, reverse, or stop overshoot can also be safely ruled out, regardless of whether the ideas were facilitated by AI, robots, and/or other technological devices. 

One idea I see repeated over and over again is that of developing a new "sustainable" civilization or some variation thereof (see this article for two more versions). This is an oxymoron. No such thing exists now or ever will. Civilization is irredeemable and has been unsustainable since the beginning, resting upon the foundation of technology use; especially that of agriculture. Harvesting surplus energy is at the root of what allowed us to begin multiplying and overshooting carrying capacity of the land surrounding us. Technology use necessarily reduces and/or removes negative feedbacks which once kept our numbers in check (in balance with the rest of nature). Because of this simple fact, technology use actually causes population growth (which then causes more technology use) and the two of them together act as a self-reinforcing positive feedback loop causing overshoot which in turn causes all the symptom predicaments. So, the idea of developing a new civilization starts with a flawed idea at the very start. All these labels ("clean," "green," "renewable," and "sustainable," etc.) are really nothing more than narratives developed to try to sell people on the ideas behind using more technology to tackle the issues technology use has caused. There are literally hundreds of intentional communities, ecovillages, Transition Towns, 15-minute cities, and the like around the globe. These places do have various features that attempt to imitate sustainable living, but none of them actually are truly sustainable. Additional articles regarding various examples of these types of "sustainable" towns can be found here and here and here and here and here. Unfortunately, ALL of them are based upon technology use, meaning that eventually, they all lead to the exact same self-reinforcing positive feedback loop (civilization) that has brought us to this point in time in the first place. To be sure, there are FAR better examples of sustainable living. Of course, most people living within industrial civilization today cannot fathom living like the Yanomami. The trouble with all forms of so-called "sustainable" towns is that they function within the confines of industrial civilization and suffer all the same ills caused by overshoot and its symptom predicaments as those outside of these towns suffer (climate change, pollution loading, etc.).

Last but not least, what about human ingenuity? The myth of human supremacy and/or human progress is alive and well with some folks, unfortunately. If one takes all the different ideas above and looks at them collectively, a particular theme sticks out like a sore thumb. That theme is what developed into the "Fantasies, Myths, and Fairy Tales" articles (Part One, Part Two, and Part Three). This shows definitively just how powerful human denial of reality and optimism bias truly are, where our beliefs actually trump reality (at least in our minds).

Tom Murphy came out with a new article the other day which really explains things extremely well. It more or less outlines the wetiko thinking which is at the heart of all of these ideas to begin with. So many false beliefs, so little time to work them all out as being false. Do you ever wonder how people will think once they discover the aspects that we (those of us who read this type of material and understand the implications) know to be true? This article points out this reality and examines the ressentiment that follows.

Way too many people do not comprehend (including scientists) the rate of change that is occurring combined with the fact that this is exponential change, not linear change. Many people likewise don't appear to realize that we will be unable to adapt to these changes due to these rates of changes for which there is no real measuring stick due to the fact that our rate of release of GHGs has practically no precedent in the entire geologic history of the planet. Going back to previous mass extinctions, we can see just how vulnerable we are to the changes which are occurring now due mainly to how vulnerable all the species we depend upon are to these changes. By the way, make certain to check out the last 3 sections of the video linked in the previous sentence (starting at the 40 minute mark). 

Many people seem to have this idea that we can use the ideas above to create some sort of "new sustainable civilization" without realizing that no such thing is actually possible. Ecological collapse (explained in the previous paragraph) is occurring now, meaning that the predicaments we face preclude the possibility that these ideas can be utilized long term. They are ideas that can be utilized today but will lack the resources, the surplus energy, and the resilience necessary to maintain communities in the future. For instance, if you decided to move to the boreal forest in Canada to escape the heat further south in North America, what happens after industrial civilization collapses and a drought wipes out your harvest for the year? Worse even, what happens if a wildfire develops and wipes out your entire community? What happens if a disease wipes out a major portion of your food supply? What if a flood wipes out your harvest instead? Most people point to today's capabilities and forget that most of these will no longer be available (or only partially available) after the collapse of industrial civilization. Many people tend to think that moving further north will help escape some of the tragedies befalling folks further south, and while this might be partly true, there are different concerns further north that people don't have further south. These are new hazards to them which they may have never experienced before. People need to realize that the predicaments we face are global in nature; one may escape temporarily from a particular threat, but new threats will emerge that weren't planned on. Ultimately, there truly is no escape from overshoot and its symptom predicaments, and this article from Alan Urban points this out in spades, quote:

"We're not doomed because of climate change, resource depletion, or biodiversity loss. We're doomed because human nature made those things inevitable." 

It is very important to realize this simple but immutable fact that this is who and what we are as a species. It really doesn't matter who and what we are as individuals, this is about our activities collectively and our effect on the rest of the biosphere as a result. Once again, it really pays off to comprehend precisely how we arrived at this point in time to understand why all these ideas that are fostered by well-meaning people and groups will not change the outcome (in any appreciable way) of the predicaments we face. While I have attempted to point out our lack of agency with regards to this many times, most people would rather hold on to their beliefs than actually look at the facts. They suffer from denial of reality, just like Alan Urban said in the above article. This is the topic of my next article - how ignorance and stupidity provide this environment of denial that prevents a wider movement towards reducing overshoot voluntarily (which rules out degrowth as yet another idea which will go nowhere; although my complaint with the movement is that it doesn't specifically target technology use, the very cause of overshoot in the first place).

Until then, Live Now!