What is Our Actual Reality?

 

The Blue Ridge Discovery Center in Konnarock, Virginia

I read many articles every month, which allows me to detect certain patterns within these articles. (I am working on slowing down on the number.) A large percentage of most of them contain so much bargaining and hopium that a reader who understands the predicaments we face can only laugh or cry at them. I try to glean what I can from them and ignore the parts of denial of reality and optimism bias, but some articles are so full of crap it's just not funny. Here's a prime example of what I'm talking about (although I often list these types of articles and have even written entire articles based upon them, named appropriately, Fantasies, Myths, and Fairy Tales). That article (the prime example) lists an issue caused by several different symptom predicaments of ecological overshoot, namely, pollution loading, climate change, and ocean acidification (also a symptom of climate change). 

Now, to be sure, the bleaching and death of coral reefs is very serious, indeed. For anyone who hasn't read much about them, being suddenly exposed to this information sends the signal that "we must do something about this immediately." The article provides a laundry list of prescriptive actions such as cleaning beaches and reducing plastic pollution, but without reducing overshoot globally, existing coral reefs are doomed. Beach cleanups, cutting back on plastic, and everything else they recommended just isn't gonna cut the mustard. Reducing overshoot is the only way to reduce pollution loading, climate change, ocean acidification, and all the other symptom predicaments such as emissions. I feel bad for pointing that specific article out though, because there are literally hundreds of these every month that contain the same type of "offerings of hope" primarily due to the fact that one needs false hope to deal with the fact that none of the actions typically listed will actually cure or even reduce the issues they are listed for.

It's similar to offering paper bags at grocery stores instead of plastic or paper straws at restaurants instead of plastic ones. Do they really reduce the threat of plastic pollution? Perhaps in a small token way; but overwhelmingly we simply wind up producing different types of plastic or increasing other ways of plastic pollution instead. Part of the issue with plastics is that the feedstock for them comes from refining crude oil. Initially, the feedstock for plastics is a waste product from producing the main products of crude oil, different grades of fuel. So, getting "rid" of plastics more or less means getting rid of fossil fuels. But wait...how do we power civilization without fossil fuels? Well, we could go back to powering civilization with just agriculture, trees, and human and animal power like we did back in the early 1700s, but this would most likely require a mass die-off of about 6 or 7 out of every 8 people. There simply wouldn't be enough energy and resources for more people because we are in extreme overshoot. In fact, some studies show far less than one billion people currently could be supported without the energy provided by fossil fuels. 

I've gone down quite the rabbit hole here. But in order to explain why none of the issues we face have simple answers, there really is no other way. Simply saying that what we face is a predicament with an outcome and not a problem with an answer doesn't really suffice for most people. I might as well be speaking a foreign language with the looks I get from most people. Their faces scrunch up and get all wrinkly with confused looks like, "WHAT?!!"  My passion for trying to explain all of this so that others can understand the situation gets me every time. I really want others to comprehend these predicaments. 

George Tsakraklides provides a great article here about the common narratives regarding so-called "solutions" to the predicaments we face. A similar article from Jem Bendell goes into detail about these narratives and the stark reality. Many people focus on climate change, even though overshoot is really the overarching issue. This article from The Conversation pretty much sums up typical "solutions" with the following quote:

"Climate change is dangerous because of weather that affects particular places at particular times. Simply put, this extra heat is making weather more unstable. Unfortunately, having temperature targets makes solar geoengineering seem like a sensible approach because it may lower temperatures. But it does this by not reducing, but increasing our interference in the climate system. Trying to block out the sun in response to increasing carbon emissions is like turning on the air conditioning in response to a house fire."

Compared to the article in the first paragraph, the articles in the last paragraph throw a serious amount of reality/actuality into the mix. The common narratives being provided to us are really nothing more than lies designed to generate income to those who stand to gain from those lies. What we really face has been put forth in a document from Canada, which I found somewhat surprising given the typical messages governments often provide mixing reality with optimistic outlooks. Unlike most documents I read, this particular one doesn't contain the hopium I am used to seeing. Notice the second item in both lists from the document:

Along those same lines, and as I have shown in this article, collapse is here and deepening now. A friend of mine encouraged me to include a link to Sir John Glubb's The Fate of Empires, but I can do even better with this article which includes many of the same articles and books and studies I have been highlighting here for years. Gail Tverberg is mentioned in the article, and indeed, she has a new article out that goes into great detail about what is happening.

It's difficult to tell how much hype is in some of these articles in the MSM (Main Stream Media), but one article on Oil Price provides some worrying figures, quote:

"According to the supermajor, global oil production is facing a natural decline at a rate of some 15% annually over the next 25 years. For context, the IEA sees the rate of natural decline at 8% annually. Exxon points out, however, that the faster decline rate is a result of the shift towards shale and other unconventional oil production, where depletion happens faster than it does in conventional formations.

'To put it in concrete terms: With no new investment, global oil supplies would fall by more than 15 million barrels per day in the first year alone." This is a scary prospect because "At that rate, by 2030, oil supplies would fall from 100 million barrels per day to less than 30 million - that's 70 million barrels short of what's needed to meet demand every day.' "

Now, those figures would mean collapse of industrial civilization in less than 5 years. It's difficult to predict these kinds of things because there are so many moving parts and they are all self-organizing. It's also difficult to attach any particular meaning to such a scenario because none of us have ever lived through such a scenario. Those going through such a scenario right now often lack the means to access articles like this, as they are fighting every day just for basic needs like water, food, shelter, and medical services. Those living in Gaza and Ukraine are going through wetiko-inspired loss of civilization right now. This amounts to more than just a loss of complexity that we will all face because they have lost the entirety of the cities and towns they once were a part of. Tom Murphy's latest and last video about his series regarding modernity really packs a punch about what we can do (or the lack thereof) about all of this, and much of it revolves around acceptance of actual reality.

This acceptance of actual reality is what I have been pushing for similarly since my launch of this blog. Recently I have written more about accepting this reality because that is truly the best that can be accomplished once one understands our lack of agency to "solve" the set of predicaments we face. Of course, since I comprehend our lack of agency, I realize that I can push for whatever I want and my sphere of influence is just as small as everyone else's. I agree with Tom Murphy's ideas 100%, and I am certain that many other people who have an ecological comprehension will likewise be fully supportive. Still, our sphere of influence won't overcome those who want civilization to continue even though it is self-terminating. Sure, some of the people on this planet have a much larger sphere of influence, but people who don't like a particular idea won't support it regardless of who is pushing for it. I also realize that the number of people who have the enlightenment that Tom does is quite small in comparison to those who believe in the ability of technology to solve anything and everything, including the predicaments its use has caused. Reductionist thinking is unfortunately endemic in society today. I would also say that most people don't realize that the basis of our living arrangements, civilization, is unsustainable. This makes a cogent argument for letting go of civilization (or modernity) difficult, if not impossible. 

Then again, those who "believe" that we do have agency to be able to solve the predicaments we face or have some sort of control over the situation (overshoot) won't be convinced of any of my arguments here since their beliefs are based on magical thinking to begin with. The facts I present will have no effect on their beliefs whatsoever. So, once again, the prescription to Live Now is sage advice. Go on over to my latest post on Treasured Traditions and check out pictures from my trips! For those of you in the United States, I wish you a Happy Labor Day weekend!